The gentle roar of the surf breaking against the shore woke Charlotte just past daybreak on the morning of June 13th.

Or maybe it was June 14th.

Charlotte had honestly lost track of days and couldn't say what morning it was with any confidence. A busy woman by nature, Charlotte, for what felt like many years, had led a structured life where she always knew the day, the hour, and even the minute. You simply had to when every moment was money and you had to keep track of a thousand meetings, appointments, phone calls, times, dates, and accounts. She was what the little Zoomer girls on TikTok in their mom jeans and baggy sweaters would call a "boss bitch." Or was that "boss babe"? From an early age, Charlotte had decided that being a stay at home mom with no life was not for her. Her grandmother was a homemaker and Charlotte always pitied her. That woman spent decades at home, missing out on life and all it had to offer. She knew as a little girl that she wanted to be rich and successful and to have her own career.

At first, she wanted to be a wildlife photographer, traveling the world, visiting exotic locations, and expierencing the power and majesty of nature first hand. She thought that it would be fun, a real dream come true, to live such a life filled with romance and adventure. As she grew older, however, her dreams slowly faded. Every child wants to be a singer or an astronaut or a princess when they're young, but eventually they grow up and their goals become a little more grounded, a little more realistic. Charlotte went to college, a good university, and got a degree in business…along with a heaping helping of student loan debts.

Her parents were well off enough that they could have paid her way entirely, but her father was adamant that she learn to take responsibility. "God knows most women don't," he had said. When she was younger, Charlotte resented that comment and thought her father sexist. Nowadays, she was bedgruginly forced to agree with him. Women didn't take responsibility. Then again, no one seemed to take responsibility anymore. They always passed the buck. Everything was someone else's fault. Everyone else should go out of their way to help and support me boo hoo.

That was not Charlotte. She had pulled herself up by her own bootstraps and frankly, it pissed her off when she saw people complaining on TikTok. Waaaah, I'm tired. Waaah, my fast food job doesn't pay enough. Waaah I can't get a date.

Jesus H, grow up and stop expecting things to just fall into your lap. It won't. You have to work and or fight for everything. Unless you have rich parents who pay for everything. She had rich parents alright but once she turned 18 and went to college, it was all on her. It didn't matter what her parents had because she personally had nothing. She hated her parents for essentially casting her off but now, years later, she was thankful for it. She thought that it made her a much stronger and more resilient person.

Then, after college, she started her journey into Corporate America. She was young, fiery, and filled with the ideals of modern feminism: Career above all else. And that's what feminism had become, a recruiting tool for corporations who convinced women that they'd find freedom in cramped cubicles and equality in fighting the same rat race as the men. A lot of the older women she knew were either single and childless or office moms who worked late and never saw their kids. The office dad used to be a trope in media…you know, the corporate guy who was never home for dinner, didn't have time to spend with his kids, wife was lonely and drank too much wine. Sometime in the eighties or nineties, men woke up to what bullshit that was.

Then women took their place.

Charlotte came to this realization fairly early on. She was so dedicated to her job that she'd stay until eight or nine at night. She had no personal life. No time to date, no time to meet men, hell, no time to lay back on the couch and watch Netflix. After a while, she got severely burned out. This is what she was striving for? To be overworked and have no life? What was the end goal here? Become a CEO one day? Have a mansion and a pool? Oh, people say CEOs don't do any work, but that's because, if they were truly entrusted with that position based on merit alone, they'd already done all the work. Twenty, thirty years of the same bullshit Charlotte was doing.

Is that what she wanted? To be a rich CEO?

I mean…being rich is great and all…but is that what she really wanted? Did she want to wait until she was old and gray to really start living life? But then again…what would she do if she didn't slave at her job? Sure, she wanted a family, but would she rather be a homemaker? No, actually, she wouldn't. She thought back often to her childhood dream of being a NatGeo photographer. She'd still love to do that, to travel and see the world, but unfortunately, that ship had long since sailed. She was locked into this corporate stuff and if she wanted a decent life, she had to play the game, put in long hours, and work her way up the ladder. It wasn't so bad, she guessed. And really…she didn't have to work so hard. Sure, to really get ahead, you had to push yourself to the limit, but she didn't have to go all the way to the top, right? She could work until she got to a cushy middle management position and then stop. As long as she made enough money to have a good life and then to retire at a reasonable age, she'd be happy.

