Waves of Hope
Chapter Twenty-seven
Edward
If I thought hearing Arlo tell me how much Dick Holder's shitty attitude hurts him and his brothers was bad, it's nothing on having to sit the big twins down with him later that evening to explain what's happened.
Fuck, how has he been holding this in for two weeks?
As I gaze across the table at him, I'm in awe of his strength.
With everything that's going on and how mature he, Jaxson, and Finley are, it's sometimes easy to forget that they're just little boys. They're eight and ten. They shouldn't have to deal with this shit. They shouldn't have to deal with a father who couldn't care less about them.
The petition in the center of the table catches my eye, and I remember that now they don't have to.
I've spent the last two hours on the phone with Charlie's lawyer. He had me fax everything over so he could check it out. It's all legit. He's going to file the paperwork first thing tomorrow and then...it's done.
"What's goin' on? Are we in trouble?" Finley frets, looking between me and Bella when she steps back into the kitchen, Mackenzie still fussing in her arms.
"No, buddy," I tell him firmly. "None of you are in trouble. Here, Bella. Pass him over and sit down."
She huffs, but hands him over anyway. He's been gassy all day, extra fussy and whiny. After having this dumped on her, I know Bella could use a second to get herself in order.
"Your dad and I wanted to talk to you all—"
"Can I explain?" Arlo cuts in.
Bella glances sideways at me before shrugging. "O-kay."
He nods, shifting to face his brothers. They're both staring at him with matching expressions of confusion. "A couple of weeks ago, Richard called looking for Mom. I picked up the phone."
Jaxson frowns. "I hope you hung up on him."
"I did, but I called him back the next day when Mom and Dad were busy."
Finley blows out a big breath, his face ashen as he sinks in his chair a little. "What did he want?"
"To ask about Mom and the babies. He said he saw us on the news and wanted to know if it was true."
Grumbling something under his breath, Jaxson shakes his head.
"What was that, kiddo?" Bella murmurs, reaching over to squeeze his hand.
"I just said it's really like him to not ask about us."
Fucking hell.
My chest squeezes painfully. I have to remind myself that I'm holding Mackenzie and I can't lose it. Forcing myself to relax, I plaster a fake-as-shit smile on my face, hoping it will reassure the boys. "He can't hurt you anymore, okay?"
"What do you mean?" Finley cocks his head, looking between me and Bella.
"Dick—Richard signed some papers."
"He was trying to act like he cared about us so I'd tell him stuff, I think," Arlo admits. "So I told him he could do us a favor and let Dad have us."
Jaxson's and Finley's heads whip toward me. "What did he say?" Finley asks. I can't tell if it's nerves or hope I can detect, although I'm obviously hoping for the latter.
Arlo shifts in his seat, dark eyes finding mine. "He did it," I whisper. "He signed the paperwork to say that, if you want, we can finally all be a family—officially."
I'm not going to say 'a real family' because that would be taking a huge shit over everything we've built, everything we already have. We're real in every way that matters. The name on a piece of paper they'll probably never look at means nothing in the grand scheme of things. It's me the boys call 'Dad,' me they come to for advice or to get out of trouble when they piss off their mom, me who gets to watch them grow up into the great young men I know they'll be.
This just gives us the chance to make that title official—if they want it that way.
"Oh, damn," Jaxson whistles. "So, what? You can adopt us like Isaac's mom and dad adopted him?" Isaac is one of their friends at school. His godparents adopted him when his parents were killed in a freak skiing accident last year. I nod. "We can be Cullens like the babies?"
My chuckle is wobbly. "If you want to."
Jaxson and Finley share a loaded look, Arlo's nervous expression shifting into a smirk like he knows something Bella and I don't.
"That would be cool," the big twins say at the same time, their heads turning to face me in sync.
"Jaxson Lane Cullen," Jaxson says, testing it out as Finley does the same.
"Finley Lux Cullen. It sounds pretty good."
I certainly think so.
My stomach twists, my heart taking off at a sprint, and I realize I was lying to myself before when I thought it didn't matter if the boys changed their names or not.
Looking at Bella, I see that she's got tears gathering on her lashes, a beaming smile on her face. We turn as one to look at Arlo as he drums his fingers on the table.
Smirking like the cheeky little shit he is, he fixes those dark eyes on me. "'Arlo Maxwell Cullen' has a nice ring to it, don'tcha think?"
"It sure does," Bella says tearfully, and I happen to wholeheartedly agree.
