They had it planned all so perfectly. Weeks and weeks had Amy and Sheldon spent to prepare the perfect first birthday for their little girl. They had had fights over the perfect presents, they had decorated the whole living room with balloons and paper garlands, they had baked a cake and decorated it elaborately with colorful fondant. But when the big day was there, Rosy was scared by the decoration and they had to take the garlands and balloons off. She muddled with the food instead of eating the cake and the only thing about the presents that she liked was the wrapping paper (how else could it be, in the end?).
So, Amy couldn't help to feel a little tense, when they started the highlight of the day: Rosalind's first visit in the LA zoo.
First of all, everything went great. Rosy marveled at the elephants, giraffes and crocodiles with big eyes and Sheldon secretly wondered what kind of animals a zoo in Africa would present as exotic attractions. After all, those animals that he would have found completely boring as a child, such as deer or wild boar, were not native to Africa and therefore should seem very exciting to the people living there.
He only interrupted his detailed contemplations about exotic animals, when they went to see the koalas. As soon as he looked into the face of one of the cute creatures, his eyes softened, and a content smile played on his lips.
"Daddy happy!" Rosy whispered and looked at her father with big, shiny eyes.
"Yes, Daddy is very happy!" Sheldon whispered back and placed a little kiss on her hair.
"And now he's even more happy because you just said your first two-word-sentence with a lead of one year over an average developed child" Amy said, while proudly throwing her hair backwards over her shoulder and then adjusting her purse.
"That's true!" Sheldon agreed with her and gave her an even more proud look.
"Look!" Rosy suddenly said enthusiastically. "Look!" She laughed and clapped her hands in excitement. One of the koalas now had climbed on the back of another koala. He let out a dull roar and then –
"Let's go. Enough koala for today!" Sheldon took Rosy's buggy and pushed it quickly away from the koala enclosure.
"Nooo!" Rosy cried. She tried to exit from the buggy. Then she let out a perfect imitation of the koala's dull roar. The people around them grinned and turned their heads.
"You know, Amy, I've been thinking about how certain animals are regarded as erotic and others not." Sheldon tried to save the situation while quickly leaving the koalas behind.
"Erotic animals?"
"Exotic! I said exotic! Do you always have to think about geslachtsgemeenschap?" (Since Rosy was now imitating more and more words, they had decided to use Dutch for sexual expressions because it firstly always sounded kind of cute and innocent and secondly nobody would understand it if Rosy ever would be able to repeat it.)
Rosy imitated the mating noise of the koala, again.
"I guess I'm not the one who's thinking about geslachstgemeenschap all the time," Amy giggled to override the anger about Sheldon's allegations. "Stop it, Rosy, please!"
"Are you suggesting that Rosy…?" Sheldon asked slightly angry.
Rosy roared again.
"Rosy, stop that!" Amy said now a little sharper and with an annoyed sigh: "Don't you worry, Sheldon, she just thinks it's a funny sound."
"Are you sure? What if she knows what all of this is about? What if she knows what we're doing in the bedroom when we think she's asleep?"
Rosy roared. This time louder. People were turning their heads, again.
"Rosy, stop that. Immediately!" Amy hissed, while she felt the anger rising in her chest.
"Sheldon, you're getting paranoid!"
"Paranoid, really?" Sheldon sounded angry, now, too.
"Yeah, paranoid" Amy confirmed quite harshly.
Rosy roared as loud as she could and fidgeted wildly in her buggy.
"MOMMY SAID NO! STOP IT, ROSY!" Suddenly, Amy heard herself screaming. It just happened, she didn't have any control over it, just as if her mouth was living a life on its own, it violently threw the thundering words on her beloved and helpless child. Immediately, the anger, that had build up in her chest over the last seconds so quickly, had gone. Now, there was only left an overwhelming sense of shame. And it wasn't because of the people around them, who had witnessed Rosalind imitating the koala's mating sound and then (as if the roaring hadn't been embarrassing enough) had witnessed her screaming at her child. It was because she was ashamed of herself. The mental image she always had had about herself about being a reasonable and prudent person who was able to understand the biochemical processes in the human brain and therefore not helpless at her own feelings, had crumbled down in one go. Instead, she had been forced to look in the face of the unvarnished truth: hidden deep inside her and almost unknown by everyone, there was some wild, aggressive and animalistic creature and if the nerves, that normally imprisoned it safely, got irritated a little too much, it escaped and showed everyone its ugly face.
„Please, I just wanna go home" Amy whispered with a sunken head and shuffled towards the exit.
