Inheritance

021

"Thank you, sweetheart." Nathan gave me a toothy grin.

——

I pull up in front of Alex and Maliki's school. Both walk up to the car opening the doors one after the other they get into the car taking their seats.

"Hi my babies, how was school?"

"It was okay. I had a really hard test to do today. I'm pretty sure I bombed it." Maliki answers but Alexandria stays quiet. Keeping my eyes on the road I glance into my rear view mirror.

"Petal?"

"It was fine." She shrugs.

I decided not to push any further on the subject. It doesn't seem like she wants to go into detail about it and from what I have learned from my eldest daughter, sometimes it's better not to ask any questions.

"Lexi guess what we learned today." Violet starts a conversation with her older sister.

"What did you learn today little one?" Alex tries to sound more upbeat.

"I learned that Nate and I are fertinal twins." I smile at my daughter's miss pronunciation.

"It's fraternal twins." I correct.

"What's that?" Maliki questions.

I merge into the lane next to me. "It's when they are twins but they do not have the same DNA. That is why there is one girl and one boy." I explained it to my eight-year-old.

"So what if they are both girls?"

"Even then there is a slight chance they will be fraternal."

"Why did Nate get a twin and I didn't?" Maliki pouts. Before I could answer, Alex did it for me.

"There was a chance that we could have been twins but that's because on dads side he doesn't have a twin but moms side does. So it was a fifty-fifty percent chance." Her mood seems to be getting better than when she entered the car.

"Thank goodness it skipped Elizabeth." Maliki sighs.

"And the other two." The twins snickered in the back row of my car.

"Hey, be nice guys." Both Maliki and Alex roll their eyes. "Them being mean is just a faze it will go away within a couple of years." I turn the corner into our neighborhood.

"Hate to break it to you Mom but I don't think it will be going away anytime near the future," Alex remarked.

This was a recurring conversation that I'm not sure will ever not be the center of everything we talk about. With everything that has been going on with Miles fucking us over to me trying to fix it I don't mind using it as a way to get my mind off of things.

I often find myself imagining all of my children when they are older. What they will look like being full grown adults not needing me to do the simplest of things such as making them their doctors appointments.

"Where are they anyway Mom?" Maliki brings me back to reality.

"Oli has a debate today, Liz and Cam have a football game today." I pull into the driveway putting the car in park. "We're home." The two older kids unbuckle themselves getting out.

I get out walking to Alexandria's door pulling the lever to make the seat fold. Violet wraps her arms around me. I turn putting her onto the floor then back forward to get Nathan. When I move to let him down but he holds onto me.

I fixed his position so I would have a better hold. "Alex, grab your sister's hand please." She does as I say trying to hold Violet's hand but instead Violet reaches up asking Alex to pick her up.

Alex leans down picking us her younger sister. We walk up the long driveway to the door. I notice the door is slightly open. I vividly remember locking it shut.

I turn around walking back to the car. "Come on." I signal Maliki and Alex to follow. I opened the door letting each of them get in. Alex puts Violet down in her seat, each sitting in their seats and I place Nathan on Maliki's lap.

"What's wrong Mom?" I look at Maliki, Nathan looks as if he is about to cry.

"Do not let go of your brother." Alex takes a step forward grabbing my forearm.

"Mom?"

"Do not move." My tone is stern and my kids look worried. Violet holding tightly onto Alex.

My throat starts to tighten at the sight of how scared they look by my actions. But they don't understand that I have to take precautions to make sure that nothing will happen to them. I was doing all of this for them.

I close the car door locking it.

I walk back to the door with my stomach curling on itself. I feel as though I could throw up all over the cement under my feet. Instead of taking it slow I just decided to go with the fast option. I throw my front door open expecting something to come at me but nothing does.

My house is completely silent.

I walk further into the house scanning around as I do. My nerves went down seeing that maybe I was just freaking out over nothing. I walk around the lower level of the house seeing absolutely nothing.

"I just scared my kids for absolutely nothing." I laugh at myself. Walking up the stairs I scold myself for making them panic.

But that was soon stopped when I saw what looked to be a trail. A trail of lily petals. I follow the trail and it branches off into each of my kids' rooms. The first room to come into my line of vision was Elizabeth's room.

There is a big number two written in red on her wall where she had a big frame with pictures of her and her friends. In Cameron's, there was a D. Oliver and an A. Maliki a Y. Violet and Nathan an S. Then lastly Alex had a big smiley face covering her whole wall.

My eyes fill up with tears and I begin to start sobbing. This was our home. It is a place where my kids sleep. We are supposed to be living a normal happy life but instead, they have to deal with a father who doesn't know when enough is enough and a mother who is constantly scared for their well-being.

This isn't a life anyone should live.