Only she wasn't the kind of person to do things half way. She had a natural drive and determination, and if she started up a ladder, she wasn't going to quit until she reached the top. Call it a compulsion, an impulse, whatever you like. She just couldn't leave something half done. It was a curse, realy.

Like many modern women, Charlotte was torn between her career and her personal life. She had been told again and again that she should focus on her career, on being a boss bitch, that things like love and family should come second. In a way it made sense. The protiestant work ethic she had been raised with demanded that work come before play. It only seemed right and smart to establish yourself in life before marrying and having children. When she was younger, she had the impression that she had all the time in the world to have kids. Women across the country were waiting later and later, giving themselves time to entrench themselves in careers before having children. It was normal.

But unlike those women, Charlotte was a born pragmatist. It wasn't popular to talk about, and most women wouldn't even think about it, but the whole thing about women having a biological clock is 100 percent real. No, it's not some patriarchal construct meant to encourage women to start having kids right out of high school. It was a biological reality. By age 30, women lose about 90 percent of their eggs. And after thirty, the chances of their child being born with a developmental defect like autism or Down Syndrome increased expotentially. Getting pregnant became harder as time wore on (in general) and by the time your early forties rolled around, you were up against menopause.

And the sad part is this: Forty is around about the time that one becomes "established". You spend your twenties and thirties working and saving, but it's only around forty that many people finally find the kind of comfort and security that they talk about when they discuss putting off having kids. You sure don't have it at twenty-one, and you'd be damn lucky to have it at thirty-one. With the way the economy was, most people didn't.

She understood why you'd want to put off having children, but if you wan't kids, you can't wait forever. Human beings weren't designed or evolved to start having kids in their forties. Charlotte was in no rush to have children, but she did want them, and worried that she'd wind up like one of those crying on TikTok because they waited too long. She would have to take a risk and have children before she felt 100 percent ready.

Which wasn't really that big of a deal. Yes, the economy sucked, but people had been having children despite the bad times for ages. If people stopped having kids, stopped living, because things were hard, humanity would have died out 10,000 years ago and a better specisies, one that wasn't so chickenshit, would be in control of earth.

So in her late twenties, Charlotte decided to have children.

There was just one little problem.

Who to have them with.

Like most women, Charlotte did not want to date down. That is, she wanted a man who was her social and financial equal or better. She didn't want to have to carry the financial burden of the family on her own. Yes, some small part of her realized that this is what men had essentially been doing for hundreds of years. Men would marry a woman knowing that they would have to support her, and their children, on his own. Yes, she realized that men were dropping out and not going to college at such a rate that women now outnumbered them in universities, which would lead to a dearth of suitable men for successful women, essentially meaning that women would either have to one day adapt and become okay with being the sole or primary bread winner, or stay single for the rest of their lives. She did not care. Things were not that bad now and she could easily find a man on her level.

Or so she thought.

Because she was so busy with work, she didn't have time to meet men the traditional way…that is, in public. In fact, over the years she had noticed men approaching her less and less. It used to be that if she was out on the town, several men would come up to her. Now that rarely ever happened. She was depressed at first, thinking it was something about her, but many of her female friends were experiencing the same thing. For some reason, men just weren't going up to women anymore. She heard a stat that said something like 60 percent of men weren't even looking for casual hook ups anymore. Why? Was it because women's standards were too high? Nah, that couldn't be it. Of course women wanted a man who was tall, good looking, funny, charming, sensitive, strong, brave, caring, loving, successful, fun, outgoing, and so on, but they always had. It hadn't stopped men before, right?