A couple of hours later, once everybody but Bella and I are asleep, we sit down on the sofa and Bella reads Dick's letter aloud in our quiet kitchen, the baby monitor on the counter just in case, by some miracle, we don't hear the petting zoo in the other room getting restless. For a bunch of tiny babies, they sure do make a lot of weird noises.
"Bella," she starts, leaning back into my chest as I wrap my arms around her and set my chin on her crown. "I want to start out by saying how bloody sorry I am, for everything." Bella pauses, sucking in a big breath. I give her a light squeeze and wait patiently for her to continue even though every part of me just wants this over with.
After a few moments, she picks up where she left off. "I screwed up with you and the boys and I know that. I'll never be able to apologize enough for how I've handled things. My wife and I had a daughter at the beginning of this year and I'm suddenly realizing how much I missed out on with you and the boys."
Bella sighs heavily. "The boys have another sister and he didn't even bother telling us, or them."
"Fucking jackass," I mutter, stroking Bella's arm.
"You got that right." Folding the paper, she continues to read. He prattles on about being 'so surprised' when he saw our faces on social media when a friend of his tagged him in an article about the sixers, wondering if that Bella was 'his Bella.'
Yeah, I curse. And a tiny growl might escape my chest.
Nothing about Bella is his. Nothing.
She squeezes my arm wrapped around her middle, turning her head and tipping her cheek up for a kiss, which I'm only too happy to give her.
"What I'm trying to say in this letter, I suppose, is that I hope you're all happy. After I spoke to Arlo, I thought long and hard about whether I should push myself back into your lives after so long. I'm sure you've seen the rest of the contents of this envelope by now, so you'll know what my decision is. Bella, I've been a terrible father to the boys and I was just as bad as a partner to you. You all deserve better and this is me making amends and letting you have that."
Letting you have that…
It's like the fucker still thinks he has any kind of sway over Bella's life, the boys' lives.
"Do you know what? I don't even care about the rest," Bella finally breathes, tossing the letter down on the counter and twisting herself on the stool until her legs are wrapped loosely around my thighs, her head resting on my chest. "I couldn't care less about anything that man has to say. He means nothing to me, and now the boys get to decide if they want anything to do with him when they're older."
I can't see it, personally, but we'll support them if the day comes when they want answers, real answers, from the man who should have been willing to bend over backward for them.
"I love you, short stuff," I whisper, kissing her head, wondering if there's an explosion on the way, tears, a breakdown...
"I love you, handsome," she whispers back, tipping her face up to me. I expected her to be emotional after Dick's note. I didn't expect to see a gleam of mischief in her eyes. I guess it's a testament to how over Dick Holder's shit she is. "Think we can sneak—"
The bright green light on the baby monitor switches on just as the first soft whimpers filter through from the makeshift nursery. We grin ruefully.
"Rylee," we say at the same time, laughingly jinxing each other.
"Later," I promise, both of us knowing that with six infants, 'later' probably means 'in a few days, maybe.'
~ oOo ~
The next few days are a whirlwind of emotion.
Though the boys are excited about the prospect of beating their mom to the Cullen name, the ramifications of Richard's decision weighs heavily on their young minds in ways Bella and I were, thankfully, anticipating.
When Jaxson trudges down into the living room where I'm changing diapers at three a.m. on Thursday night, enough is enough. I'll be making appointments for all three boys to see Kendra next week.
"Can I take a baby?"
"Take this one. He's much nicer now he doesn't stink," I offer with a small grin, handing him Caben once I finish snapping his sleepsuit poppers back into place.
Sitting carefully on the couch, he pulls his legs up and crosses them, resting Caben on a cushion in his lap. "Hey, little Benny."
"Benny?" I chuckle.
Jaxson lifts his eyes to me for a second before looking back at his brother. "Yeah," he breathes, apparently not wanting to say any more than that.
That's okay. I grab the next stinky baby—Mackenzie—and get him all cleaned up before swaddling him and putting him back in his bed with Asher. He turns his head toward his twin like he's looking for him even in sleep, and it reminds me of the bond Jaxson and Finley still have now. It's kind of nice having that glimpse into the future.
"D'you wanna talk about why you're up at three in the morning on a school night?" I ask, sitting heavily in my recliner. A long yawn tears out of me, and Jaxson offers me a quick grin when I curse and blink my watery eyes.
"Not really, but I guess I have to, huh."
Smirking, I nod. "You guess right, buddy."
