Chapter 71 Abandoning the plan entirely
They took her home on October 25th, terrified and unprepared despite months of preparing.
The car seat installation took forty-five minutes. The drive home took twenty, both of them paranoid about every car that came near them. Getting her out of the car seat without waking her felt like defusing a bomb.
Inside their apartment, they stood holding Elena, looking around at the space that suddenly felt both too small and too big.
“We have a baby,” Ariella said.
“We have a baby.”
“In our apartment.”
“Where we’re responsible for keeping her alive.”
“Oh my god.”
“We can do this.”
“Can we?”
Elena whimpered. They both jumped.
“She’s probably hungry,” Ariella said.
She was always hungry. Ariella spent the next week essentially topless, nursing every hour and a half, trying to figure out latching and positions and why something so natural felt so impossible.
“This is harder than culinary school,” she complained on day four.
“This is harder than everything,” Aiden agreed. He looked exhausted, they both did. Neither had slept more than two hours consecutively since Elena was born.
“When does it get easier?”
“The internet says six weeks.”
“Six weeks? I’ll be dead by then.”
“We’ll be dead together.”
They survived on coffee and frozen meals and the rotation of family members who came to help. Claire brought food. Lily did laundry. Marcus handled the logistics they couldn’t focus on.
Sophie visited during week two, bringing coffee and realistic expectations.
“She’s beautiful,” Sophie said, holding Elena. “And you both look like zombies.”
“We are zombies. Cute, milk-stained zombies.”
“Is it worth it?”
Ariella looked at her daughter, asleep finally, perfect tiny face relaxed. “Yeah. It’s worth it.”
“Even though you’re nineteen and supposed to be partying?”
“I never partied anyway. Too busy surviving attempted murder.”
“Fair point. This is probably easier than that.”
“It’s definitely louder.”
The first month passed in a blur of feeding, changing, sleeping whenever Elena allowed it.
Aiden went back to school part-time, taking online classes so he could be home more. Ariella was on leave until January. They figured out a rhythm, Aiden handled mornings, Ariella handled nights, they both handled the impossible middle hours together.
“We’re doing it,” Aiden said one evening, watching Ariella nurse Elena. “We’re actually keeping her alive.”
“Don’t jinx it.”
“I’m serious. She’s healthy. We’re surviving. We’re figuring it out.”
“We’re fumbling through it.”
“That’s the same as figuring it out when you’re nineteen.”
Elena finished nursing, milk-drunk and content. Ariella burped her gently, then handed her to Aiden.
“Your turn. I’m showering while I have the chance.”
“Roger that.”
Aiden held his daughter, swaying gently the way the nurses had shown them. Elena’s eyes were changing, lighter now, maybe gray like his. She looked at him with unfocused attention, trying to figure out this world she’d been born into.
“Hi, Elena,” he whispered. “Did I ever tell you about your grandparents? Your grandmother Catherine was brave. She fought for what was right even when it was dangerous. Your grandfather Richard was complicated. But he loved fiercely. Maybe too fiercely.”
Elena yawned.
“And your other grandmother, Claire is going to teach you to bake. Your uncle Ethan would have loved you. He would have been the cool uncle who taught you inappropriate things.”
He kissed her forehead.
“You’re going to grow up knowing you’re loved. Knowing that your mom and I chose each other, we chose you, we chose this life. Not because we had to, but because we wanted to.”
Elena fell asleep in his arms.
When Ariella emerged from the shower, first real shower in three days, she found them both asleep on the couch. Aiden’s head tipped back, Elena on his chest, both breathing in sync.
She took a photo. Then another. Then sat down carefully beside them, completing the picture.
This was her family. Her chosen, built-from-crisis, impossibly perfect family.
Not what she’d planned at seventeen. But better than anything she could have imagined.
At six weeks, Elena smiled for the first time.
Not gas, not a reflex but an actual smile, in response to Ariella’s voice.
“Aiden!” Ariella screamed. “She smiled! She actually smiled!”
He ran in from the kitchen. “Really?”
“Elena, smile for Daddy. Come on, baby girl.”
Elena obliged, a gummy grin that made them both melt.
“Oh my god,” Aiden breathed. “That’s the best thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Better than your building designs?”
“Infinitely better.”
They spent the next hour trying to make her smile again, acting like complete fools. Elena rewarded them occasionally, already learning she had power over these ridiculous humans.
That night, after Elena was finally asleep, Ariella and Aiden lay in bed.
“We should talk about the future,” Aiden said.
“What about it?”
“School. Work. How we’re actually going to do this long-term.”
“I go back in January. You’re already back. We’ll figure out childcare…”
“I want to take this semester off too,” Aiden interrupted.
“What? Why?”
“Because she’s only going to be this small once. Because we’re both exhausted. Because I want us to actually enjoy this instead of just surviving it.”
“But your program…”
“Will be there. In a year, in two years, whenever we’re ready. But Elena won’t be six weeks old again. She won’t need us like this again.”
Ariella thought about it. About going back to school in two months, leaving Elena for hours at a time. About missing these impossibly hard, impossibly sweet early days.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s both take the year off. Focus on her. On us. Figure out how to be a family before we add school back to the chaos.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. We have time. We’re nineteen. We can afford to pause.”
“Your chef will be pissed.”
“My chef will understand. And if he doesn’t, I’ll find a different program.”
They decided that night, both would take the year off. They’d live off Aiden’s trust fund, focus on Elena, be the present parents they wanted to be.
Not what they’d planned. But plans were guidelines, not requirements.
And sometimes the best life was the one you built by abandoning the plan entirely.