Chapter 26 #2
"Maybe it's even better this way. We're able to actually help better, to give your mom a fighting chance."
"Thank you. I can never thank you all enough for that," I said truthfully, and she just squeezed my arm.
"It's what you do for family. I just hope we can become one properly now, get to know one another."
"I hope so too."
"I hear this treatment is promising," Meredith shifted the subject somewhat.
"Yeah, they're hopeful. It's aggressive though, and after the first three, she might struggle with the timeline of them, but her chances are looking good," I said as I looked back towards mom's room. It was a far better prognosis than where she was before.
"She's strong, she can handle it," Meredith said with a firm nod. "I don't know her really, but I can sense it, see it in her. must be where you get it from."
I laughed softly. "She's the strongest person I know." I swallowed hard against the emotion rising in my throat. "Even when she got sick, she was more worried about me than herself."
Meredith nodded, understanding in her eyes. "Mothers are like that. Mine..." She paused, pain flickering across her face. "I don't remember mine, just know stories from Gray. But when I think of her… I have feelings. Warmth. Safety."
"I'm sorry," I said, and meant it. "That you lost her so young."
"Me too." Meredith's gaze drifted back to the room where Sofia was now taking Marcello back from my mother, the baby starting to fuss.
"It's why I want to have kids too. To start a family.
This hiccup won't stop us, we'll just be more careful.
It was a freak thing. Leo and I are healthy. We'll try again."
I thought about what that meant—bringing a child into their world. I'd asked Jackson a little more about the crime family, but he never got too detailed. He didn't need to, I knew what a crime family's world was like. A world of violence and danger. "And you're... okay with it? With everything?"
Meredith looked out the window, where the sky was a pale, washed-out blue.
"I assume you mean because of the Donati family and their…
business. I won't lie. It's stressful. But life's always a risk.
I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, or die in my sleep from a freak blood clot.
Nothing in this life is promised. I've learned to take the good when it comes. "
I nodded, my throat tightening. My thoughts drifted to my mother. The new treatment was a gamble, but it had bought us time. A chance. That was all anyone could ask for, really. A chance.
"I'm glad she got to meet him," I said quietly, glancing back toward my mother's room where she was still cradling baby Marcello. "She needed that. She adores babies, always had."
The joy on my mother's face was worth everything—worth the complicated mess my life had become, worth the painful truths I'd uncovered, worth being kidnapped.
Worth taking the life of a bad man for.
Meredith smiled back, and for a moment, the weight of everything else faded.
In that brief exchange, I felt something shift between us, an understanding.
A recognition that we were both victims of our father's choices, both shaped by him in different ways.
Both survivors who'd made the best of life, and were willing to try to mend something we'd not broken.
"We should head back in, I'd like to introduce you better to mom and Ivy."
Meredith nodded. "Of course. But Elena..." She hesitated, then reached out to touch my arm lightly. "If you need anything—for your mom, for the treatment—please let us know. You're family now."
Family. The word made me smile.
"Thank you."
As we walked back into the room, my mother looked up at me with happy eyes. "Elena, sweetheart. Isn't he beautiful? A perfect little boy."
I moved to her side, taking her hand in mine. "He is, Mom. Absolutely perfect."
Sofia smiled at me over the baby's head.
Meredith got to talking with both my mom and Ivy, and I stepped to the side, watching as Sofia and Grayson changed Marcello's diaper.
"They're good people." Jackson's voice was so soft I almost missed it as he stepped behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. His chin rested on my shoulder, and I leaned back against him, taking comfort in his solidness.
"They are," I agreed, noting how Grayson cast us a look, the corner of his mouth quirking a little higher.
I hoped he approved, although Jackson opting not to hide his affection for me in a room of my family made me all warm and fuzzy.
This really was becoming an actual thing.
Maybe I needed to take a page out of Meredith's book. To embrace the good where it was despite the risks. Sure, being with Jackson and a part of this family would come with risks, but it would be worth it.
Especially with seeing how happy everyone was.
"We should let you rest, Anna," Sofia said gently after Anna had some more time with little Marcello. The sun was now beginning to set outside, and I knew mom had to be getting tired.
"But we'd love to visit again, if that's okay," Meredith jumped in.
My mother nodded, her eyes already drooping with fatigue. All this socialization and getting to know one another had taken it out of her. "I'd like that very much."
As Sofia and Meredith prepared to leave, I felt a strange sense of peace settle over me. Not completion—there were still too many unresolved questions for that—but acceptance. This was my life now: complicated, messy, filled with new family.
And it felt right.