He falls silent, brows furrowed as he toys with the edge of Caben's swaddle. I'm happy to wait him out, so I sit back and run through a list of things I need to do tomorrow to keep myself from dozing off.
"It just...it's weird that it sucks, you know?"
I don't need to ask. I know what he's talking about, of course, but I do need a bit more detail.
"You're gonna need to elaborate a little."
"I mean, we always kinda knew that guy didn't want us. He never stuck around, you know? He was there, and then he wasn't, and then he was back again…" His eyes lift to mine, charcoal in the low light. "Not like you. You've always been there for us, right from the beginning when we moved here. You didn't even know us at first and you were still better than the other guy was for our whole lives before that."
He's mostly right. I'm not going to remind him about the brief period of time when I thought I could resist my feelings and stay away from Bella and the boys. I don't know what he remembers about that time.
"Knowing he would just give us away though...it still hurts, I guess."
"I bet it does, buddy," I murmur. Lifting myself out of my chair, I join him on the couch, draping my arm around his shoulders. "Your mom and I, we want you boys happy above anything else. We've always tried to do right by you—"
"You have, Dad," Jaxson interjects. "You're the best, seriously." He flashes me a grin. "We lucked out with you. We know you'll never leave us."
"Never ever," I confirm, squeezing him a little tighter. "What did I tell you in Tampa, huh? You're stuck with me."
"That's cool," he snickers, using his shoulder to wipe away the smacking kiss I plant on his cheek just to make him laugh. His laughter trails off. "We're not upset that you get to adopt us, I swear, it's just...it's hard knowing the other guy just gave us away."
"I get that, bud. I do." Resting my forehead against his crown, I feel tension leaking from his body.
"Thanks for understanding."
"Of course. You can always come to me to talk about stuff that's botherin' you, you know that, right? Me or your mom, Uncle Sully, or even Nana or Papa, or Pops—"
"I get it," he laughs. "We've got a ton of people we can talk to."
I laugh, too. "All right, smart ass. As long as you know you've got support, I'm good. I just want y'all happy."
"I know," he says softly. "So, when are we gonna get our new name?"
I feel an undeniable pang at the thought of giving the boys my surname. The more I think about it, the more I want it. I want to be that parent who sits and writes their kids' names in all their school stuff just so I can see it in permanent ink. "Well, that's up to you boys, really."
His tone is as solemn as his face when he tells me, "We're ready, Dad."
"Well, all right, then," I breathe. "Mom and I will look into it."
~ oOo ~
Halloween with six infants is...different.
Instead of hosting a big party or attending one, we stick to just trick-or-treating. The thought of taking our babies into a busy party environment full of people and germs is a little terrifying, so we give the boys the option of staying with us or going to Charlie and Renee's big party. They decide to stick with us, which isn't a huge surprise.
They're excited about the babies' costumes.
"It's their first Halloween, they've gotta have something cool," Arlo told us when we first asked them for suggestions on what to dress the babies in.
Thanks to Renee's crochet club and all the babies' wonderful nana-teers—the nickname some of the older volunteers have given themselves—the babies have the cutest costumes.
"Do I look okay?" Arlo asks as he thunders down the stairs in his own costume. We're running late meeting up with the party-goers, but that's par for the course now we have six infants in the house.
Laughing, I knock lightly on his white helmet. "You look great, bud."
Jaxson isn't far behind him, and then Finley strolls down last, both twins carrying their lightsabers and pumpkin buckets. As soon as Max hears the boys, he comes lumbering out of the kitchen in his At-At costume, shoving his head in the currently-empty buckets..
Bella walks out of the living room in her rigout and I can't help but ogle her just a little. "Your highness," I tease, bowing as she adjusts one of her space buns.
"At ease, Chewy," she teases right back, eyes alight with happiness and looking a lot less tired than usual thanks to the babies staying on schedule for a full forty-eight hours. Dad, Sullivan, and Charlie were here last night and they kicked us out of the baby room to get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. We slept for a full five hour stretch and I don't think I've felt this human since before the sixers were born.
Ironic considering I'm dressed as a Wookiee.
"Your mask thing is in the living room," she adds, turning her attention to the boys. "Well, don't you three look great!"
Arlo stands to attention, a muffled laugh escaping his shiny white helmet as he adjusts his cuffs. "Do I look good, or what?"
"You're the best looking Stormtrooper I've ever seen," Bella agrees lightly. "And you two...let's see 'em. Light 'em up."
