Do Overs

thirtyfive.

Today was an emotional day for Camilla, not only was she now at her seventh month of pregnancy, but, she was also preparing herself to go through her fathers belongings that her mother had collected from his home, as instructed by the police. She wasn't even sure what she'd do with anything she did decide to take.

"Are you sure that you want to do this now?" Julianna looked over at Camilla who had her head rested back on the couch, rubbing her stomach. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm just having a bit of pain" Camilla nodded. "Let's just get this out the way, it's New Years Eve tomorrow and I'd rather just end the year with this behind me"

"Camilla, if you're not up to this we can leave it-"

"Mom, please I have the baby kicking the shit out of me and a really bad pain. Let's just do this"

Julianna just nodded, handing Camilla a medium sized cardboard box. Julianna herself was holding a large cardboard box, which she'd already began rummaging in.

"Why was he keeping this stuff?" Camilla laughed lowly, she looked over at her mom who was silent and twirling two plain gold wedding band in her hand. "Mom, are you-"

"This is the first ever wedding band he and I gave to each other" Julianna closed her eyes momentarily. "He died with the other one on?"

"He did, I-I didn't notice" Camilla began to get choked up at hearing her mother speak. Julianna rarely expressed emotion, but just the glint in her eye when speaking about Lorenzo was enough to let you know she really did love that man. Imperfections and violent outbursts aside.

"He did, and I can't believe he kept these rings. That's like 30 years, you know?" Julianna let a small smile appear on her face.

"He kept a lot" Camilla furrowed her eyebrows as she pulled out a journal. "I didn't even knowh he took the time to do things like this" she said, flicking the pages.

"Read some of it" Julianna crossed her legs on the couch, moving closer to Camilla.

"I think you should read it" Camilla sighed loudly and passed the journal to her mom as she continued to look in the box. She just wanted to get everything over and done with. She didn't want to feel anything right now.

"August 1st, my first day out of jail. My probation officer said I should try writing how I feel down to suppress my anger. Let's see how that goes" Julianna began to read out loud, chuckling to herself; making Camilla crack a smile.

"He writes, eh?" Camilla added, pulling out a few photo albums and setting them aside for later. "Mom, did you pack all of this stuff up or was it just like this?"

"It was just like that in a cupboard, I think it's just memories he kept. His house was clean...everything smelt like him" Julianna looked deep in thought, then composed herself. "Anyway, lets finish reading this- I miss my family. My mom but mostly my wife and my daughter. I have no idea what she'd even look like now. I keep thinking how life would've been if our other child had survived-, I think I'm gonna skip this one" she sniffled, shaking her head momentarily as memories kept flowing back.

"Let's just look at photos instead mom" Camilla opened one of the photo albums. Surprisingly the first page had a large photo of her. Same dimples in both cheek. The same bright brown eyes and the same smile. "Why were you guys dressing me like this"

"I thought you looked very cute" Julianna laughed. "You still look the same"

"Is there any newborn pictures? I wanna see so I can compare to when the baby is born"

"I think it'll be in this one" Julianna stretched over and took the other photo album, flicking through the pages. "Here's one" Julianna had the largest smile on her face as she showed Camilla.