Anyway, because of that, she started using dating apps. She had tons of matches with great guys who were handsome, successful, owned their own homes, worked great jobs, travelled, were smart, funny, and charming. Only half of them didn't respond to her messages and the other half were jerks who said and did whatever they could to get into her pants. She had many dates and even a few hook ups…not that she was trying to hook up. They turned into hook ups because afterward, the man would wind up ghosting her. After the tenth or so time this had happened, she sent an angry text to one of them and he responded.

He told her to look at the stats. Most women found 80 percent of men on dating sites unattractive and ignored them, all going after the same small group of guys. "Jimmy the Janitor might cling onto you and treat you like a princess because no one else wants him," the guy told her, "but I can have a different girl every night. I have options. We had our fun now it's over. Don't be a psycho bitch about it."

That made Charlotte so mad that she almost went to his apartment and burned it down, but she did not want to be a psycho bitch, so she just blocked his ass.

She did not take what he said to heart. He was just being a jackass, that was all. None of that line was true, and she would not be dissuaded. She stayed the course and continued dating the same men.

And got the same result.

Failed dates, hook ups, and being manipulated and lied to. God, men were so fucking frustrating. Why were they all like this?

She very well could have wound up a bitter old spinster with a fleet of cats and stacks of boxed wine in her pantry, but thank God, fate had other plans for her. She met Drew at a conference for young professionals. Though she did find him attractive, she probably would never havd walked up to him on her own…hell, didn't think she ever would have noticed him in the milling throng of people who crowded the hotel conference room. He came up to her, the way a man should, and struck up a conversation. They had a few drinks at the hotel bar and got to know each other. She found him to be intelligent, witty, and very charming. After the conference, they went out to dinner at a chic restaurant. By the end of the night, she decided that she really liked him.

That's why she made no effort to invite him up to her room. She wanted this time to be different, and if she did the same things that she had done in all of her past - read: failed - relationships, then it stood to reason that this one would turn out the same. If you truly want to make a change, then, damn it, you have to make a change, starting with yourself. Charlotte resolved to do that here with Drew. She wanted theirs to be a relationship that worked long term, or at least had the potential to work long term, so why would she sabotage it by doing all the things that had failed in the past? Isn't that what she had been doing all along?

This time, she vowed, she would do things the right way, the way they were meant to be done. She would take it slow and make sure there was a connection before going too far.

And there was.

She and Drew had similar interests, values, and opinions on life and the world around them. They meshed well together and he made her feel good.

They were dating for two months before they finally had sex. And at that point, Charlotte knew that he was the one she wanted to build her life with. They got married shortly thereafter in a lavish ceremony the likes of which she had always dreamed. They bought a house together and started trying to have children. After almost a year, she got pregnant with their daughter Angellica.

Charlotte had never been happier than she was during and right after her pregnancy. She had wanted a little girl to spoil and be friends with and she finally had it, along with a great husband, a beautiful home, and a good job.

Only eventually, things changed.

Charlotte worked long, miserable hours at MergeCorp and Drew, who got off work earlier than her because his position wasn't as high or, let's face it, as important as hers, had to care for Angellica in the afternoons. Their relationship started to fray and he began to resent, as he called it, "having to do everything at home."

At first she tried to be as understanding as possible. She knew she worked long hours and that it wasn't fair he was mostly responsible for Angellica.

As the weeks passed, Charlotte and Drew's relationship continued to fray under the weight of their unspoken emotions. The once loving couple found themselves drifting apart, their interactions tainted by resentment and frustration.

Drew's growing resentment stemmed from the increasing burden of household responsibilities that fell on his shoulders. As Charlotte's career demands intensified, she spent more and more time at work, leaving him to handle the majority of parenting duties. He felt overlooked and unappreciated, as if his efforts to support their family were taken for granted.

Each time Drew attempted to discuss his feelings with Charlotte, he was met with defensiveness and anger. She believed he was being unreasonable and failing to understand the importance of her work. Their conversations devolved into heated arguments, where hurtful words were exchanged and wounds were left open, festering beneath the surface.

Charlotte's guilt over neglecting her family only intensified her frustrations. Deep down, she knew that her priorities had become skewed, but admitting it to herself was a bitter pill to swallow. In an attempt to rationalize her actions, she convinced herself that her career success was essential for their family's future, that sacrificing the present for the promise of a better tomorrow was the responsible thing to do.

