Charlie
To say the least, Dad and Aunt Racheal looked surprised to see me. Don gave me an approving smile. He was the reason I was there.
"Buddy, the baby needs us!" he had told me when I angrily explained that I already knew, no thanks to him. "It's gonna have Natalie as a mom!"
"Why did you lie???" I asked him.
"There are some things, people wanna announce themselves."
"I would have told you!" I snapped.
"Either way…did you know that statistically, older parents told to spoil their kids?"
"So?"
"Dad's gonna need us to remind him!"
"He lied to us!" I complained again.
"Buddy, can you imagine how painful it would have been for him to tell us Natalie had a miscarriage. Wouldn't you find it painful?"
"I guess so" I admitted.
In the end, Don's cajoling got me to come back, not to mention the fact that the baby would need his or her brothers.
I would still be mad at Dad and Don for a while after that.
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Finally, the baby, a girl came. Dad and Natalie named her Rachael, as my aunt had a heart attack a month before the birth.
Little Rachael looked a lot like dad in hair, and eyes. Her nose was more like Grandma Debbie's. Don and I fell in love with at first sight. She was so cute! This resulted in us fighting over who would get to hold the baby, and Natalie screaming. When they went home, Don and I visited whenever we could, though we could tell it annoyed the new mom. What mattered to us was that Dad loved our visits.
One day, when Rachael was about three months, I had her to myself! Natalie had sprained an ankle and had to go to the doctor. At this point little Rach had lots of black curly hair.
I took her to the park, and noticed a young father holding a baby, who wore earrings. Curiously, I asked him.
"Uh…does it uh…hurt the baby? I'm just wondering…"
"No" he shook his head. "Gigi didn't even flinch Did ya?" he kissed his daughter.
"Where did you go?" I asked. He seemed caring enough not to go to a shady person to pierce his daughter's ears. The guy gave me an address and some directions.
"Dad's gonna love it!" I thought as I put the baby back in her car seat.
"Can I help you?" a petite blonde woman asked.
"I'd uh….like to pierce my daughter's ears." I said.
She offered me a ten per cent discount on a pair of earrings, and before I knew it, the baby had them on her little ears.
"Aren't you brave!" I cooed at her. The earrings were small, and the most expensive ones they had for babies.
After feeding and changing her, I went to Dad and Natalie's place.
"I'm back!" I said, stroller and baby in tow. Natalie lay on the couch, with a small cast on. She had just recently started to work again, though for now it was only three days a week. The woman planned to go full time again in two months. She'd been acting weird, and going off the deep end. Dad blamed it on hormones and post partum depression.
"You're mother went through the same thing" he told Don and me.
"Hey sweetie! Did you miss me??" she asked, after saying hi to me. I gave Rachael to her, and that's when the trouble started.
"What the hell did you do??????" she demanded furiously.
"I got her ears pierced." I said simply. What's the big deal? It's not major surgery. "It's a simple procedure!"
"You let someone shoot holes through my baby's ears!" she said, while holding the baby more protectively, adding, "Last I checked, your name wasn't on the birth certificate."
"What's going on?" Dad asked, coming from the kitchen. Having a daughter had really made him happy, though the poor man had to deal with Natalie.
"Your son pierced Rachael's ears without our permission!" she told Dad.
"oh…….."Dad said.
"Is that all you can say???" she growled. "Look at her!"
"Nat, Charlie was only trying to do something nice" He defended me.
"Maybe next time, he can get her a tattoo. " she retorted and gave Dad a very cold look.
"Charlie's rather impulsive at times" Dad explained to Natalie to calm her down.
"don't use that tone!" she interrupted him. Poor little Rachael's face got red and she looked tense.
"Tone?"
"Yeah…that patronizing tone the…. 'calm down the crazy new mom tone' she insisted. The baby was still in her arms.
Dad sighed, "I was just trying to explain."
"What if she's allergic or her ears get infected, huh???" Natalie demanded fiercely and gave me a look full of daggers.
"I saw the procedure!" I argued. "All the precautions were taken!"
"Your father and I are the ones to decide what is safe and what's not." She scolded me.
" Charlie respects that we're the parents."
"He doesn't respect that I'm the mother…thanks to you!"
"Thanks to me???"
"I uh…have uh…tests to grade…" I mumbled, and left the house as quickly as I could.
TBC
