Schools are out and Cain was packing his things up, getting ready to leave the school and he was sad but it was also a bit tiring because he had a four-hour drive back to Dallas because Ramona, Chip, and Cain were already in Dallas unpacking in their new house. Cain grabs the books he brought, even his motivational posters and the sock puppet that he used when a student came in his class looking or feeling sad so he would pick up the sock puppet and play around with them to they felt better. It was for little kids but it always made the big kids feel better and it embarrassed Cain but it was all so very worth it. He grabs his pictures and polaroids that he took with his classes over his time there and his favorite one was when they went to the outdoor science center near Austin and he was helping Janice hold the fish that she accidentally caught because she was too scared to hold it.
Cain smiling as he held the large fish in his arms and Janice standing on the side with a thumbs up. "I really like that field trip, I had so much fun." Janice says walking to his desk and Cain smiles. "You were crying because you didn't want to hold it and me being me, I agreed to hold it for you and I smelled like fish for the rest of the day. By the way, it was worth it." He remarked and Janice chuckles as she hugs herself, she looks around and his walls were completely empty. "My favorite poster was the Malcolm X one even though the teachers were telling you to take it down and you ignored them because that was your favorite poster. I never met a teacher who wasn't scared or cared of what people thought of them especially in this messed up town." Janice explained and Cain nodded as he stares at her.
Cain truly cared for all his students but not as much as he cared for Janice because she made his time here feel a lot better and she was a kid that he dreamed to have. So tough, so smart and so driven to get what she wants. "Janice, if you ever get the chance to leave this town, take it and don't come back." Cain tells her and Janice nodded as she smiles but it was forced. Cain grabs a piece of paper and he wasn't allowed to go this information out but she wasn't his student anymore. "I want you to write me a letter, call me when you need anything.. I will do my very best to help. I promise to write you back and you know that I stand by my word." Cain says and he gives her the piece of paper, she takes it and she nodded. "I know, Mr. Papillon." Janice marveled and she clears her throat. "You need help?" She questioned.
"Yes, please." Cain answered and she picks up a box.
Janice walks with him all the way to his car and he puts his things in the back, he closes the back door. "Well, talk to you soon." Janice smiles and her skin glistened in the afternoon sun that was bright at this time. Cain nodded as he stares at her. "I know that I can't necessarily hug you-" Janice hugs him anyway, her arms wrapping around and his eyes watered as he hugs her back. Cain closes his eyes and he savored every moment of their hug until Janice pulls away. "You be good, Jan." Cain tells her and she nodded as she sniffles. "Okay, I will write to you as soon as possible and tell Ramona that I will miss her funny jokes." Janice says and Cain gets into the car. "I will even though I don't think she's funny." Cain chuckled and Janice sassily shrugged. "She's funnier than you."
Cain rolled his eyes playfully. "Whatever."
Janice waves him at him one last time and she runs off towards the school, Cain starts up the car and he drives off, waving at Janice and she giddily waves back. Cain didn't know that it was gonna be the last time he would ever see Janice again.
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Cain sighs as he turns his car off, he was in front of their new house that was a lot better than the one back in Nacogdoches. It was a two story, has a very sleek look to it compared to the other one because they had termites and the wood was already starting to rot. It had a garage for him to park his car inside and also a place for Ramona and him to do their paintings together because they used to do stuff like that together but now they were gonna make more time to do so. Even a nice big backyard for Agnes and Ophelia to play in.
Cain smiles as he sees Ramona come out with Ophelia who was now in her teething also trying to crawl prime. She already knows how to sit up and hold her own bottle now she just needed to crawl. Cain gets out of the car and he runs to them picking them both up. He hasn't seen them for about a week and that was just too long to him. "I missed you both so much." Cain says hugging them and he started kissing them both. Ophelia was giggling and Ramona was laughing too. "Okay, okay, you know how ticklish I am." Ramona snorted and she tries to pull away.
