(Four months later)
"Babe, I swear you're doing this on purpose." Frederick chuckled as he followed behind, Arden in his hands babbling mostly nonsense and amazingly staring at the crowd of people all around us in the airport, most of them trying to hurry in order not to miss their plane.
"I'm hungry. Craving some overpriced, fairly decent, airport food." I looked back for a second to meet his eyes and smile at my daughter who responded with the most genuine smile, showing off all six of her teeth. I laughed and turned around to watch where I was going before I tripped on something because that definitely was not going to be so great. "I just really want those soft pretzels." I said and kept walking.
"Seriously? You're telling me we are having to deal with this crowd because you want some pretzels that I'm sure we could have easily bought once we arrived in Paris?"
I laughed silently. "Uhm, well yeah, that's exactly it. Just remember it all the next time you want to get me pregnant again, alright buddy?" I stopped in front of the little Kiosk Frederick, Arden and I had been looking for, for the past fifteen minutes and smiled innocently at him. He shook his head and smiled before passing me Arden who started chanting "Mama" and clapping her hands.
"Good try here, Chambers but I still want that boy I told you about." He replied before pulling out a twenty dollars bill out of his pockets which he handed over to the older woman behind the counter who had completely dismissed us as she was interracting with Arden as if she could understand what the baby was saying. I seriously wanted to laugh. Bless her.
"Hi, can we please have five of the sugar cinnamon and five of the regular ones please?" Frederick smiled at the woman while he placed the order and handed her the twenty before turning his attention back on me.
"All I'm saying is that if I were you, I would at all cost avoid getting me pregnant for a third time knowing how annoying it could get with the midnight runs to restaurants and stores and whatnots." I said, grabbing the bag from the woman who was trying to hand it over to Frederick as if he was the one who wanted it. Over my dead body, yeah.
We thanked the woman, told her to keep the change and started walking back to the door of the fixed base operator facility we had walked out of.
"I'm not changing my mind on the subject, so you might as well give up now. I don't want to be the only male in the house full of girls and women. Do you think four against one is fair?" He asked, walking next to me while I laughed at his logic.
I couldn't say I didn't see his point which is why I had wanted for this baby I was carrying to be a boy, but, as we learned a week ago at the checkup, that wasn't going to happen.
Deciding that I would rather start eating while it was still warm, I opened the paper bag and started digging into it for one of the cinnamon sugar covered soft pretzels and broke off a small part which I handed to Arden who grabbed on to it very willingly and immediately put it in her mouth without even knowing what it was because that's what babies did.
I had decided long ago that I wasn't going to stress too much and freak myself out over the things that she put in her mouth as long as they weren't dangerous because that was how babies learned.
"Listen, babe," I started with a mouthful because that's where we were in our relationship and I really couldn't be bothered. I definitely had my moments. "I understand, okay? Trust me I get it, but I really don't think I want to be pregnant again after this one. Being pregnant is just really hard. People don't tell you how hard it's going to be because I swear if they did, no one would ever want to get pregnant and the human race would be extinct. So they lie and say it's just wonderful and people lie to your face about pregnancy glow as if I don't know that it's just simply because I'm sweating buckets."
Frederick burst out laughing while we entered our last stop which was the coffee shop we had spotted on our way to the pretzels place. "Sometimes I think that there's no way I can love you anymore than I already do but then you open your mouth and say things as this which makes me love you even more." He said, keeping the door open for me so that I could walk in.
I grinned brightly and waited until he stepped in himself to give him a quick kiss.
"Don't get me wrong, even with all the shit that happened, I wouldn't change anything, but let's be honest here. I don't necessarily want to go through that a third time." I finished while I take a spot in the line and silently prayed for the five people In front of us to hurry along. My phone vibrated in the pocket of the shorts I was wearing so I reached in and pulled it out to read the text that I had received before putting it back in my pocket.
"Who was that?" Frederick asked as the line thankfully started moving again.
"Billie," I started. "She wanted to let me know she and Jonah had finally gotten to the plane and that Charlotte said to get her some chips." I smiled, taking a bite of my pretzel before cutting some more for Arden.
"Babe, come on, she's only one year old, I think it's enough with the sugar." He complained, taking the small piece of pretzel out of her tiny fingers which she didn't appreciate, if the sound that came out of her was of any indication.
