Two sons. Bernie shook her head, trying to get her head around it. She remembered when her second was born. Adding to their family was not something Bernie had wanted and it had taken her the whole pregnancy to get over the shock of it all. After Cam was born, she had been so tired. She'd done very well for her first baby, so everyone had told her. Just tired. She was glad to be back at work. They thought they'd be one and done, Bernie certainly, Marcus resignedly. He had dreams of the little boy and girl, the perfect nuclear family.
Cam was rambunctious enough. Always had been. They'd expected that there would be children along the way although she'd resisted for as long as she could. She'd been so busy that it had hardly registered when it was confirmed, relenting when Marcus had shown his joy. It was a straightforward, agonising labour. Just as it should be, she supposed. But when evidence of another baby was on the way, she'd felt dread slam into her heart. Enforced rest, more time with Marcus. She hadn't known when he had started to annoy her but it had got worse with the second pregnancy. She'd tried not to be ungrateful and unpatient. Other women's husbands were never as good as he was. When he was born, she was surprised at how much love she'd felt for her son and had appreciated the attention that Marcus had showered on her.
But Charlotte's birth was no easy matter. Everyone had said the first baby was the worst but Bernie had spent so much more time labouring on this one. There was always a point where she felt like she could take no more and then she could. She'd gotten through it. It had worked the first time around but she was naive to think it would happen again. She felt like she was going to die until they whisked her off for an emergency caesarean for that stubborn breech baby. She had been scared and shown it too, grasping Marcus's hand and pleading for it to stop, that she couldn't do it anymore. But he was there for her, holding her hand throughout it all, telling her it would be alright, appreciating everything she'd had to put herself through to get their baby. Charlotte had been a placid baby and a sunny child. They'd naively thought that she'd always be like that. The storm clouds blew in once she hit late puberty and that easy-going personality had departed. Her parents fighting had made it so much worse and she'd vowed never to recover from the betrayal her mother had set.
Bernie still found it difficult to remember that she no longer had a daughter but having gained another son, a creature she did know something about, she was much luckier than Serena who really had lost a daughter, her only child at that. If one of her children had died before their time, at least she would have the other one left, Bernie reasoned. Perhaps she was glad after all that she'd had two, even if the recovery had been long and painful.
If one good thing was to come out of it, it was that Bernie and Marcus could finally put their divisions aside and work together with their eldest to support their new, second son. Cam probably found his new brother a bit less annoying. Bernie had even tentatively asked him if what she'd done had something to do with it and he'd snapped at her. He didn't want to discuss it with her. Bernie had accepted it and had never asked again. But after that, he started slowly returning back to how he used to be. Charlie seemed more at peace with himself now. He'd even hugged her that last time they'd met. Bernie had been longing for a hug from the second child for a long time. Forgiveness was on the way.