Cain smiles and he puts them down, Ophelia holds her hands out towards him and he takes her from Ramona. "My little precious." Cain cooed as he hugs her and Ophelia had nothing but gums, they could see a little something growing but she still smiled as if she had some. Cain walks in the house and Ramona follows behind him. "Wait-Cain, before you go in-"
"Hello, brother." Annette grinned evilly making Cain roll his eyes so hard, he looks over at Ramona who was smiling but it was more out of guilt. "Annette is here, yay." Ramona grinned and Cain forces a smile on his face. "Hello, Annie." Cain grinned and she looks at Ramona because she looked just as about as stuck as he did. "While you were in hillbilly fuck town, I was here keeping Ramona company. I unpacked all your stuff and we're working on the living room which isn't much and I just got off the phone with Chip, he's on his way." Annette tells him and she pats his arm. "Oh, and you have pubic hair above your lip." Annette laughed and Cain's eyes drifted over to Ramona who was just shaking her head and Annette was hysterically laughing.
"I hate you." Cain grumbled and Annette wipes the tears from her face. "I love you too." She sighs because she sure cracks herself up all the time. They go into the house and Ramona shows him all the rooms they unpacked. He was impressed but the only thing he didn't want in his house was Annette but he kept quiet about that. The doorbell rings and Cain goes over to it to open it, expecting it to be Chip but when he opens it. It was Louis who came from his luxurious apartment in Miami. "Hello, darlings." He smiles and Cains miles as hugs his brother in law. "It's been so long, how are you doing?" Cain questioned and Louis hugs him back. "I'm doing very well, Momma told me you were back in Dallas so I came to visit for a while my Sugar Daddy is away on a business trip." Louis says and Cain invites him. Louis was wearing designer everything.
Ramona comes from down the stairs with Ophelia. "Is Chip here-Louis!" Ramona exclaimed as she sees her brother, she runs to him hugging him. "Oh my God, I missed you so much!" Ramona exclaimed and she kisses his cheek. Louis looks at Ramona then he looks at Ophelia who was smiling from ear to ear. "You two are practically twins." Louis smiles and Ramona gives Ophelia to Louis, he smiles as he holds his niece. "Oh you're so cute and I'm so glad you didn't take from your Dad." Louis remarked making Cain rolled his eyes, Annette came in laughing. "I know right."
"I officially hate both of you." Cain huffed and Ramona rubs his arm because it was like he could never get a break.
"Where's Fatima?" Ramona questioned and Louis scoffs as he shakes his head. "Who? Because at this point, it's like she's too good for us to not come around anymore. I send her letters and she never writes back, I call her and she doesn't answer her phone. Ever since she got with her rich boyfriend Anthony, she thinks that she's too good for us and we not family anymore and I'm sick of it." Louis huffed and Ramona frowns because Fatima did just about the same thing to Ramona, it made her sad because she loved and missed her.
Ramona forces a smile and she looks at Louis. "We still have each other and that's all that matters."
Annette nodded and she hugs Ramona. "Yeah and we're together again."
Cain sits down and he sighs because he was tired from the long drive plus it did feel a bit at ease because they were home again. "I will bet you all twenty bucks that My Mom and Momma will be over our house every day to visit when really they want to see Ophelia." Cain says and Ramona shakes her head because they would never have the house for themselves.
The front door opens and Dahlia comes running in, Jane was behind her then came Chip. "We're here!" Dahlia exclaimed and she runs to Cain first, hugging him so tightly. Everyone starts hugging each other because, for the first time in years, they were officially all together. "Goodness, Jane, you get taller and taller every time I see you." Cain remarked and Jane shrugs. "I'm gonna be taller than Ramona." Jane remarked and everyone laughs but Ramona shakes her head. "Har, har, har." She fake laughs and Dahlia hugs Ramona's leg, Ramona picks up Dahlia up and she hugs her because she was her first niece, she loved her so much.
