The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 190

Chapter 171: Coming Home

Bella POV

The nurse handed her to me by the car and said, “You’re ready.” She was talking about Grace-the signed paperwork, the weight gain, the perfect oxygen levels-but I felt it differently. Like she was saying it to me.

You’re ready.

I buckled her in. My hands were entirely steady, which surprised me. Every other milestone of the last month had hit me sideways, but this arrived solid and clear. Grace looked up with the unfocused gaze of a newborn, and the weeks of waiting finally settled into something finished. We were going home.

Caleb stood beside me. He didn’t try to take over the buckle, which was progress.

“You’re not going to say anything?” I asked, straightening up.

“About what?”

“The buckle, the angle. Whether the straps are tight enough.”

He looked at me with a perfectly calm expression. “The straps are fine.”

“You checked.”

“I checked before,” he said. “While you were signing the last form. I just didn’t say anything about it.”

I looked at him for a moment. “That’s very restrained of you.”

“I’ve been working on it,” he said, and picked up the car seat.

Tom was at the house with Diana and Maya. They had both arrived at the same time that morning and were now jointly refusing to leave until we got back. I’d spent the last hour receiving a barrage of texts. Diana’s were tactical: ETA? Confirm weight is stable. Maya’s were more chaotic: I CANNOT TAKE THIS-IS TOM ALWAYS THIS LOUD? followed by, He is perfect, I love him, don’t tell him I said that.

Tom was waiting in the hallway in his socks, hair a mess, vibrating with the effort of someone told to be calm but just couldn’t comply.

“Is she” he started.

“She’s here,” I said.

He looked at the car seat in Caleb’s hands. “Can I see her?”

“Come here,” I said.

He stepped closer and peered in. Grace, apparently attuned to her brother’s energy, opened her eyes and looked toward his face with solemn attention.

Tom looked up at me, awestruck. “She looked at me.”

<Chapter 12-Coming Home

She did.

She knows me,” he said, with complete certainty.

He stayed remarkably still beside her.

“Can she hear me?” he asked, his eyes fixed on her face.

“She can,” I said. “She’s been hearing your voice for months through my stomach.”

He looked up, astonished. “She heard me talking about dinosaurs?”

“Everything,” I said. “All of it.”

Clam

He turned back to Grace with an expression of serious recalibration. “So she already knows some of it,” he said slowly.

“The basics,” I agreed.

He nodded, then leaned closer to the car seat. In a deliberate, clear voice, he said, “I’m still going to teach you properly. From the beginning. So it goes in right.”

Grace blinked at him with newborn solemnity, which Tom took as confirmation.

“She understands,” he told me.

“I believe you,” I said.

Diana and Maya appeared in the hallway behind him. Diana had her arms crossed and her jaw tight, but her eyes gave her away. Maya had both hands over her mouth, making a sound that was nearly a sob.

“Hello, Grace,” Diana said, her voice steady except for a slight crack at the end.

Then Maya gave up on any pretense and cried openly and without apology. It was entirely on brand for her, and I loved her for it.

The first night home was not easy. No one tells you that after a NICU stay, you simply cannot sleep. It wasn’t just the noise or the relentless feeding schedule; it was the way I lay in the dark, counting the seconds between every breath she took.

۴

Caleb stayed awake whenever I was awake. He didn’t call me irrational; he just got up when I did and sat beside the bassinet at two in the morning while I fed her-half-asleep, but entirely present.

“You should sleep,” I said.

“I’ll sleep when you sleep.”

“That could be never.”

“Then never,” he said, and I looked at him in the low light of the room – unshaved, tired, his t-shirt inside out because he’d grabbed it in the dark and felt something so ordinary and enormous all at once that I didn’t have a word for it.

I watched him settle against the headboard, eyes half-closed.

<Chapter 171-Coming Home

“You really don’t have to do this every time,” I said.

“I know.”

“You have that call with Singapore at seven.”

“I moved it.”

I looked at him. “Caleb”

Clarm

“Bella.” He opened one eye. “I moved the call. James knows. It’s handled.” He closed his eye again. “Stop giving me an exit I’m not looking for.”

I was quiet for a moment, Grace warm and heavy in my arms. “I used to do this alone,” I said, quieter than intended. “The night feeds. With Tom. I didn’t know it could be like this.”

He opened both eyes and looked at me properly, his tiredness shifting into something attentive.

“I know,” he said.

“I’m not saying it to make you feel bad,” l’added quickly.

“I know that too.” He held my gaze. “I’m just glad I’m here now.”

He took Grace from me when she was done and settled her against his chest, her tiny face against his collarbone, and stood by the window with her in the specific swaying motion he’d learned somewhere in the last few weeks, and she went quiet.

“Natural,” I said, from the chair.

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