Chapter 3: Beloved Family
4 months after the marriage...
Bianca and Kat are at a nearby store at the mall, shopping for baby products.
"You can't argue that pink is always used for new-borns!" Bianca urged, holding up an elegant outfit for infants.
"What if it's not a girl," Kat said sternly. "Pick a color that's unisex man! They all look cool. I should've bought Mandella instead."
"Everyone loved your wedding dress, which I picked!" Bianca said indignantly.
"Yeah and it tore at the hems," Kat snapped back, dropping some yellow and white pajamas into her trolley "which comes to show that beautiful appearances aren't always of good quality!"
Bianca got really fired up now.
"Are you trying to say that just because I'm pretty, I don't have a remotely magnanimous personality?"
Kat would've shot back that she didn't even imply that Bianca was pretty, the girl's just vain. But she was in a public place, and didn't want to start a catfight.
"Well why did Kevin dump you then?"
Bianca smashed the Baby Johnson back into the stand.
"Are you trying to rub it in, my heartbreak? When I'm already down?" Bianca half-screamed, causing by-passers to gawk at her. "You know what Kat; I've had it with your criticism. I've endured it for all these years. Well no more!"
"My God chill out, if you're PMSing don't take it out on me!" Kat shot back, but Bianca was storming away angrily.
Kat dropped everything on the counter, threw her credit card at the assistant, and quickly left the shop in search of her sister.
It was the afternoon on a winter's day; so no one was in sight.
"Hey don't do this to me, Bianca! I'm bloody pregnant for God's sake!" She shouted.
Right then a guy crept behind her and gagged her.
Kat tried to scream and push him off, but his grip was excessively vigorous.
Suddenly someone pulled him off her, punched the man extremely hard thereby causing him to drop on the floor, unconscious. And then the savior turned to the shaking Kat.
"Patrick!" She cried, as he hugged her. "Wha- How!"
"Luckily I came along with my friend, to exchange the over-sized jacket from Giordano he got me. You know, on my birthday. Thank God I did!"
Kat was stunned. She had never been in a situation where she was damsel in distress. She'd always imagined she was this intimidating Tough Woman. And her husband had come to her rescue! Or it could be her hormones…
"I'll have to go on a check up," she said, voice quivering.
"You're safe with me Kat." Patrick said soothingly, playing with her hair. "No one apart from me is allowed to touch you. No one else."
Kat turned to identify the culprit.
"He's gone!" She exclaimed. "Did you see who he is?"
"No. In the middle of the intense situation, I didn't get a good look at his face." Patrick answered. "Let's go to the doctor."
"Bianca!" Kat said, getting up with the help of Patrick. "What if he gets her next?"
Patrick sighed. "Call her. Summon her right away."
"Ok, while I do go and grab the stuff I bought from Baby Beatrice. Don't forget the credit card. I'll meet you at the Parking Lot. And don't spend ages exchanging the jacket!"
Kat smiled as she watched her husband oblige. She was very lucky to have a caring, obedient, lovable and trustworthy companion.
You were wrong after all, Dad. Our marriage is far from a mistake.
At the hospital waiting room 5 months later…
"Anything happen, Doctor?" Patrick asked, regarding Kat. It was the fiftieth time Dr. Dana was inquired about the woman waiting to deliver. Walter had already asked before, so he urged his son-in-law to be a sport this time around.
Walter had also tried to persuade Kat to let him deliver the baby himself. That's what he did for a living after all. But Kat said "Over my dead body will my own father pull any bloody creature out of my vagina!"
"Patience, sir!" The intense doctor replied, before returning to Kat's room.
In the waiting room, a lot of people were sitting there expecting Kat to commence with the labor any minute. They were Bianca, and her reinstated boyfriend Cameron (whom happened to be an old-time friend of Patrick's), Mandella and her mother, Patrick and Walter each bought along a friend whom seemed to despise one another (what with one being formal and refined and the other a punk and with a 'gangster' appearance), Georgina, Tatiana who was Bianca and Kat's Russian childhood playmate and still a good friend, Sam and Tamara (Kat and Patrick's neighbors who drove Kat to the hospital the second her water broke, since Patrick was at work) and Cameron's best friend Michael.
