(Violet's Pov)
The months would pass by fast and I was in my office currently filling out some forms for the new shipment that was supposed to go out by the end of the month. It was getting a little bothersome but we were able to fix what the issue was before it was too late. I hear the door open and I look up from the papers to see Clementine and she had the stroller with her. I smiled as I get up and go over to her and give her a hug.
"Well, hello you three." I say and bend down to look at the girls. They looked a little bored and to be honest I had to agree with them. I smile at them and I stand up and kissed Clementine.
"So, what are you three doing here?" I asked.
"Well, I wanted to know if you wanted to have lunch with us." Clem says and I look at her and smiled.
"Yeah, lunch sounds good, and a beer." I mutter the last part.
"Stressing out?" She asked as we walked out and I tell Debbie I would be back from lunch. We head on out the building as we talked.
"So, then they tried to get me involved with the lawsuit and I just told them I would give them the papers but I did not want to go back into a court room." I tell her as we sat at a diner and I look to the girls as they were in the high chairs.
"You didn't tell them why right?" She asked.
"No but they might ask… so right now I'm kinda stressed that if they do will they fire me?" I say and leaned my head on my hand. I feel Clementine grab my hand gently and I look to her. I sighed a bit and shake my head a bit.
"They might not fire me but if they do, I'll be looking for another job." I say it to her quietly.
"I know… well if you want you can work at the bakery while you look for another job, I don't think you will, you're very good at your job, and I doubt they would want to lose you." She tells me and I smiled a bit.
"Heard they're heiring people with fancy college education." I joke and she laughed.
"Oh, is my fancy college education good enough for your job?" She asked and I laughed more.
"Maybe… I don' want to go to school anyway." I tell her and she nods.
"No shame in not going back." She tells me and I nod as well. I look to the twins and they were just looking around at all the new stuff and I smiled at them. I moved my hand to Lura and she grabbed it making her smile a little and I look to Clementine who was also smiling.
"That's just too adorable." She says as she does the same with Diana and she takes her finger and moves it a bit making baby sounds and I chuckled.
"I love you guys so much." I say and I look to the girls. They take our orders and the server even talked to the twins and they tried to take her pen and I chuckled as I grab it back and hand it to the server.
"Sorry they like to grab things." I tell her.
"Oh, it's fine, they're curious little ones." She says and I nod and look to Lura who tried to grab the pen again.
"No Lura, you can't have her pen." I tell her and I grabbed her hand again but she just giggled and grabbed my hand with both her hands.
"Do you two need water for them?" The server asked.
"No, I have their bottles, it's fine." Clem says and she nods then goes and puts our order in. I smiled as Lura was just messing with my hand and then saying baby talk. We ended up getting our food and I just kept playing with the girls. Clementine was as well and I smiled at this. The fact that she was better made all of this better. I took a few bites of my sandwich before I would go back to playing with the girls so Clem could eat too. When we were done the server came by with the bill and I pay it and leave a tip as well. We had enough time and went to the park a bit for a short walk. The girls were having fun and I grabbed both of them out of the stroller and walked next to Clem with the girls in my arms.
"Papa is strong, isn't he?" Clem asked the girls and they just look and did their usual baby talks. When we were done with the walk Clementine said she will take the girls home, I offered her to come back to the office, my co-workers loved to see the girls any time they could. She said it was fine and that she had to get started on dinner and I nod and gave the three of them a kiss on the head. We parted and I head back to my office and I wave to Debbie as she waved back. I got back to work and was on a call with my boss.
"Can you make copies of the call log you wrote up for us?" He asked.
"Sure, I can do that." I say as I grabbed the papers from my desk. This particular office was well enough off that we had copiers so I didn't have to write it all by hand.
"Also… look I know you don't want to come to court, but if there is no choice you might have to come in." He says and I rubbed the back of my head a bit.
"I just… I… alright." I tell him.
"Thank you, I doubt you'll need to show up if we show your call logs." He says and I nod a bit. we end up hanging up and I got to work making the copies and when done I put them in an envelope to drop off at the main building. I rubbed my face a bit as I went through all the paper work and before I knew it, it was time to leave work. I sighed as I hear the roll of thunder and I look to the window to see some storm clouds and I rubbed my head a bit. I still didn't like storms. I was able to get home after dropping the papers off and before the rain fell and I get in the house just as it was sprinkling. I look to see the girls in the playpen and I go and give Clementine a kiss on the cheek and then I go and help with the girls. The girls were talking about whatever and I pick them up making them talk more and I chuckled.