I started laughing. "It's her birthday today, I think she earned and more than deserves it for staying alive for the whole year with us as her parents and the unfortunate circumstances of her birth." I told him before handing her another piece of pretzels because believe it or not, Frederick took the liberty to eat the one he had taken from her.
Unfortunately for us, the baby was still crying....very loudly I might add. The thing was, It didn't matter that I had given her a bigger piece of the pretzel, it mattered that her dad dared taking her pretzel In the first place which as we found out, was the worse crime to commit in our daughter's eyes. And now, we had to pay the consequences of our actions.
I was painfully aware of people in the little coffee shop staring at us but I couldn't care, and if it wasn't because I had learned common courtesy, I would have let her cry a little more to teach my fiancé a lesson. But because it was her birthday and I wanted her to be happy because of how sad that day was for our family a year ago, I grabbed her out of Frederick's hands to try to soothe her.
"You owe me." I whispered to him and chuckled when he nodded immediately before leaning slightly towards me to speak softly in my ear.
"There are two women at the front of the line who keep staring at us. Weirdly enough, one of them looks like a younger version of you." He said and to which I frowned as I started looking around the store.
"Where are_" I stopped mid-sentence as my eyes landed on the women I was certain he was referring to as my brain started to registered what I was looking at.
My heart jumped.
A freaking blast from the past.
"No fucking way. No shit am I seeing this right now." I breathed out as the women and I kept staring at each other before one of them, the younger one started moving towards me.
I felt stuck as if I couldn't move and, as painful as it was, watched as she kept advancing towards me.
"Do you know them?" Frederick asked. I could do nothing else but to nod as the words wouldn't come out.
I turned slightly to meet his eyes, noticing the frown on his face. "Uhm, yeah. That's my mother and my sister." I told him, trying to act nonchalant, like I wasn't freaking out inside, like my heart wasn't skipping rapidly, like my throat wasn't closing.
Finally she stopped in front of me, her smile guarded; reserved. "Eva; it is you. I thought I recognized you."
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I stared at her, trying to decide if what was seeing was real or I was imagining it all in my head when I felt her fingers brushing my skin. I recoiled slightly, shaking my head a little to clear out the fog.
"Eva, as random as this encounter is, I sure am glad to see you. It's been awhile." She was still smiling which was a little unsettling to have her standing so close to me after all this time. All of the sudden, as I caught with the corner of my eyes my mother approaching with two drinks in hands, everything that had led to me leaving and staying away from my family came back. I held on to Arden tightly.
"Hello, Mae, it sure has been." I curtly replied with a tight smile, deciding not to say much else. I simply stood there and kept my mouth shut.
Mae had been twelve the last time I had seen her, just a little girl, really. But now, as I studied her, I realized that she wasn't a little girl anymore. At twenty years old, she had transformed into a physically beautiful woman and as painful it all had been to have my family turn on me, her betrayal had been the worse for me to get over and forgive because of the amount of love I had for her. I would have done anything for her, to keep her safe, and make her happy.
After a few seconds of staring at one another, Mae, with the awkwardness of this family reunion, nodded and looked behind her quickly, pretty sure to see where her mother was. She turned back to me a few seconds later and, as if this was the most normal situation, just kept smiling, something I wished to God she would stop doing at that very moment.
"What are you doing here?" I finally asked as my curiosity got the best of me. I simply wanted to know what she was doing in New York City.
Mae smiled. "I've been attending NYU since last year, I'm just returning to school after visiting mom and dad. I'm starting my second year of communication." She answered but before I could reply to that, Julie joined us.
Julie, who I refused and would never again call mom, with the dark brown eyes, the tight curls, the lean body, smiled as she stood next to my sister, both of them watching me. She looked just as I remembered her. Older, but still beautiful.
"Gwendolyn_" she started but I quickly cut her off.
"Don't call me that, not ever." I snapped, sneering the whole time. I hated this name which was one of the reasons I had decided to change it along with my last name after Frederick and I get married. And for that, I couldn't wait.
She studied me for a moment before nodding and as she did so, her eyes trailed on Frederick and lingered on Arden who was babbling away, her movements full of excitement at the prospect of meeting more people.
"Hi, I'm Julie, and this here is Mae." She said, extending her brown arm towards Frederick who respectfully shook both their hands.
"Nice to meet you both, I'm Frederick, Eva's husband...." He laughed slightly as he caught hinself, before adding. "Husband to be." He finished. Both women nodded as Julie's eyes traveled from Frederick to me.