Finally, everyone was here and Ramona smiles as she hugs her mother Jillian and she closed her eyes as she hugged her. Jillian rubs Ramona's back as she hugs her. "My baby, how does it feel to be home again?" Jillian questioned and Ramona smiles as she held onto Jillian. "It feels like a ton of weight was lifted on my shoulders." Ramona answered because all she really wanted was to be around her family again. "Can you hurry up? I haven't got a turn," Cain mumbled and he sounded like he was five, he patiently waited to hug Jillian because he already hugged everyone else. "You go hug your Momma so more." Ramona sniped and Cain smacked his lips. "I want to hug my other one." Cain replied and Ramona scoffed, she pulls away from Jillian and Cain smiles as he hugs Jillian who was laughing so much because Cain was her big baby.
Christopher comes to Ramona and she smiles as she crouches down to him, he smiles as stares at his Aunt Ramona and she couldn't help but think how much he looked like Bruce but he smiled like Annette. "Aunt 'Mona, can I hold Ophelia?" Christopher asked politely and she nodded as she motions him to sit down, he sits down on the couch and Ophelia was nearby in Arthur's lap because of course, he didn't mind letting Christopher see Ophelia just for a little bit. Ramona takes the baby towards Christopher and he smiles as he sees Ophelia, she smiles and Ramona shows him out to hold his hands and then she places her into his lap. Christopher looks at Ophelia who had her hands in her mouth, she smiles as she stares at Christopher who stared back with equal excitement.
"I'm holding baby." Christopher smiled and Ramona nodded, she couldn't believe she was saying this but she wanted another one but a boy, she really wants a little boy. Although, she didn't think it would be possible for her to have one because girls were very common in their family and if the first child was a girl, then the next two children would be girls and Ramona doesn't know if she could handle that many.
Cher smiles giddily as she sits near Christopher and Ophelia, she looks at Ramona then back at the children. "They're so cute." Cher grinned and Ramona nodded as she watches Christopher talk to Ophelia even though he was talking gibberish for most of it but it was but Ophelia seemed to understand because she was smiling. Ramona grins as she watched them, completely mesmerized.
Cain grabs Ramona's hand and he tells her that he needed to talk to her for a second, she gets up and she follows him back to the kitchen and he immediately hugs her. "What's wrong? You're smiling but it's a really sad smile." Cain says and Ramona looks down as she sighs. "I'm just so happy that we moved back but I'm sad that we had to leave here in the first place. I want Ophelia to be around her family... I was thinking about how I didn't grow up being around my family because my Mom didn't get along with them so it was always me, my Dad and my Mom. Ophelia has this big family and everyone cares about her, I just want things to be different for her childhood, I don't want it to be anywhere near mine. I want her to be a kid for as long as possible and I want her to always want to go over her Grandmas or to visit Chip or want to go play with her cousins. I'm just really glad we came back." Ramona smiles and Cain kisses her head, he strokes her hair.
"We will give her that, nothing will happen to our sweet baby or the rest of our children." Cain assured her and Ramona sighs as she looks up at him, "Is it sad that I feel like I can finally breathe?" She questioned and Cain nodded because he felt the same way, he really did because they didn't feel like they were targeted or that he didn't know if he would come home and Ramona or Ophelia wouldn't be there but being here made him feel better because they were home.
Cain peers in the living room, he smirks and Ramona tilted her head because she already knows what he was thinking, she rolled her eyes. "You can never get enough can you?" Ramona questioned as she felt his hand go down her back. "Your you Ramona, how couldn't I?" He questioned and Ramona smacks his arm making him laugh because she was genuinely annoyed with him. "Our family is here." She whispered sharply to him and she walks past him, Cain groped her bottom and she turns around smacking his arm again and she was smiling this time. "You idiot, God I hate you." Ramona groaned but she was smiling.
"Love you too." Cain says as she walks off, Ramona shakes her head because her husband was a trip.
So one more chapter left then epilogue... idk how to feel but I promise that I won't make it bad, it might take sometime or not to much time but the book will be finished.
Thank you for everyone that has been reading and commenting a lot, throughout the time that I've been writing this. It truly makes me happy how people enjoyed this story so much and I try my best to give you all good chapters and you seem to love every single one so once again, thank you so much.