Another wet nurse came over and gently put the newborn girl, Caroline, into Lysa’s lap. The nursery worker, guided Lysa’s hand- unnecessarily- under the baby’s head to help support it. The Judy’s hand never left, as if she were afraid Lysa might drop her head. Lysa allowed herself and the real baby to rocked for a few quiet moments before looking up at Dante.
“Shame, isn’t it?”, Lysa said, her voice dripping with quiet regret. “Little Caroline here never really had a chance, did she? Me? I’ve got regrets, I guess. But at least I got to experience something outside of being a baby. I got to grow up, make friends, eat solid food, go to school. I even had a boyfriend for a little while.” She smiled a little; the sadness still in her eyes. “It wasn’t serious, mind you, but at least I got to experience puppy love. This is all Caroline will ever know. She’ll sleep, eat, wet and poop, but not much else. ” She gave a small shrug. “Still, I can’t help but love the little blob, you know? She’s family.”
The newborn looked up and grunted a little as she reached for up for Lysa’s breast. Poor thing didn’t understand that Lysa was a baby in here too. She was probably too young mentally to even understand the concept of “mommy”, yet alone “sister”. She just knew from over 50 years of conditioning that breasts meant food.
Was this why Lysa didn’t want to leave Limbo. She didn’t want to abandon her baby sister? She felt some kind of responsibility towards her, even now? Dante was an only child, so he had never known what it was like to have someone to take care of and look after. Dante guessed he could understand her motives, now, but what did that have to do with him?
“Maybe one of these days…” Lysa stopped mid sentence. “Damn” she swore under her breath. “Not now.” Huh? The Judy’s eyes widened slightly in recognition of something. She reached over and checked little Caroline’s diaper. She bobbed Lysa up and down on her knee a little bit.
“Uh-oh” she said, “I think we have two soggy sisters, on our hands.” Lysa had wet herself while sitting on the nursery worker’s lap. Lysa’s face didn’t really register any emotion, but her eyes showed that she wasn’t particularly happy.
A wet nurse came and took the newborn off of Lysa’s lap and started to take Caroline back to her cot. “Hey Judy,” the nursery worker called, “how about a race?” The wet nurse smiled and nodded her head. The nursery worker picked Lysa up and got a very large diaper from the back of the stroller and a blanket sized changing mat for Lysa. She unrolled the mat, with one hand and laid Lysa down on it.
The nursery worker got down on her knees and hiked up Lysa’s dress past her stomach, completely uncovering her diaper but still covering her breasts. Dante noted that Lysa was very careful not to let either of her arms touch the mat.
The wet nurse grabbed a newborn sized diaper from under a cot, as well as two tubs of baby wipes and joined her co-worker on the mat. She laid Caroline down and unwrapped the pink blankets so she could get at the newborn’s diaper.