"Who's this little beauty?" Julie asked as she turned her attention to Arden who started smiling in return, grabbing on to Julie's finger as she did so. I pulled away until my back was resting on Frederick who put a protective arm around me. This gesture alone was all the strength I needed.
"This is Arden Erica. Our daughter." Frederick answered for me.
Julie, who hadn't taken her eyes off the baby as she made baby sounds to Arden who found it so funny that she was dying of laughter, giggling her little heart out, smiled brightly as she finally looked at me. "May I hold her?"
"No." I immediately answered without even giving it a thought really. I had forgiven them but it didn't mean I would willingly let her hold my baby. She wasn't family.
Her smile disappeared as she looked away from embarrassment. "Oh, uhm Okay, sorry. I just thought_"
I cut her off, snickering as I spoke. "Oh, I'm sorry, What did you expect? For me to just hand her over? That's not going to happen. You lost the right to ever hold any of my children and be part of their lives."
"Eva, for what it's worth, just know that we are sorry and love you." Mae added. I looked her way and simply started laughing.
"Hope you both have a good life, we have a plane waiting for us." I told them both before turning around and walked out of the coffee shop, Frederick right behind me, coffee forgotten.
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"Hey,"
I heard Frederick's familiar voice speak softly as I felt his presence around me. So I opened my eyes to find him sitting next to me. Slowly, as not to wake up Arden who had been sleeping on my chest for the past two hours after she had woken up an hour before that. I straightened myself in my seat and looked around for a second at our friends who had all fallen asleep an hour or two ago.
"Hey babe, were you able to finish what you were working on?" I whispered.
Frederick smiled. "Yes, it's finally done and I've alredy sent it." He answered before adding. "Do you want me to take over while you sleep?" He asked, referring to Arden who was refusing to sleep anywhere else but in my arms.
"Are you sure? You didn't get any sleep yet." I replied even while I was carefully handing a squirming but still sleeping Arden over to her father.
"Yeah, I'll just sleep with her in my arms. We have about three hours left on this flight."
I smiled and kissed him softly before leaning back into my seat to try and find sleep for those three hours. But as I closed my eyes, a thought occurred to me.
"Thank you." I spoke out, turning my head to find him frowning.
"What for?"
"For letting me deal with my family in my own way and never judging me. For loving even when I found it hard to love myself, for having given me this precious baby girl who I love so much because she is a perfect replica of you. Thank you for giving me space to breathe, express myself and heal without ever rushing me." I stopped for a moment and smiled as the tears started clouding my vision. I shook my head softly before wiping away at the ones that had fallen.
"I love you, Frederick Halter. Thank you for always being here for me even when it's hard for me to admit that I need you, and for making me feel so much that sometimes I wonder how is it possible that my heart hadn't burst open." I finished finally, smiling through the happy tears while I leaned over to him as he started chuckling.
And with the one hand he had free, held me gently by the back of my neck and gazed deeply into my eyes for a moment or maybe an eternity, before finally pulling me in for a deep and very passionate kiss.
"There's just one thing." Frederick whispered softly, his forehead pressed against mine. "No matter what happens in life, what ups and downs we go through, I always want you to remember that I am your family and I love you and I've always loved you and I will always love you. Just remember that, remember that when the pain of losing them threatens to come back and eat you whole, just remember that you have your family right here and that we love you, no matter what." He finished but by then the tears were falling rapidly as I cried softly.
Frederick pulled me into him even more and hugged me while I held on to him tightly.
Finally, after years of pain and suffering, I was were I belonged, where I knew that I would never feel alone again. I was here with the people who mattered the most to me, the ones who gave my life meaning and who stood by me while my life fell apart and were ready to pick up the pieces and put me back together again.
I pulled back to look Frederick in the eyes and smiled. "You're my family and I love you." I said softly before kissing him.
That, at least was all that was needed to be said as we had an eternity of love and happiness ahead. For the first time in my life, I knew without a doubt that this life was worth living after all.
And maybe, Making Babies wasn't that hard when love was involved.
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Hi guys! So Uhm that's it. This is where we end with Frederick and Eva's story. Thank you for coming with me on this journey. As always, there was a lot of ups as well as downs but in the end, they were able to conquer it all.
Until then, love oodles and noodles. 😘😘😭😢
Now,go read my other books, lol