"Did you miss me?" I asked them and they just talked to each other and I kissed their heads. I go over to Clementine as she was working on dinner and she kissed me on the lips and I kissed her back. I guess the twins didn't like the attention being taken away for a second because they put each of their hands to our faces and we looked to them and we laughed at this.
"Hey I'm allowed to show your Mama some love too." I tell them but they just kept their hand on our faces though Diana patted Clem's and mine.
"They had taken a nap sorry." She tells me and I wave it off.
"No reason to be sorry they had a long day, and so did you." I tell her.
"How was the rest of work?" She asked.
"Boring as always." I tell her.
"Well, I made something light for the night, heard another big storm is coming." She tells me and I nod at this.
"That's fine, I don't think I could eat a big meal, still full from lunch." I tell her as I set the girls in their playpen. I go up to Clementine and hold her from behind and I kissed her neck gently.
"How are you really?" I asked her.
"I'm ok, I promise, it's been a good day, I didn't have to call Lee or Carely over." She tells me and I nod.
"That's good." I tell her and she nods at this.
"Hmmm, I'm going to change into something comfortable, also I don't need to go to work tomorrow." I tell her as I leave the kitchen.
"Why nod did something happen?" She called out and I was grabbing some clothes.
"Something the boss is trying out, giving two days off instead of Sunday, he's trying to keep people happy at work and we all said it would be a great idea just to try it out." I say as I changed my clothes and took my suit to the dirty hamper. I come back out in just a pair of jeans and a grey tank top.
"Though it might make Mondays work load more… not challenging but a lot more work would need to be done, but we can fix that later." I tell her and I kissed her cheek.
"Well, I should be back to work soon." She tells me and I nod.
"Well, I can watch the girls on Saturday and Sunday, we might have to put them in daycare soon." I tell her and looked to Clem as she was looking at the food. She looked a little down so I place my hand on her shoulder gently and she looked to me.
"Hey it'll be ok." I tell her.
"I just… it's just… I got use to taking care of them." She says quietly and looked to the playpen.
"Well, you can take the weekdays off for a little longer, and we don't have to worry about money I make well than enough for all of us to be taken care of." I tell her.
"But you shouldn't be the only one taking the respo-." I stopped her before she could finish her sentence.
"Clem… I don't care, if you want to spend more time with the girls I don't care, spend that time with them, my job isn't that hard so I'm not stressing out, it's fine." I tell her.
"But-."
"Do you want to spend more time with the girls?" I asked and she nods a little.
"And you know Omar doesn't mind working on his own for a little while, hell I'll even drop by during lunch to help him." I tell her and she looked to me.
"But-."
"I don't mind it." I tell her and she just looked to me then to the stove. I kissed her on the head and she leans on me a bit.
"It's ok Clem." I tell her and she nods a little at this. When dinner was done, I grabbed the girls and we all sat at the table. I was helping Clem feed them their baby food and they just wanted to play with the spoons. I chuckled as I tried to do the little airplane trick or the train trick and they would open their mouths for the food. It made Clem laugh at this and I smiled at them.
"Papa is being silly, isn't he?" She says and Lura just grabbed the spoon in Clem's hand and I chuckled at this. When we finished dinner, I helped give the girls their baths and Clem got them changed into fresh clothing. We put them to bed and they instantly went to sleep and I shake my head at this. A week passes and I was with the girls at the store Clementine had said she was going to head to the bakery real quick to see if Omar needed anything and I told her to take her time and that I could watch the girls on my own. I hear some women talking and I didn't know them from any of the wives Clem talked to. They might have been new to town.
"Why would that woman be with that man? Look at his face." I hear and I just looked to the cans on the shelves as I listened in.
"Right? Maybe she was forced to marry him with a face like that." Another woman says.