Finley—or Anakin Skywalker—grins as he flicks his wrist and his lightsaber flies out of the handle, lighting up blue. Jaxson does the same, only his is red and we can't see his face behind his Darth Vader mask.
Sullivan introduced the boys to the Star Wars franchise back when Bella was on bed rest; they can't get enough of it.
Case in point...the babies.
We all head into the baby room, formerly our living room, and I crack up as soon as I set eyes on the sixers. Dad and Sullivan have gotten them all dressed for us and they look adorable as hell.
Rylee has a miniature version of Bella's Princess Leia get-up, Caben is baby Yoda, and the rest of the boy babies are dressed in matching Stormtrooper outfits.
Arlo peers over their bassinets before sliding his helmet up on top of his head to flash them a proud grin. "I have my Jedi Master and an army of Stormpoopers."
"Stormpoopers…" Bella breathes, shaking her head at our boy. "Is that what you're gonna call them? The Stormpoopers?"
"Yup," he tells her cheerfully, raising both hands for high fives from Jaxson and Finley, then closing his fist to bump Sullivan's.
"Aw, Sis, you're so cute!" Jaxson coos, twisting his helmet to the back of his head so he can see as he leans over Rylee and Caben's bassinet. I have to agree. Her fair hair is covered by a crocheted brown hat complete with space buns like the clip-in version Bella attached to her hair earlier.
Despite her big brother's compliments, she's mad. With a mean frown on her face, she grunts and squirms until I find her binky under her arm and stuff it in her mouth. Now content, she smiles around her favorite thing—besides me or Bella's boob—and settles down while we make sure we've got everything we need for the babies' first ever time trick-or-treating. It's also their first real outing around the Bay, because so far, we've been too exhausted and too busy wrangling diapers and bottles and six tiny babies to even think about going for a stroll around town.
The babies are almost nineteen weeks old, nine weeks adjusted because they were ten weeks premature, and I can't wait to get them out and about more.
That said, as we load them into their car seats and then click them to the triple strollers we were gifted by one very generous manufacturer, I feel a frisson of nerves slithering through me.
Sticking a couple of the babies in Big Blue and taking them with me to drop off or pick up the boys is one thing. Loading all six of 'em into strollers and heading out on foot is another. For one, the backseats are an okay substitute for a changing station in an emergency. We won't have that this evening, we'll have to just hope none of the babies have a blowout, or a 'poonami' as the big boys like to say.
"Do we have everything?" Bella frets, whizzing past me before I can answer.
"I think so!" I call out, eyeing Oakley. We timed this so the babies would be in the first hour after after feeding because that's when they're the happiest and least likely to go crazy being stuck in their car seats, so my chunky boy is milk-drunk and smiley as hell. "You like your costume, Oaks?"
He coos, grabbing my hand when I tickle his tummy through his onesie. He's such a happy baby, such a smiley boy. If ever the other babies are being especially cranky and I need a quick pick-me-up, this is the go-to guy. The only time he doesn't have a smile on his face is when he's hungry, but we usually try to get a bottle to him first because he can scream those little lungs out when he wants to.
Eyeing me with a somewhat nervous smile, Bella grabs the handlebar of the triple stroller containing River, Mackenzie, and Asher. "Are we ready?"
"I think so."
Arlo rips the front door open as soon as she gives him the go ahead, and I think it's safe to say we're all shell-shocked by the sheer volume of people on our street.
"What the…" Dad chuckles, ushering the big boys out into the front yard.
Charlie is already on his way up the path. He claps Dad on the shoulder and grins at me and Bella as we push the strollers outside. "We knew you wouldn't be able to come to the party, but we wanted these little ones to have the best first Halloween possible, so we're going to escort y'all."
Our big boys have already run off to join their cousins and friends. Within seconds, I can't see them, a gaggle of kids in all kinds of costumes tearing down the street to hit 'the best' neighbors.
Shaking my head with a soft laugh, I drape my arm around Bella's shoulders and wave at some of our friends who yell their hellos while trying to wrangle their kids.
It's crazy, loud, and not the relatively peaceful evening we expected.
It's pretty perfect.
~ oOo ~
The days and weeks start to blur together as we settle into our new routine.
Our big boys do us proud and throw themselves into being the best brothers to the sixers. It's kind of crazy how well they adapt and throw themselves into bathing, feeding, and entertaining our increasingly alert sixers. It's awe-inspiring how patient they are when we have to call a timeout on our soccer games in the back yard to feed or rock cranky babies.
