'Til Sun Beams Find You [COMPLETED]

Twenty-one (Part 1)

One month later...

Nico was laying in her mother's bed, with her head in her lap as they watched reruns of Desperate Housewives together on the TV.

They ate breakfast in bed, courtesy of Nico's father that always cooked a big breakfast on Saturday mornings, and the two of them had been glued to the bed all morning long. Nico had come over after her work week finished last night and spent the night at her parents house. She missed them a lot recently, and with the anniversary of her sister's death approaching that week, she felt obliged to spend the time surrounded by her family, because she needed them as much as they needed her.

Angela played in her daughter's hair as they shared a laugh at the scene where Carlos found out Gabrielle couldn't cook.

"How come you never worked, mom?" Nico asked suddenly as she pressed pause on the streaming app.

Sure the TV show was a drama and unrealistic, but following the lives of women who stayed home and tended to the home bothered the ambitious part of Nico. It was their guilty pleasure TV show since it first aired years ago, and back then she didn't overanalyze things the way she did now.

Now, she couldn't imagine staying at home, raising children and waiting around for a man to come back from work to be entertained.

And Nico wondered how her mother had done it her entire life.

"Because I didn't want anybody else raising my girls," she replied, like it was obvious enough. "Why work in some office tending to other people's needs eight hours of the day when I can tend to my own children? And my husband? And my home?"

Nico turned her head to face her mother. "Didn't that get boring?"

Angela shrugged. "Some days, of course. Especially when you girls started school and I was home alone for most of the day, but then I found some things to do like gardening, and baking, and that filled the emptiness until Gianna came along."

She caressed her daughter's face.

"You don't want to stay at home?"

Nico shook her head 'no'.

"What if your husband asks you to?"

"I won't ever care what a man asks me to do," Nico answered, making her mother giggle. "It's about what I want to do in life, always."

As mature as Nico was, and as much as she thought she knew everything, there were certain things like compromises and sacrifices she would eventually have to learn in a future marriage, her mother figured.

She ran her fingers through Nico's hair. "Mhm. We'll revisit this discussion in a few years when you're making decisions you never thought you would before your marriage." 

Nico paused and raised a brow. "Did Dad ask you to stay home?"

"At first it was his idea," she admitted for the first time. She usually kept her children out of her marital discussions, but Nico was no longer a child, and she'd be married one day, so she felt it was only right to advise her with the knowledge she was equipped with. "But I knew working wasn't right for me, and your dad made more than enough to comfortably support us, so the decision was easy. I'm glad I did. I might have felt differently if we ended up divorced, with no job experience and you girls didn't turn out right but thankfully I have three girls that turned out fine and we're still happily married."

Nico swallowed.

She wanted to correct her mother on the number of children she had, but she didn't.

Angela recognized the look on her daughter's face and caught her own mistake. "I have two girls," she corrected. "Though, it may just be one left that turned out right these days.."