"Such as shame, and she had to have his kids I bet." The women then giggled at this and I felt hurt at these comments. I know they shouldn't hurt; I didn't care what people thought about my scars, I know how I got them. I looked to the girls a bit as they got a little fussy and I was trying to calm them down.
"Oh, those poor children, being terrified all the time, having to look at a face like that." I hear and I just wanted to cover my face. My girls weren't scared of my scars… were they?
"I know they have to be, honestly that woman should leave him." I hear as they walked near us and I stand up and looked to them and they saw me looking at them.
"You have an issue with my scars?" I asked them. They looked to me a bit and then roll their eyes.
"I think you shouldn't be out in public with a face like that." One of the women say out loud.
"Your poor wife shouldn't have to look at a face like yours." The other woman says and I look to the side a bit. I grip my hands into fists a bit and I shake my head. They then laughed when I didn't reply and left the isle and I looked back to the stroller a bit. Clementine would come back but honestly I couldn't look at her. I feel her place a hand on my back an I did look at her a bit and smiled as I pointed to some of the canned goods asking if I should grab some. She nods and we finished our shopping for the day and we had put the girls down for a nap. Clem and I then went to the living room and I turned the radio on and held my hand out to Clem who just smiled and grabbed my hand and we slowly danced. Just these little moments made me happy, we might not go on many dates anymore but this made it all the better.
"If the weather actually lightens up by tomorrow, we should go to the park since it was a little cloudy today." I suggest.
"That sounds nice." She says quietly and she placed her hand to my face a bit. I could feel her tracing the scars on my face and I smiled to her sadly.
"Are you ok?" She asked and I nodded as we swayed more.
"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" I asked and she cups my face gently.
"I just want to know you're ok." She says and I nod.
"I'm fine… I'm being distracted so it's fine." I tell her and she nods. I take a breath and looked to the side a bit.
"You know… I heard some women… talking about my scars." I tell her and then look to her.
"What did they say?" She asked.
"Well, I don't think they knew… but it's fine." I tell her.
"What did they say?" She asked again and stopped moving making me stop as well. I look to her as she looked to me. I grab her waist and shrugged.
"Nothing I haven't heard before." I tell her.
"Tell me." She says and I sighed.
"You aren't going to drop it?" I asked.
"Why would I? If they said something rude, I'll go off on them, and any woman that say's anything about your scars." She says and I look to her. I sighed and shake my head.
"Why would a wife want a man with those nasty scars on his face… basically." I tell her and she looked to me and I could see anger in her eyes.
"But it's fine, it's fine." I tell her.
"Was that why you didn't look at me when I got back from the shop?" She asked and I looked down a bit.
"The… the girls aren't scared of them, are they?" I asked and I feel my chest tighten a bit. I know I shouldn't be hurt by those words but fuck, were they scared of them? Would my own kids say something nasty about them? I know they're ugly but I can't just get rid of these scars. I'll have them till the day I die.
"No, god no they aren't Violet, they love you, and when they get older yeah, they're going to ask how you got them and we just tell them… don't be ashamed of your scars." She tells me and I still felt bad.
"Yeah… I… I know those types of comments shouldn't bother me but… they weren't being subtle about them… and… I guess I just… I don't know." I tell her honestly and she kisses my scars gently and I closed my eyes a bit.
"I love you, and the next time you see those women and I'm near I'll go off on them." She says and I chuckled a little.
"I'll say something next time." I tell her and she looked to me. She pulls me into a hug and I hugged her back. It would be another month or so before we were at the Bakery and Omar was watching the girls as I helped Clementine in the back. The others had visited as well Louis especially.
"Omar, how are the girls?" I asked as I come by with a box filled with chocolates.
"Oh, they are just fine, they love their uncle Omar, don't they?" He asked them and the girls giggled with glee and I laughed at this.
"They love Uncle Louis too, but I think that's cause they get a new dress every time he comes." I laughed and so did Louis and the others.
"Hey I have to give my nieces a gift when I come." He says and I shake my head.
"You spoil them Lou, but they do like them, the women at the church said they looked adorable." I say to him.
"You've been going?" He asked and I nodded.
"Yeah, Clem comes sometimes but she said I could bring the girls to services." I tell him and Clem comes by.
"I'm not going to deny them the chance to go but if they don't want to go anymore, I won't force them." Clem say and I kissed her cheek.