However, the more she tried to convince herself of this, the more evident it became that her family was paying the price for her ambition. Guilt gnawed at her conscience, but instead of addressing it, she suppressed it with bouts of anger and annoyance, directing her frustration at Drew for daring to question her choices.

The tension between them was palpable. They began to spend more time apart, their once affectionate displays of love now replaced by distance and silence. Drew sought solace in spending time with Angellica, finding comfort in the unconditional love of their daughter, while Charlotte threw herself even deeper into her work, attempting to find validation and fulfillment in professional accomplishments.

In the evenings, they often retreated to separate corners of the house, the chasm between them growing with each passing day. Drew felt like a stranger in his own home, while Charlotte felt increasingly isolated, unable to share the burden of her inner turmoil with anyone.

As the months wore on, the strain in their relationship became increasingly evident to their friends and family. Their once vibrant and harmonious home now carried an air of tension, with awkward silences and forced smiles becoming the norm.

Then it happened.

She came home one day to find a letter from Drew.

He had left her.

And didn't know if he would be coming back.

Charlotte was not overly surprised by this but it still hit her hard. Part of her wanted to work on things, for Angellica's sake, but another part wanted to end the whole unhappy thing. During their separation, Charlotte was an emotional wreck. She needed support and understanding. She turned to her assistant Jonathan, and while she was at her weakest, she slept with him.

Some women might blame or resent Jonathan in this situation, feeling, that he took advantage of her fraught emotional state. That, of course, is because, as much as Charlotte hated to say it, many women cannot take responsibility for their own actions. Jonathan did nothing wrong. Neither, for that matter, did she. It was just a thing that happened.

She held out hope that Drew would come back to her but she discovered a shocking secret. He had been cheating on her for years and had another woman pregnant. In an instant, her happy family was dead, gone, and it was never coming back.

Jonathan was there for her through it all. He was not the sort of man she would usually go for, but his was a beautiful soul and she fell deeply in love with him.

So they got married.

That was a week ago…or maybe more. After the wedding, they left for their honeymoon, and that's where they were today, in a private beach house on an exotic island in the Carribean. Charlotte stretched and pushed the sheets aside to sit up. Next to her, Jonathan was asleep, his chest bare. She had never imagined that his body was so muscular and well defined beneath his tailored silk suits. She stared at him for a moment, and a tingle went through her pussy. She laid her hand on his rippled chest and trailed it down. She pushed she sheet away and revealed his dick. It was big and juicy and beautiful.

She wanted it.

Right now.

Lifting her night dress slightly around her hips, she crawled onto him, planted her hands on either side of him, and gently rubbed her pussy against his prick. He stirred, and his penis began to harden even before he was awake. She leaned in and kissed him, sucking his bottom lip into her mouth. His eyes fluttered open and she smiled. "Good morning," she said.

The sleep cleared from his eyes like mist burning away in the sun and he smiled back. "Good morning," he replied. He ran his hands up and down her sides, and Charlotte tilted her head to kiss him. Their tongues gently massaged one another as she sank herself onto his now rock hard dick. She sighed into his mouth and Jonathan reached around her hips to grab her bare butt in both hands. He pulled her deeper into him, and Charlotte thrusted harder, taking him all the way to the back of her womb and jerking slightly at the sensation of him touching her cervix. It was a feeling of both pain and pleasure. Jonathan lifted his hips to meet her, and they clung to each other as they came, his seed filling her to the brim and every nerve ending in her body firing at once. When it was over, she rolled off of him and he held her in his arms, his sperm leaking from her center and sticking to her inner thighs.

It was their last day on the island. Tomorrow they would sail back home and start their new lives together. There were so many things that they both wanted to do before they had to leave and get back to reality, but they mutually decided to spend most of the day in bed together. That was the place where both of them wanted to be the most.

