“I thought your eightieth birthday was last week! Why are you driving like you’re ninety?” Henry loved to give Carmen shit when she was driving. I half suspected he was in love with her, period, and would willingly give her…everything. And if that was the case, he hid it well beneath a cheerful smile and smart mouth.
Carmen tapped the dash with long, bright blue and gold striped fingernails. She called them her cat claws.
Meow.
“Don’t mess with me. My girls are in the car. Didn’t you see the ‘Babies on Board’ sticker I put up in the back window?”
“No.” Henry twisted around in his seat to look for it, but there was no such sticker. Carmen smiled, her dark gaze locking with mine in the rear view mirror, as Henry searched for the non-existent sticker.
Score: Carmen 1, Henry 0.
“There’s no sticker,” he mumbled. “I can’t believe I fell for that.”
“No sticker. That’s because I don’t want some psycho to follow us home and try to kidnap our girls. I also don’t want to get in an accident with them in the car. So, call me granny all you want, 3 miles below the speed limit is my jam today.”
Henry laughed as he turned back around in his seat. I placed one hand in each of the babies’ car seats to touch them. Their small, chubby fingers wrapped around mine and I melted inside. They were my why. No matter how badly Velik had hurt me, he’d given me the greatest gift anyone ever could.
I leaned back in my seat and let my mind wander. We didn’t have far to go. Palm trees, gated communities and model-gorgeous, perfect people jogging or walking their dogs passed by in a stream of nameless faces. I’d looked like those plastic-surgery-perfect women once. Thin, toned body. Skin glowing. Full of energy.
Now I was exhausted with dark circles under my eyes. My midriff was still stretched out and loose from carrying twins. My breasts had not gone back to normal size, despite the fact I had given up trying to breast feed the first week. Firstly, there were two of them. And second? They were half Atlan. I didn’t know how much a normal Atlan infant ate, but my girls could put away food like nobody’s business. How they weren’t gigantic rolls of dough, with green-gold eyes blinking out from the center, was beyond me.
The area we lived in was expensive, but stunning. The weather was amazing every single day. And, as required for Henry’s current and future happiness, there were ample opportunities to go sailing. Henry and Carmen still sailed at least once a month. For me, gliding across the water had lost its appeal since…
No. Stop that thought right there. Don’t think about him. At least that’s what I told myself at least ten times a day. Which, all things considered, was a fantastic number, down from several hundred.
“We’re here!” Carmen’s sing-song voice made me grin. Once we parked, she opened the door on my left and lifted Terra, baby carrier and all, out of the SUV.
On my right, Henry did the same, lifting Alena clear of the vehicle.
They headed inside the club house, my girls in tow, both rear doors of the SUV hanging wide open. I unbuckled, laughed, crawled out on one side, closed the door and made a circuit around the SUV to close the other. I opened the hatch in back and grabbed the bag I had packed with baby essentials. Diapers. Wipes. Bottles. Extra outfits. Soft, chewable toys —they were in the stage where everything went in the mouth, a few small snacks and jars of food. Baby spoons. Blankets. I hadn’t weighed the bag, but it was heavy enough to make my shoulders ache if I had to carry it for more than a few minutes.
I looked at the rest of the stuff. Umbrella canopy. Towels. Beach bag. Water bottles.
Nope. Not gonna make it in one go. I would have to make two trips.
Carrying the baby bag that weighed more than my hiking gear, backpack included, I turned to walk inside when Carmen and Henry both emerged from the double doors of the beach club’s private entrance.
My Atlan brother-in-law, Kovo, had insisted on paying the exorbitant membership fee once my tattletale of a twin mentioned how much I loved—or used to love—the water. The beach. Sailing.
Used to. Now I had two girls who might die from a single jellyfish sting.
Maybe not, but I wasn’t going to risk Velik’s children having a reaction to them like he had. Swimming pools and dry land, that was all my daughters were going to get.
I hurried inside despite knowing what I would see. The twins were already out of their car seats, giggling and grabbing hair, glasses, anything they could reach, as a handful of our friends passed the girls around like dolls.
Cute dolls. Happy dolls. I dropped the baby bag on the floor next to the door and joined them.
“There she is! Is that your momma?” Samantha, their closest neighbor, held Terra as she reached toward me with chubby baby arms. Then…she smiled.
I died inside. A good death, love exploding inside me like a bomb had gone off. Good, but still painful somehow. I had this reaction at least once a day. The feeling was magnificent, and it hurt like hell.
God, I loved her. And her sister. Not just loved, loved. Soul-melting, raging, gentle, provide a violent death to anyone who even looked at them sideways, loved.
I had to admit, Carmen’s idea to throw a party every month until the girls turned one — instead of taking formal portraits —was a great one. I picked out my favorite pictures each month and those were the ones that got framed and hung on the wall. Today they had turned six months old. I’d moved here a year ago, already three months pregnant. The blink of an eye. And an eternity.
Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, young and old alike. After about fifteen minutes we opened a large set of doors that led to an enclosed pool area. A few steps beyond that? The beach. The waves. Perfection. It was a gorgeous day.
Henry took off to meet his sailing friends. Carmen was strolling up and down the beach, sandals in one hand, hanging from their straps.