"But we are getting them baptized." I say and Clem nods.
"You haven't yet?" Omar asked.
"Nah, but it's not a bad thing, my mom just wants to come and see so we're waiting on her next visit, she won't let me pay for her ticket." I say and Clem heads back in the back.
"Well, I wanted to know for their birthday if I could make their cake for them." He asked and I nod.
"Sure, I don't see why not." I say and go put the chocolate away and come back and look to the girls.
"Though I think Clem wanted to bake their cakes." I say and hold my hand out to Diana who grabbed it and I smiled.
"Oh, these will just be small ones, nothing too big yet." He says and I nod.
"Again, I don't see why not." I say and Diana tried putting my hand in her mouth and I chuckled. I then hear the shop bell ring and I stand up and see those women again. They see me and whisper to each other and I looked back to my kids. I know the others were looking at me but I shake my head a bit as I give my hand back to Diana.
"Hello Welcome to Everette Bakery can I help you?" I hear Clem ask and I just listen in. They ordered a few treats and then I hear them ask.
"So, what's with you and the guy with the scars?" One of the women asked.
"Pardon?" I hear Clem ask.
"Well… were you forced to marry him?" the other woman asked.
"Excuse you?" I hear and I get up and look to Clem as she had the look of horror on her face.
"Well, I mean he isn't good looking." I hear.
"That is my husband you are talking about, and in our shop." Clem tells them.
"Oh… are you scared of him? You know they have a group that helps women in trapped marriages." I hear and I feel that pain again. I also felt shame.
"Let me tell you two something, have you asked how my husband got those scars?" Clem asked and I can hear the threating sound in her voice.
"Does it matter?" One woman said out loud. I know she wanted me to hear that.
"Actually, it does matter… you remember the war a few years back? The bomb that went off too?" Clem asked them and they kept their mouths shut.
"Oh yes, those scars are from the results of that bomb, you have a problem with Veterans too?" She asked them.
"No, we don't we help veterans at the VA." One of the women say to Clem.
"It seems you do… and this shop is owned by veterans, and us three work here, and we're all veterans here… you want to talk shit about us?" She asked the two women and they looked to all of us. I knew the others were glaring at the women and they looked away from their stares.
"Or would you like to talk shit about me only having one leg? Since you like to belittle disabled people so much." Clem says and she was getting really angry at the two.
"We… we didn-."
"Of course, you didn't know, you two don't seem like the type to try and get to know people's stories before you make rude comments about them… talking about how our children are terrified of his scars, what kind of person says that?" She asked and I was about to go up to her but she looked to me and I could see the fire in her eyes and I back up a bit. Yeah, no she was not just in Mama mode, she was pissed. She then looked back to the two women.
"Your husbands been in the military?" She asked them.
"No, they weren't." One woman says.
"Well thank the fucking lord I suppose, you'd probably leave them if they came back with a lost limb or fucking scars, right?" She asked but the women said nothing.
"I think you should apologize to my husband right now." She tells them and I look to the women as they looked to me.
"We're sorry." They say.
"I'll be sure to tell the VA about you two and how you treated my husband, hell you see those two women over there, they work with the VA, they'll gladly tell them about how you two acted towards my husband." Clem says as she pointed to Brody and Ruby.
"Oh yes, I'll gladly tell every VA about you two, you'll never step foot in a VA with all the people I know." Brody says.
"I would have just kicked your teeth in." Ruby tells them and the women looked horrified at that response.
"Hey Vinny don't you know the owner of the VA here? Isn't he one of your other battle buddies?" Aasim asked and I nodded.
"Yeah, General Paul." I say and they women looked to us in shock.
"Now get the hell out of my store, and if you run your mouths, I won't hold back any punches." Clem tells them and they leave the store and I grabbed my arm a bit. The tension was gone and I shake my head a bit as I head to the back. I was glad that the others didn't come to bother me I just needed to cool off a bit. It was a good hour and a half before I went back to the open area of the shop and I looked to Clem as she looked to me.
"Sorry." She says and I laughed.
"What for? Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't punch them." I say to her and she shrugged.
"Bad for business but are you ok?" She asked and I nodded.
