The Speech: Part 3

For the integrity of the piece, please read "The Speech" parts one and two found in the past two posts. Thanks!

Mac woke up practically on the floor, Lucy having taken up over half the bed while she was asleep.  Sun cascaded through the cracks in the blinds, hitting her eyes like daggers. It was Saturday: Pancake Day.  Unfortunately Mac didn't know if she could muster up the strength to stir, pour and fry the batter, but she knew it was her duty. Lucy would expect it; it was and always had been a Saturday tradition.
    Lucy started to stir, wriggling around into a stream of light that woke her up quicker than a bucket of ice water.
    "Good morning, bug," Mac cooed as Lucy slid over to cuddle up next to her. "How about I whip us up some pancakes?"
    Lucy glanced up at her mom and, as though she were testing her limits, whispered, "With chocolate chips?"
    "Only if I can have blueberries," Mac giggled, scooping up her daughter in a tickle-filled embrace.
    'Is tomorrow the big day, Mommy?" Lucy asked while finishing off her plateful of syrup drenched pancakes.
    "It is, Luce," Mac responded, surprised her daughter had remembered.
    "And are you nervous or excited?"
    "Well, honey, I guess you could say I'm both. I'm anxious."
    "Is anxious a good thing or a bad thing?" Lucy asked, continuing her daily interrogation.
    "It could be either, but I'd say its neutral this time."
    "Neutral?"
    "It means it isn't good or bad. It's kind of like zero," Mac explained, hoping that it would be enough of an answer for her inquisitive four-year-old. If Matty were here, he would laugh at Mac for obliging to answer all of Lucy's questions.
     "You know, she's just like her mom," he would whisper in her ear as she washed the dishes. Then he would kiss her on the cheek as Lucy questioned what they were whispering about in the background. Matty wouldn't have answered her; he would have said, "You want to know what were talking about?" while walking toward her slowly.
    "Yes! Tell me! Tell me!" she would squeal from her seat.
    And then he would scoop her up in a bear hug and swing her around the kitchen. Mac would have scolded him for causing a ruckus, laughing the whole time.
    "Mommy?" Lucy said, snapping Mac back to reality.
    "Yes?"
    "Do I have to be actious too?"

     “It’s anxious not actious, honey, but of course not; you can be anything you want to be,” Mac said as a smile crept onto her face.

     “Good, cause I’d rather be excited. I get to wear a pretty dress… right?” she asked, uncertain and filled with glee at the same time.

     “I thought we’d even get a new dress, if that’s alright with you, but, I mean, if you’d rather wear one of your old ones…”

     “NO! I want a new dress Mommy! Please, please!” Lucy interrupted.

     After a day filled with shopping, Mac placed an exhausted Lucy into her bed still in her clothes. She had fallen asleep in the car on the way home, and Mac didn’t have the heart to wake her up. She sat on the edge of the bed untying Lucy’s tiny Keds, mentally preparing herself for the day ahead.

     I’ll have to take a sleeping pill if I want to sleep all night, but if I take a sleeping pill and Lucy has a nightmare I won’t wake up as fast. I can probably go without the sleeping pill; I’ll just read for a little bit. That should knock me out right away. What am I going to wear? I don’t know what time I need to be there; I should probably call someone about that… or check the invite, I bet it’s on the invite.

     As Mac sat on the foot of the bed, watching Lucy sleep, her mind wandered, as had become custom in recent months.

    “She's all ours now, you know,” Matty had whispered the first night they laid Lucy down to sleep in this very room.

     “I know,” Mac had responded, holding Lucy's tiny hand in her own as she leaned over the side of the oak crib, “We can do it...right?”

     “I know you can,” Matty had said, his hand on the small of her back. “You're going to be a great mom, Mac. Lucy is lucky to have you.”

     “Thanks,” she had said, allowing the emotions of pent up hormones to take over her body, tears of joy and fear rising into her throat as she folded into his warm embrace. “You too,” she mustered through the tears. “You too.”

     “Mommy?” Lucy asked quietly from her bed, drawing Mac back to the present.

     “I’m here, baby. What is it?”

     “Mommy, are the dreams going to come back tonight? I don’t want the dreams to come back,” she said sleepily, her eyelids still drooping over her hazel eyes.

     “I hope not, honey. Should we sing a song?”

     “How about you sing and I listen,” Lucy responded, cuddling up to her bear and rolling onto her side.

     “Okay, I will,” she said, clearing her throat, “Blackbird singing in the dead of the night, take these broken wings and learn to fly, all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise. Blackbird fly, blackbird fly…”

     The song was over before she had time to realize the beauty of the moment. Even though Lucy had fallen asleep halfway into the first verse, Mac kept singing. Maybe it wasn’t even for Lucy. “Blackbird” had always been Matty’s favorite song. He had loved The Beatles for as long as he could remember, longer than he’d known Mac.

     Mac went through the motions of getting ready for bed in a fog, lyrics running through her head like background music to the constant stream of worry. She climbed into bed and fell asleep mindlessly, only to be woken up by the familiar screams of yet another restless night. Mac took Lucy from her room and went through the same routine as nights past. The nights were always the worst.

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