Around dinner time, they dressed and walked hand and hand to the little resort town about a mile away. The narrow streets were packed with shops, restaurants, and night clubs. They had dinner at a nice seafood place and then went to one of the clubs. Charlotte had never been a huge clubgoer but in her youth she enjoyed them enough. Tonight, however, she learned something about herself: Somewhere over the last few years, she had changed into an old woman. The music was too loud, the strobing lights gave her a headache, and the general atmosphere wasn't fun. The place did nothing for her.

She guessed she was too old for that kind of thing.

Jonathan wasn't enjoying himself either, so after about fifteen minutes, they left and walked back to the house, where they took a long, moon lit stroll on the beach - Charlotte going bare foot and carrying her heels - and talked about their future together. Charlotte worried about how Angellica - staying with Stu and DeeDee - would take to Jonathan as a new father figure.

He was even more nervous than she was. He had the strangest idea that Angellica didn't like him. "She just needs time to adjust," Charlotte said, "that's all."

He gave her a nervous chuckle and squeezed her hand. "Of course," he said, "that's it."

For some reason, it didn't sound like he was convinced.

Oh well. It would be an adjustment for all of them, especially poor Angellica. She was so young and her life had changed so drastically in such a short amount of time. Not only did Charlotte and Jonathan get married but she had a new baby brother from Drew.

And things, Charlotte imagined, would continue to change as time wore on.

The next day, she and Jonathan sailed back to the States and settled into their life together. They had sold the house next to Stu and DeeDee's and bought one a block over, mainly because they both wanted a fresh start and a place that was distinctly and uniquely theirs. It was two stories and uber modern with a conversation pit in the living room and glass walls in the back. Angellica got to design her own bedroom. It was blindingly pink, from the ceiling to the floor, and had a window box where she could sit and look out at the street. The move, along with everything else, was really hard on her. She was having trouble sleeping at night and was acting out, sometimes at school, which she had just started, and sometimes at home. Charlotte observed that she did, in fact, treat Jonathan coldly. Charlotte sat her down and they had a little talk about the situation. "Jonathan is a very nice man and I love him very much. I wish that you would be a little nicer to him."

"I miss Daddy," Angellica said.

"I know, honey," Charlotte said, "and your daddy loves you very much. Jonathan doesn't want to replace your father, he just wants to be your friend. I wish you would try to be his friend."

To achieve that goal - the one of getting Jonathan and Angellica to bond - Charlotte suggested to Jonathan one night in bed that he spend the day with Angellica. "You should go somewhere fun together," Charlotte said.

"I don't know," Jonathan worried. "I'm in favor of it in principle but I don't know if it would be such a good idea at the present moment. Our relationship is…fragile and without you there I just…" he trailed off.

"It'll be fine," Charlotte assured him.

To seal the deal, she slipped under the covers, pulled his dick out of his boxers, and wrapped her lips around his shaft, pumping him with her wet little mouth until he shot his hot, slimy load down the back of her throat. She pulled off of his dick with a plop and placed a gentle little kiss on the tip of his dick. "Alright," Jonathan said, taking her into his arms. "What do you suggest?"

Leaning over, she reached into the drawer of her nightstand and pulled out two tickets. "It's already arranged," she said.

Jonathan chuckled. "I should have known that you would be ahead of the curve." He plucked the tickets out of her and studied them. He raised a quizzical brow and turned to Charlotte. "Are you sure that she'll like this?" he asked.

"Positive," Charlotte said with the utmost confidence.

"Alright," he said.

A week and a half later, Jonathan took Angellica to see Cynthina on Ice. When Charlotte told Angellica about hers and Jonathan's upcoming adventure, the little girl's face lit up. Jonathan seemed nervous about the whole thing, but gamely carried on, and for that, Charlotte was both infinitely grateful and very proud. On the way there, Angellica sat in her car seat and played with her doll, and Jonathan anxious looked in the rearview mirror, waiting for her to do something horrible, but she never did.

The theater where the event was held was packed with screaming kids and their parents. Jonathan had a headache by the time it was over and his ears rang from the loud acoustics. On the way back to the car, Angellica skipped and danced around singing songs from the show and making her Cynthia doll fly through the air like an airplane. On the way home, they stopped for ice cream. They sat at a picnic table and Angellica licked her cone while kicking her feet back and forth. "So," she said, looking at the cone rather than at Jonathan, "you wanna be friends, huh?"