"Yeah just… needed to cool off." I tell her and she nods at this and I went back to the others.
"God how could women like that work with disabled Vets and then say stuff like that… nasty women." Brody says and I nod a bit and looked to see Lura grabbing at me and I smiled as I took her from Louis and she tried to give me a hug but her arms were still too short and I chuckled as I hugged her.
"Oh, I love you too sweetheart." I tell her. When she was done hugging me, I could hear Diana getting a little fussy and I chuckled and picked her up to and she tried to also give me a hug.
"Oh, group hug, let me in on that." Louis says and he hugged us and I laughed at this.
"Gross dude." I say.
"Gross? Says the guy that made out with Clementine." He says and I turned red.
"DUDE!" I yelled and he laughed and the girls giggled and I look to them.
"Don't be giggling, I just love Clementine." I say.
"And I love you too." She says as she comes up to me and kissed my cheek. The others had said they would meet back up at our house and Louis decided to take the kids with him and they seemed happy to spend some time with their Uncles and Aunts. We told Omar we were ok and that he will still get paid for the day and a little extra since he did come extra early too.
"Those stupid women." I hear Clem mutter and I kissed her head.
"It's fine." I tell her.
"No, it's not fine, women like that are terrible people." She says and I hold her hands gently.
"I know… thanks for… standing up for me." I tell her and she nods and kisses my head a bit and I smiled. We got back to work and many more customers came in. Clem and I worked and worked getting orders left and right and I was glad I had two days off. It wasn't until closing time when we finished telling the last customer to have a nice day and I was finished cleaning up the back and front of the shop.
"Well today was a good day." She says and I nod.
"I'm glad Louis and the others came; the twins really like them." I say and lay my head on her shoulder.
"They really do, I'm glad they have a big family." She says and I nod. I place my hand to the scars on my face a bit. Why did it still bother me?
"Hey." I hear and look to Clem a bit and she looked to me. She kissed me and I kissed her back as she placed her hand on top of mine.
"I love you." She tells me and I nod and lay my head on her shoulder.
"I know you do… and I love you too." I tell her and I feel her put her hand on the back of my head as she hugged me. I moved my head so it was by her neck and I just stay like this with her holding me.
"They are ugly though." I mutter.
"You shut your mouth, I don't care about your scars, everyone has them." She says and I chuckled at this.
"Yeah, they do." I say and she kissed my head.
"Come on, let's get back home." She says and I nod and we head on home. The next day would come and currently I was getting dressed up and I look over to Clementine as she was in her Sunday dress and I kissed her head an she kissed my cheek. We then went and got the girls ready as well and we told the others we would be back in a few hours. They said they would meet us up in town for lunch and I nod as we head over to the church.
"Aww I just love seeing these two." One of the youth members says as they looked to the twins and I chuckled. The woman's name was Sarah and her father Carlos is a doctor in town.
"Sorry we couldn't make it last Sunday, this little one was a little fussy and her sister wanted to copy her." I say as I hold Lura.
"Oh, it's fine babies can be a hand full." She says and I nod.
"Oh, these two are, but they're adorable." Clem says.
"It's nice to see you too Mrs. Everette how's the bakery?" She asked her.
"Doing just fine." She tells her.
"There is a new pastor coming in next week, heard he was a really good man, he's a veteran like you guys." She says.
"Oh, what's his name?" I asked.
"Bill is what they said his name is." She tells us.
"Hu… I don't know a Bill; he must be from a different state." I say and she nods.
"Yeah, he is, he's from Tennessee, anyway let's get these two to the Youth rooms." She says and I hand Lura to her and Clem handed her Diana.
"Now you two be nice to Sarah don't be giving her a hard time." Clem says and I chuckled.
"Hey they are always on their best behavior." I joked and we all laughed. Clem and I went inside and took our seats in the back and listened in on the pastor as he talked about the new comer and then read from the book. I looked to the stained glass windows a bit then back to the pastor as he talked.
"Be kind to others, you don't know how their life is… someone could be struggling in life help them, help all in need." He says and I nod a bit at this and I feel Clem move her hand close to me and I grab her hand gently. We kept listening in and I just hold her hand gently. When service was done, we went and grabbed the twins and a few of the other church people talked to us. We stayed a little longer than intended but it wasn't long till we had to head back home and set the girls down for their nap and I grabbed a cigarette and lit it outside.
