WE GATHER TOGETHER by Edward L. Woodyard

We Gather Together Chapter One Hundred

Annie Drexler heard Jason burst through her bedroom door. Wearing his pajamas, he gasped and smiled when he saw his parents in bed together. Annie pulled a top sheet over herself as Jack raised his head off his pillow.

"Daddy! You're really home! I'm going to tell Kelly." Jason let out a whoop and ran into the upstairs hallway. "Kelly! Daddy's home! He's in Mommy's bed!"

Jack hugged his pillow and turned to Annie. "Things could get back to normal."

"That's not exactly what I want. I hope there'll be some changes around here."

"You don't have to change diapers any more. That's a change." Jack thought he was being clever until he heard Annie sigh. "What is it?"

"Nothing."

"You call doing it twice last night nothing? It was incredible."

Jack wanted to kiss her again, but she pushed aside the covers to sit at the edge of the bed and slip on a bathrobe before the kids came back into their bedroom. "We have to be at Mom and Dad's around noon. I still have some cooking to do and the kids both need baths and breakfast."

Outside in the hallway, Jason was telling Kelly to hurry up, but she couldn't find Chelsea.

Jack still laid in bed. "I've missed you." He crawled toward her side of the bed, wanting to coerce her back onto it by tugging on her shoulders. "Let me look at you in the daylight?"

She tossed him a terrycloth bathrobe from a closet. "You don't want the kids to see you naked. I don't think they're ready for that particular education just yet."

The only thing Jack was wearing was his grandfather's mezuzah. He got out of bed and put on the terrycloth bathrobe. He sauntered over to Annie and yanked the sash of her bathrobe. "Let me look at you."

Annie protested, "Please don't, Jack. I'm putting on weight."

"I love it. Especially what it does to your. . ." Jack tried to feel Annie's breasts, but she quickly shuttered her bathrobe.

"They hurt, Jack."

"Getting sensitive again?"

"It's not because of any hurt feelings."

"Is it something. . . ?"

"Nothing you did. Well, actually, yes, it is something you did."  Annie paused, then stated, "It's because I'm pregnant."

"What? How?"

"You're asking, 'how?'?"

"How do you know so soon? We only just. . ."

"It was from before we separated. I'm due at the beginning of May."

A bewildered but elated Jack Drexler fell back onto the bed, pretending to faint.

Jason and Kelly rushed into the room; she was in her pajamas and holding onto Chelsea. They pushed the bedroom door against a dresser and jumped immediately onto their father who tucked himself into a defensive pose, protecting himself against the hugs and tickles of his children.

Annie couldn't resist the giggling any longer and joined the melee on the mattress, "I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you," she said, giggling herself as she tickled her children and husband.