"Yes," Jonathan said at lengh, slightly guarded, as though expecting a hammer to drop on him at any moment. "I would like that very much."

Angellica seemed to think it over for a minute. "Okay, you're not so bad, I guess."

And that was that. His and Angellica's relationship improved from that point forward.

Around this time, Charlotte started feeling ill in the morning. She thought at first that she had eaten something off, but the third time it happened, she decided to take a pregnancy test. It wound up being positive. She was going to have a baby.

She told Jonathan on a Friday night. They were sitting up in bed, the TV on in front of them. "So…I have something to tell you," she said as lightly as casually as she could.

"What's that?" Jonathan asked.

"I'm pregnant," she said.

Jonathan whipped his head around so fast that he almost broke his neck. "You are?" he asked.

She nodded.

His face lit up and he took her in his arms. "That's great," he said. "How far along are you?"

She did some quick calculations in her head. "About three weeks," she said.

"That's amazing," he said and hugged her tightly.

They had talked about having children before. Charlotte always wanted another one and Jonathan wanted to be a father as well. They had decided not to use protection and to let things happen in their own time. Now there was new life growing inside of her and in just a few months' time, she and Jonathan would have a child of their own.

Every so often, when Charlotte dropped Angellica off at Stu and DeeDee's, she would bump into Drew. At first, they hardly even looked in each other's direction. He would scurry away from her like a rat who'd done something wrong, and she would stew for an hour or so afterwards. She felt that he owed her an apology. He had, after all, spent a year cheating on her. While she was at work providing for their family, he was off getting laid with some bitch who knew he had a wife. Yes, she maybe worked too many hours, a pitfall that she intended to avoid this time around, but even so, she was doing the right thing for the right reasons. He, on the other hand, was cheating on her, betraying her trust and breaking the sacred marriage vows that they had shared on their wedding day. That was a pretty big fucking deal. She was willing to forgive and forget for Angellica's sake, but she was just proud enough that she wouldn't make the first move.

Slowly over time, however, they began to acknowledge one another. That started around the time Charlotte started to show her pregnancy. Drew made small talk with her and danced around the subject, wanting to know but not wanting to come right out and ask her. She took pity on him and mentioned that she was pregnant. "That's great," he said, "I'm really happy for you guys. How is Angellica taking it?"

"Well," Charlotte said.

She and Jonathan had told Angellica a week before, and Angellica was fascinated by the fact that her mother had a baby growing inside of her. "How did the baby get in there?" she asked, her forehead wrinkling with confusion.

"Jonathan put it there," she answered honestly.

Beside her, Jonathan visibly cringed. Later on, he said, "You shouldn't have put it that way."

"Why not?" Charlotte asked. "It's the truth."

"True, but she's three, and…" he shuddered.

She thought it was funny that he was so grossed out by the way she phrased it. At heart, he was a fairly conservative man in such matters ,and she liked that about him.

After Drew congratulated her, they became friendlier. To be clear, there were no lingering feelings between them. She did not miss him, she did not want him back. For a long time, she hated him with such intensity that it burned inside of her like a ball of gas. After marrying Jonathan and getting pregnant, however, those feelings slowly subsided. She had no reason to hang onto them anymore. Things had worked out for the best. Drew had found someone else, she had found someone else, they were both living new and happy lives, why tarnish that by holding onto old animosities? One day when Charlotte was three months along, she and Drew went out for coffee together, and he apologized for cheating on her.

"You didn't deserve to be treated that way," he said. "I just…I don't know, with you at work so much, I started to feel…" here he shrugged a little and trailed off. Charlotte waited patiently for him to continue, already having an idea what he was going to say. "I guess I felt neglected," he finally finished. "I tried to be strong, but it hurt me emotionally and I was too weak to just come outright and tell you how I felt. Instead, I acted like a jerk and then…" he trailed off again. Cheated on you, is what Charlotte thought he wanted to say, but he clearly didn't want to put that into words. She wished that he would, but she understood how hard it must be to admit to such a terrible wrongdoing in so many words.