"So how was the service?" Louis asked and I look to him.
"It was nice… talked about being kind to others and such, plus we have another pastor coming in, apparently he's a veteran like us." I explained to him.
"Is something wrong with the pastor you have now?" Louis asked and I shook my head.
"No, he's just taking some time to help his daughter in another state." I tell him and he nods.
"So, any idea for lunch?" I asked and he laughed and I smile.
"Well we haven't decided but we're thinking about going to that Italian restaurant." He says and I nod.
"Once the girls are up we can head out, they were a little fussy after services." I tell him and he nods.
"It's fine, they don't open till later anyway." He tells me and I nod as I smoke my cigarette. I touched my face again and felt the scars and moved my hand away.
"Hey does what those ladies said bother you still?" He asked and I shrugged.
"I just… maybe a little." I tell him.
"I would say don't let it but we all know that it doesn't work." He says and I nod.
"Yeah just… I don't know… those bitches didn't even know how I got them." I mutter and finished my cigarette and I snuff it out. I get up and stretched a bit. We head inside and Clementine was talking to the others and I take a seat next to her.
"Diana and Lura have a habit of faking their cries too." Clem says to Brody.
"Oh right, one would cry we go in and everything is fine, and then the other would cry when we're about to head out, and it's usually when they need to go down for their nap, today is just one of the good days." I say and we laughed.
"Oh, and then before Violet went to work, Diana would not let go of her." Clem says.
"And if Lura sees Clementine cooking, she wants to be picked up by her Mama." I say and Clementine nods.
"Aww that's adorable." Ruby says and I nod at this. It was an hour before we hear the girls and we go get them ready. We all went to the Italian restaurant and I was playing peekaboo with the twins. I held my hands up to my face.
"Where's Papa?" Clem asked and I opened my hands.
"Here I am." I say and the girls would clap at this and I chuckled as I did it again. The server came by and took our orders and we got the twins something small to try and currently Diana was holding my hand and Lura grabbed the same hand trying to pull me to her.
"What?" I asked and Lura just looked to me and kept pulling my hand and I chuckled.
"So has anything happened to work?" Louis asked.
"Nothing much we're just dealing the old factory trying to sue us but the company doesn't think I have to go to court." I say and stuck my tongue out at Diana who does the same. I smiled and kept playing with them and the server comes back with our food and drinks. I kissed the twins heads and we ate our food. I helped feed the twins the plain pasta they got and Clem would help too so I could take a few bites of my meal.
"So, they want you to go to court?" Mitch asked and I shake my head as I drink my water.
"Hmm no my job understands I don't want to but there may be a slight chance I could be called." I explained and went back to feeding the twins.
"But will they allow that?" Aasim asked and I shrugged.
"My boss is pretty good with keeping me out of things, he doesn't know why I don't want to be in that setting but doesn't ask why, which is fine." I tell them and Diana threw one of her noodles at me and I hear Clem hold back a laughed and I look to Diana who was smiling and her sister decided to throw one at me too.
"Oh, a food war hu?" I asked and took the noodles off me and threw them back and the girls giggled at this.
"Hey no playing with your food." Clem says and I smile at her.
"Oh, come on just a little fun won't hurt." I say and looked to the twins.
"Ain't that right?" I asked them and they giggle at this. When we finished the meal, we had decided to go to the park again, this was a usual thing to happen, after every meal we would just go to the park for a walk if it was a nice day. I was looking around the park a bit and I was holding Clem's hand as we walked and talked. The day was really good, and the next month was better. It was a few more months and the twins were just turning a year old and I was helping Clementine set up for the party as the twins were walking around or well waddling.
"Ma, Ma." Diana says and I chuckled as Clem picked her up.
"Yes sweetheart?" Clem asked.
"Ma." She says and I chuckled and she tries to hug Clem and I kissed Clem on the head.
"Pa." Lura says and I picked her up.
"Yes darlin'?" I asked her and she just keeps saying Pa and I chuckled at this.
"Wanna help Ma and I?" I asked the both of them.