They also deal with the news that it's not going to be easy for me to adopt them until we're married. The law in Florida means that I can adopt them as a second parent before Bella and I get married, but it's costly and would involve multiple court visits as well as a home study and a whole heap of crap we just can't handle right now. Thankfully, the boys are content with the knowledge that as soon as Bella and I are married, we'll make it happen. They will be joining us as Cullens.
Day by day, our babies grow and thrive. They pack on the pounds, even Caben, and start to become chubby butterballs that feel less fragile, less breakable, in my big hands.
One cold early December weekend, we make the decision to pack up Big Blue and head back to Tampa to see some of the friends we made there. After dumping our stuff at the hotel, we wrangle squirming babies back into car seats and drive straight over to St. Joseph's where we're greeted by one of our favorite people.
Dr. Biers' grin couldn't be wider as he strolls out of the hospital entrance, happily taking Rylee when she screams her head off until I take her out of her seat.
"I see you've found your voice," he teases as he bounces her in his arms, staring at her face like she's the most amazing thing. I mean, I'm not gonna disagree.
"She definitely has," Bella mutters much to Dr. Biers' amusement, sliding River and Oakley into the twin carrier strapped to my chest and back, leaving Mackenzie, Asher, and Caben riding in the triple stroller.
"Come on in, we've set up a little area for them in my office so we can talk."
Walking through these corridors is...surreal. Memories of taking these exact steps six, eight, ten months ago fly through my mind on a reel. The anxiety and worry I felt then is eclipsed by my pride and happiness as the babies babble and look around at their surroundings with open curiosity. They're six months old now, four months adjusted, and they're starting to pay more attention to everything going on around them.
Bella's fingers slip between mine as Jaxson and Finley insist they can push the stroller themselves. I tip my face toward her, her smile mirroring mine, and I know I'm not alone in my nostalgia.
Exactly one year ago today, we found out that she was pregnant with the sixers.
Two years ago today, we were told that we'd lost our longed-for number five.
It's bittersweet having both things share an anniversary. We're both reminded of what we've lost and what we've accomplished.
Dr. Biers wasn't kidding when he said he'd set up an area for the babies. When we arrive at his office, he's got a giant cushioned playmat on the floor, his desk up against the wall and not even a single chair in the room.
"Oh, look at that," he chuckles once we've put all the babies on the big mat, scattering toys around within their reach. The big boys are only too happy to get down and play with them, and much to my surprise, so is Dr. Biers.
He drops down to sit cross-legged amongst the babies, waving a rattle in front of Mackenzie's face. As our boy lights up, reaching for the toy, Dr. Biers grins up at me and Bella with a familiar, twinkly-eyed smile. "All right, fill me in on these little miracles. Tell me everything."
So we do.
We join him on the floor and tell him about our confident, robust River, about how he's the first to cut a tooth and he's completely obsessed with his big brothers and Max.
We talk about Oakley and his love of eating. Dr. Biers compares a picture of Oakley's milk-drunk smile to the look on his own face when he's had a few gin and tonics after a long week.
He snuggles Caben and wells up when our miracle boy gives him a gummy smile, holding his face between his tiny hands and babbling utter nonsense.
We try to teach him how to tell Mackenzie and Asher apart, pointing out the freckle on Mackenzie's right cheek and Asher's high-pitched screech whenever one of the other babies has a toy he wants.
And of course, Dr. Biers laughs so hard the babies stare at him with wide eyes when I tell him Rylee is a total Daddy's girl but has every male in our family wrapped around her petite little pinky, that she's the loudest, most demanding, and still a squawker just like she was when she was here in the NICU.
We tell him everything, and when we invite him to visit us in Jackson Bay to see the babies enjoying their first Christmas, he rests one hand on my shoulder, one on Bella's, and grins with unbridled joy. "Helping you bring these babies into the world, getting to know your family and your story, has been the highlight of my career. It would be an honor to visit you for Christmas."
So...how did you like the little Stormpoopers? And the big twins know about Dick now, so that's that. I'm not going to cover all the legalities in detail because, quite frankly, it would be boring as heck for you to read, but from what I found when I was researching, the costs, legalities, and process of Easy adopting the boys before he and Bella are married are crazy, so that's why they're still waiting.
Oh, and it's my birthday today, so you can expect another chapter tomorrow :)
Happy Saturday! xo