"You were right," she said, "I did spend too much time at work. Even when I didn't have to. I just got caught up in the idea of being some boss bitch, and had it in my head that I had to grind ten times as hard as anyone else just to prove that to the world. And to myself."

They had both made mistakes in their relationship, and the reason it had broken down was the reason that most relationships broke down: They didn't communicate effectively enough. They were both proud and stubborn people who saw only their own end of the argument and not the other's. And even when they did, they did so through a prism of their own bias. What Drew did was wrong, but so was what Charlotte had done. She realized that now and had been making an effort to not spend so much of her life at work. Sometimes you had to stay late. That was the nature of the beast. But many times, you could put what you're doing off until tomorrow and go home at a reasonable time. She wanted to have both a career and a family, and like many modern working women, she subconsciously put more emphasis on her career.

Society tells you that, as a woman, you should be strong, independent, and work like a dog because…that's the way to happiness? She thought back to her high school history class. If she remembered correctly, the legend FREEDOM THROUGH WORK was etched onto the gate leading into Ascuzhiwtz, the infamous Nazi death camp. That reminded her a lot of what women are told today. That they would gain freedom and happiness through work. If you're passionate about something and want to do it, do it, but don't lose sight of the fact that family is the most important thing of all. Your family will be there for you when you're down. They'll love you when no one else will. What can you get from a corporation? Does your boss love you? Does the Chief Diversity Officer love you? Does HR? No, you're just another employee to them. They could replace you in a minute and think nothing of it. And after giving your life to them, they might throw you a little party in the day room.

A lot of young women today have some warped and distorted view of what family is. They've been brainwashed into becoming good little corporate slaves and have learned to be happy going home to an empty house at the end of the day, into believing that work is all they needed. No, people need love, affection, family, and community. Those are the real important things. Those are the things that really mattered at the end of the day. Your boss and coworkers won't miss you when you're gone. Neither will your cat or the long string of men you hooked up with from Tinder. Having a family often changed a person for the better. Working in a stuffy office all day…did that make you a better human being? So what, you can vacation in France. Great. Charlotte would rather watch her daughter open presents on Christmas morning. Those were the memories that counted, not memories of touring some old fucking building in Rome.

If that's what women wanted now, fine, but to Charlotte, that seemed an ultimately meaningless, empty, and vapid life.

She loved being a working woman but from now on, she would put family first.

In other words, she had learned from her mistakes.

She only wished that other women would learn from them too.

During her pregnancy, Jonathan was right there to help her and support her in every way he could. He loved touching her stomach, especially when the baby kicked. He would press his ear to her belly and listen, and smile when he felt their child moving inside of her. They spent many long hours talking about and planning for the future. When they found out that they were having a girl, they painted one of the spare rooms pink and turned it into a nursery. They decided on the name Emily and eagerly waited their daughter's arrival. Angellica was excited to have a little sister and wanted to "teach her to be just like me."

Things were perfect.

On December 15, Charlotte, big as a house, went into labor. She already had everything she would need packed and ready to go in a bag by the door. Jonathan panicked a little but managed to regain his senses again. They dropped Angellica off at Stu and DeeDee's then went to the hospital.

Charlotte did not relish giving birth, as it hurt like hell. She was in labor for almost twelve hours, the contractions becoming more and more powerful and closer together until she was wracked with pain and covered in sweat. Veins stood out on the side of her neck and she squeezed Jonathan's hand in a death grip. She hurled abuse at him and swore that she would never let hm touch her again, but she didn't mean it.

Finally, their little girl was born at 12:10 am and the moment Charlotte had her in her arms, she broke down crying. She was beautiful and Chalotte instantly loved her.

The next day Angellica and the other kids came to visit them. Charlotte and Jonathan both beamed with happiness. This was a happy moment and thought it had taken a lot to get here, Charlotte was overjoyed and already thinking of having another.

Though life had had its ups and downs, it was perfect now, and Charlotte wouldn't have it any other way.