"No." They say and we both laughed at this and I shake my head. We held the girls and they did help us a little or as best as they could.
"Do you two want… ice-cream?" I asked them.
"No." They say and we laughed.
"Are you sure?" Clem asked.
"No." Lura says and Diana looked to be thinking.
"No ice-cream?" I asked them again and Lura and Diana say yes this time and we chuckled.
"Ok, we will have ice-cream for the birthday girls." I say and they clap at this.
"Die Kleinen wollen Eis, Clem, ich muss ihnen ihr Eis geben." (The little ones want ice cream, Clem I have to give them their ice cream). I tell her and she laughed.
"I know you've been giving me lessons but I still can't understand a word you said besides my name and ice cream." She laughed and I chuckled.
"Deine Mutter ist eine wunderschöne Frau. Wenn ich noch einmal in den Krieg ziehen müsste, würde ich für sie und euch beide kämpfen." (Your mother is a beautiful woman. If I had to go to war again, I would fight for her and you both). I say to the girls and they just look to me and I laughed.
"I heard that." Clem says and I look to her.
"It's true though." I tell her.
"I know… I know." She says and I kissed her cheek. Everyone had come over and Grandma Everette brought some pies and the girls were happy. They loved her apple pies and they loved apples, just like their Mama, except they loved the pie whereas Clem didn't.
"Come on it's just a pie." Louis says as he ate a slice.
"I don't know why I just like apples not the pie part, but give me a cherry pie and I'll eat the whole thing myself." Clem says and I chuckled as I ate my own slice.
"Trust me, she will, you thought her melon with honey craving was bad? The moment she got ahold of Grandma Everette's cherry pies… nah no way was I getting a slice." I laughed and so did Clementine.
"Well can you blame me?" She asked and I shake my head.
"No, I can't." I say and Lura was eating the pie and I chuckled as I helped her with her fork.
"No hands." I tell her and she just waved her hands a bit and I chuckled.
"Well happy birthday you two." I hear and look to see my mother and I smiled as she came in with Kat.
"Gam." Lura says and I chuckled and She held her hands out for my mom and I roll my eyes and hand Lura to my mother who gladly took her and I smiled at this.
"So has that new pastor showed up?" My mom asked.
"No, he hasn't, been late by a few months, though if that's how he's going to act I don't think he'd be a man to rely on." I tell her and Diana was holding her hands out to me and I grabbed her.
"Military man, he was probably a desk jockey." I mutter.
"Weren't you a desk jockey?" Louis asked as he hit my shoulder.
"Hey now I was out with you guys doing a hell of a lot more than most desk jockeys." I say and we laughed.
"Ain't that the truth." Mitch says and I nod and grabbed my beer. Dina tried to grab it so I moved it away and we laughed.
"Nah this is Papa's drink." I say to her.
"Mine." She says and I hand the drink to Clem.
"No, not yours." I tell her.
"Mine." She says and I chuckled.
"Do you want a drink?" I asked.
"No." She says.
"No? or yes?" I asked her.
"No." She says and I chuckled as I hand her to Clem and go get her a drink. I come back and had one for Lura too and they were happy.
"Anyway, we were told he was busy with something but didn't say what." I mutter a bit.
"You'd think they'd say he was doing gods work but nope, nothing… makes me think he's not even real." I mutter and I grabbed my beer.
"Ma." I hear and looked to Lura who was reaching for her mother and my mom hands her over and then both the twins look to me.
"Pa." They both say and we chuckled. She handed them to me and they lay their heads on my shoulders.
"I think it's time for their nap." I say as I get up and take them to their beds and they fell asleep. I then walked out the room and went back to my seat and grabbed my beer.
"So did you hear?" Mitch asked and I look to him.
"Hear about what?" I asked.
"Remember that group Delta overseas?" He asked.
"Yeah… they get captured?" I asked.
"No… but them and New Fortier are apparently working together." He says and I look to him a bit as did everyone else.
"They wouldn't be dumb enough to start another war." I mutter and drink my beer.
"They might… they are stupid if they do though." Aasim says and I look to the table a bit.
"Well, we won't have to deal with that." Louis says and I nod and the party kept going once the girls woke up again. It was a fun day and the girls were happy and that's what I wanted for them.