Back on their way home, they didn't talk a lot. Sheldon tried to help Amy by suggesting that next time she was angry with Rosalind she should take some time out from the situation and leave the room for a while. Probably Amy only could develop those aggressive feelings for Rosy, because she spent every minute of the day with her daughter. But Amy only laughed in a bitter way. How could she ever have some time alone in their tiny apartment, even when soon she would start working, again?
Amy's mood didn't get better, when a street sign came in sight, that said that their road back home was closed due to an accident.
Luckily, Sheldon had insisted on always having a navigation system in the car for emergencies and so the robotic voice of the computer not only guided them through the unknown terrain, but also gave them an excuse for not talking too much and even put a little smile back on Sheldon's face, because: wasn't it just fantastic to listen to a robot and to obey its command?
After some miles, Sheldon realized that he knew the road they were driving on. He had been here before. Quickly, he took a glance on the screen. Yes, this was the place, where…
"Wow, wait. I wouldn't have expected that the navigation system would guide us here", Amy suddenly said bewildered. "Over there, the road branches off to Robert's house."
"I know, Amy, I have an eidetic memory!"
"That's the place where you thought about starting a family for the first time."
"I know. I only can repeat myself, I have an eidetic memory."
"Shall we… shall we just have a look there, you know, for nostalgic reasons? Maybe it lightens my mood…"
"Yeah, why not?"
Some minutes later, they parked the car on the dusty street next to the wildly growing hedge, that surrounded the garden. The rusty garden gate had fallen off its hinges and lay on the ground directly in their way. First, Sheldon considered to pick it up and simply throw it into the grass next to the path, but he was too afraid of getting his hands hurt at the sharp edges of the bubbles and holes, that the rust had left in the metal. So, they clumsily had to stalk over it.
By using their elbows, they went through the formerly sprouts in the fugues that had become young trees by now, that already towered above Sheldon at height and slightly whipped their thin branches over Amy's and Sheldon's chests.
When they arrived at the house, they saw that the garbage in front of it had been joined by even more broken electrical appliances and that the broken glass in the front door had partly fallen down.
Cautiously, Sheldon, who had been carrying his whining daughter on his arms, set her down and warned her to not go away too far. So, Rosalind went to the chopping chump, on which was still leaning the ax that Sheldon once had pulled out. Quickly, Sheldon followed her to take away the dangerous tool. Then, he saw the ladybug. It was crawling slowly over the rotten wood.
He gulped and gathered some courage. Then he stretched out his index finger and let the bug crawl onto it. "Look, Rosy," he said with a slightly husky voice. "This is a ladybug. Isn't it beautiful? You don't need to be afraid. Daddy isn't either. Almost…" Then he took her hand and let the insect crawl onto it. Rosy, who had been cranky all the time, suddenly became quiet and marveled at the animal.
This was the moment when Sheldon realized what he needed to do. He looked at his wife. She was standing in front of the pile of scrap metal, but everything he saw in that moment was her beauty, the huge bush of roses that was sprawling between the junk and the marigolds that were growing everywhere around her feet.
"Amy, I think we should renovate this house and then live in it."
"R-Really? But it's a huge pile of work…"
"Yes, but the location is perfect, we can get it for free and your Dad is a good craftsman. I'm sure he'd love to help us to renovate it."
Amy started smiling a little. "You really want to do this? I still can't fully understand why suddenly…?"
"Because this is the right place for Rosalind. For our family."
Amy's smile became brighter. "Are you sure? Away from Pasadena? Isn't that too much change for you?"
Sheldon laughed and lifted Rosy on his arm. "Who says, that change is always bad?" He nudged at her little lose, then he looked at his wife, again. And now, her smile was as bright as his own.
The End (very, very likely)
Dear readers of "The Offspring Undertaking", thank you all so much for your support, your reviews, favorites and follows! You have no idea how much it helped me to continue writing this story (well, probably the ones of you, who write or used to write in the past, actually have an idea of it, LOL!)
As much as I loved working on this story, I think it was time to let it end. I have told everything I wanted to tell and furthermore, I currently just don't have much time for writing anymore.
(I hope, I will at least be able to translate my older stories concerning the Shamy wedding, before the big day will be finally there in "real life", LOL!)
So, I hope, you liked this last chapter and of course the whole story in general. Since it is my first multichapter-story (or at least the first multichapter-story which hasn't been planned completely, before I started writing), I'm really curious about your opinion on the story as a whole :-)
Thank you all so much for your time!