Page 69 of The Broken Beginning: Part One

~*~

We ended up eating pizza with Declan on the living room floor while we watched The Lion King. There was no telling how many times my kid had seen the movie, but he damn sure knew most of the lines.

“He really loves this movie.”

Lily just grinned at me. “It’s his favorite.” Come to think of it, there were all kinds of stuffed animals in his room now that suddenly made sense. The warthog, the lions, and the elephants. “That’s why he won’t leave that damn monkey behind anywhere?” I questioned as realization dawned on me.

“You got it, and it’s a baboon not a monkey.”

“Same difference.”

Lily rolled her eyes at me as she started to close the pizza box and collect all our paper plates. When she stood, I moved with her. “This was nice,” I admitted.

“What was?” Lily moved across the kitchen, disposed of the empty pizza box and plates, and then grabbed some paper towels and ran them under water before wringing the excess out. No doubt, it was to clean up our son’s messy pizza fingers before he did too much damage.

“Our living room picnic, spending time with you guys, seeing our baby’s heartbeat.”

Lily sighed as she moved past me. “There’s never been anything stopping you from experiencing any of that Merc.”

“I know, it was just a good day.”

“This is our every day,” she informed me as she took Declan’s hands and wiped them clean while he attempted to sing along with the weasel and the pig.

“No! Top tit!” My son screamed, though some of it became muffled behind the damp paper towel that Lily was using to wash his face up. I was pretty sure he meant “Stop it,” but by the time she got all the sauce off his face, he was back to singing and dancing along with the movie.

“Can I stay a while longer?” The hesitancy to ask had to be clear in my voice, but I didn’t want to do anything to upset Lily. She was the one setting boundaries, and for once, I planned on sticking to them. Mostly.

“Of course. Do you mind hanging out with Dec so I can get some work done?”

“Work?” I asked, once again curious about what the hell she did in her little loft office all day long.

“Um, yeah, I just have some things I want to get done upstairs.”

“Sure.” Truthfully, I had been hoping for more family time with the three of us, but I’d take what I could get. She wasn’t kicking me out and sending me back across the street, so for now, I was counting it as a win.

22 – Beautiful Moments

Tiger Lily

When I finally looked up from what I was doing, four hours had gone by. “Oh my God!” I damn near shouted as I jumped and ran for the stairs. By the time I got there, I stumbled to a stop and stared into the living room below me. Merc had put together a blanket fort for our boy and while it wasn’t big enough for both of them to fit inside, Declan was asleep with his head poked out and his hand held by Merc’s. My husband was asleep on the floor just beside the tent with his upper body curved around so he could see Deck and hold his hand.

I quickly ran back to my desk and pulled out the disposable camera I got to take pictures of Declan at the beach, knowing there were still a few shots available on it. Then I took one picture from up in the loft and quietly sneaked down the stairs to grab two more at closer range. Finally, I took of just their hands clasped together, but then the camera ran out of film.

I had to remember to take that in tomorrow to get the pictures developed. While they slept, I moved into the kitchen to get dinner started. The minute I threw the ground beef on the pan, ready to cook it up for tacos, my stomach churned violently, and I had to snatch the pan off the burner and run for the bathroom.

When I was done getting sick, Merc had the windows open to air the house out and was working on cooking up the meat for me.

“Sorry,” I told him before holding my breath and quickly ducking into the fridge to grab a ginger tea. It was something I noticed in one of those hippy stores near the beach one day, so I grabbed a few to see if they helped with morning sickness. They absolutely did.

“Don’t apologize. I’m guessing the meat doesn’t smell too good while cooking right now?”

I shook my head. “It’s insane because I will eat all of it that gets put in front of me, but smelling it raw or just freshly cooking, and I’m running for the nearest safe spot to puke. I just forgot for a minute.”

“It’s okay, you can’t help the way your body reacts. I do worry about this happening if I’m not here though. Deck could have gotten hurt if he’d been in here with you.”

Well, that made me feel lousy.

“Don’t. I just said it because you can’t do things the same way you did when you were pregnant with him. It’s not going to be as easy to go it on your own this time, and you don’t have to. Please, Lily, lean on me too. There’s no making up for our past or my part in how hard it was on you, but I don’t want to repeat the same damn mistakes anymore.”

---