"I still can't believe the shrew is going to be a mother any second," Michael whispered to Cameron carefully, making sure Bianca is out of earshot. "And you do believe that it's all because of us, me and you my pal, that we are at this place at this time?"
Meanwhile, someone was thinking unacceptable thoughts: 'He looks amazing tonight. I have to speak to him in private. Why couldn't she have had a miscarriage? I tried so hard…'
Bianca cleared her throat. "I'll be at the lavatories, someone call me if anything happens. I'll need to be by her side."
"Go ahead sweetie," Mandella's Mum Sarah encouraged. "I'll call you."
Bianca smiled as she strutted away.
"And I'll go order Coke for everyone…" Patrick said, getting up as well.
"Very kind, dear. Make mine diet, if you please." Sarah said.
"And mine."
"Me too."
"Ok, how many of you want diet?"
He counted the number of hands.
"Ok then, I'll be off."
"Patrick my man I'm paying for my own can." Patrick's friend Scurvy said, eager to get away from Walter's friend who was shooting him cat-eyes. "Should I come with you?"
Patrick stubbornly gestured at him to sit right back down as he followed suite of where Bianca had walked off…
3 hours later, after a lot of anticipation and screaming…
"It's a girl," the Nurse said, coming out into the Waiting Room, holding her up for everyone to receive an eyeful. She was pink with health and bundled up in blankets. "Perfectly normal baby. 9 pounds. I'm sorry that I must bathe her before handing her to her mother. Just a couple of minutes, I won't be long."
A few people went into the room to congratulate Kat, the new mother. However a limit was set to the number of visitors so everyone else had to wait in turn.
"You know," Tamara began, addressing everyone in her presences that haven't gone in to see her yet. "Out of all the times I've been here, to give birth myself and to be there for others… never has the waiting room been this full. This baby must be born into a popular family, lucky to have so much support from family and friends. She's guaranteed to turn into a social butterfly. Am I right?"
Georgina smiled, wishing to contradict her. Her son used to be far from popular. Especially during high-school. The same goes for his wife. That's why they were a 'match made in heaven'.
Patrick and Bianca exchanged significant glances, obviously thinking amongst his Mother's lines…
"Get all those bloody flowers out of my sight," came Kat's loud shriek from inside the labor room. "I'm freakin' allergic!"
"Once a shrew, always a shrew." Michael said, coming out with his hands clasped around his ears. "Would anyone like to go in next?"
No one was in a hurry this time.
"You'd think that the labour and the pain would drain her of all energy," Bianca remarked to no one in particular, stepping outside. "Apparently she has enough left to scream so loud though, that my ear-drums are still throbbing from the noise!"
Years later…
"Amber!" Kat called, yelling at the top of her lungs. "Will you come right down this minute?"
"Coming Mamma," a small girl with strawberry blonde pigtails and big green eyes said, appearing on top of the staircase.
"Hold it." Kat instructed. The girl wished to defy but she was already in trouble. So she froze still.
"How old are you?" Kat asked sternly.
No reply.
"I repeat…How old are you?"
"Four." Came the soft answer.
"Four-year-olds are fully capable of putting away their own toys once they're done with them." Kat said, pissed and launching into a lecture. "You're behaving like a 2-year-old because you didn't do so. So I'll treat you like a 2-year-old until you prove you're of your age, and can clear away your own toys next time. So it's no more using cups and back to the bottle for you, young lady!"
Kat turned around, walking into the kitchen to continue fixing dinner.
"Wait Mamma!" The girl said, attempting to pick up speed and stumbling on the stairs.
CRASH!
The girl started wailing as her parents rushed by her side.
Her leg was bleeding. Patrick ran off to fetch the First Aid kit.
"Oh baby, I'm so sorry," Kat said, cuddling her crying child. "I shouldn't have been so hard on you. You're still a toddler."
Kat remembered Patrick's promise…
"I'm so sorry sweetie. I wont let anyone hurt you. Not even me. Ever. I swear I'll protect you from people that could be a threat to that."