Epilogue
A scream tore up my throat with nowhere to go as I jolted awake, panic seizing me as I struggled to move. The sleep paralysis was slow to retreat now that I was in the waking world and my fight or flight instincts were firmly caught on freeze. I lay on my side, frozen, panting, and fighting against my body for several long moments, aware of noises and voices filtering in from beyond the bedroom door, but unable to respond to them. Unable to even crack my eyes open until my body finally caught up to my mind.
At last, I was able to draw in a proper breath, scrunching my eyes more tightly closed against the nightmares replaying in my head like a horror film on repeat. I was free to move, but hesitated to do so in case the dreams were real. In case he was waiting for me to show him I was still conscious so he could start back in again.
It's not real, I reminded myself firmly. He can't get to me anymore. He's dead.
He's dead. He's dead. He's dead.
I sucked in another deep breath, counted backwards from five and let it out slowly. At the same time I started the process of taking stock of my body: wiggling my toes, tensing and untensing my legs, tilting my pelvis back and forth, stretching my spine, rolling my neck, shifting my shoulders, my elbows, and finally, as I splayed my fingers wide, I allowed myself to open my eyes, staring blankly at the crumpled sheets spanning the bed in front of me.
Continuing to breathe, I focused in on the noises filtering through the door, further evidence that my nightmare was behind me. The voices rose in volume - excitement, or perhaps a disagreement - it was hard to tell from the tone and pitch alone, but nonetheless, it was further proof that the scenes my mind had played for me while I slept weren't real. Reassured, I allowed my body to sink further into the mattress, relaxing little by little as I continued to breathe.
I almost jumped clear off the bed a moment later, though, when a loud whirring, grinding noise filled the house, swiftly followed by a series of clunks and an increase in the volume from the voices.
"Dios!" Carlos appeared in the doorway to the ensuite, his face half covered in shaving foam, a towel wrapped around his waist, and a washer cloth slung over his shoulder, looking all the more attractive for his frazzled appearance. He was muttering to himself in Spanish as he strode purposefully across the room to the door that led to the rest of the house, but paused to glance over at me when I shifted to keep him in view.
His brow furrowed with recognition and he seemed torn for a moment until the whirring, grinding noise started up again and his attention was drawn back to the situation unfolding downstairs. "I told Frankie she could make breakfast," he explained quickly as he opened the door and stepped out. "But I didn't realise that necessitated destroying the blender!" he added, directing his raised voice down the hall.
Frankie's muffled voice drifted up to us, smothered by the continued distress of the blender so that I couldn't understand a word of it. At twelve years old, she was more than capable of assembling breakfast for herself and had successfully used the blender and other kitchen appliances, but only under direct supervision of an adult. I thought we'd made the boundary clear, but the racket filling the house told a different story.
"Turn it off!" Carlos commanded, and for a second there was blissful silence. Until the arguments started up downstairs again, accompanied by heavy footsteps on the stairs as the children approached. A sigh fell from Carlos's lips and he looked back at me. "Are you okay?" he asked quietly, concern etching his face as his gaze roved over my form in the bed.
"Just a nightmare," I confessed, coiling myself into more of a ball for a moment before I stretched out my limbs. "I'm okay now."
"Babe." I interpreted his tone to mean 'There's no such thing as just a nightmare,' but by the time he'd taken a single step towards me, the children sounded like they had reached the top of the stairs, their arrival at the master suite imminent.
"I'm fine," I reiterated, shuffling to the edge of the bed and swinging my feet over the side. "It sounds like we have more pressing issues to deal with."
"You were supposed to sleep in," he pointed out. Holding up a hand, stiff-armed, in the direction of the children, he somehow managed to halt their progress up the hall and their complaints all in one. "Turn around and march yourselves back downstairs. I'll be there in a minute," Carlos instructed sternly. "And you," his attention snapped back to me as I reached for my robe. He crossed the room in three strides, and leaned down to press a kiss to my lips that ended far too quickly for my liking. "Good morning."
I smiled, and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him back in for another. "Now it is," I confirmed as we broke apart again. Dragging the wash cloth off his shoulder to wipe away the shaving foam that had transferred from his face to mine.
He stayed in my space, his hands braced on the mattress on either side of me and our faces mere inches apart as he scrutinised my expression up close and personal. "You're sure you're okay?" he whispered.
"Fine," I assured him.
We went through this every year. No matter what progress I made in moving past everything that happened with Joe, no matter how many years passed, I could never fully shake the nightmares. They were far less frequent now, thank God, and I'd learned effective techniques from my therapist to help deal with them and to calm back down once I awoke, but because they weren't a regular thing, they tended to hit harder when they did rear their ugly heads. And unfortunately, Christmas time was one of those times when I was more susceptible. Between the anniversary of Joe's death, and the reminders of the destruction he'd left behind, keeping him out of my head was difficult, even after he'd been in the ground for eight years.
"Don't you have some delinquent breakfasters to deal with?" I reminded him when he continued to hold his position. "Two counts of blender battery and disturbing the peace."
"Three counts," he corrected, eyes narrowing as he turned his head to stare down our youngest child as she appeared in the doorway. Her nightgown was still askew and falling off one shoulder from her crocodile-death-roll sleeping habits, the battered, hand-me-down bear she'd laid claim to over any of the nicer, newer ones tucked under her arm, and her hair was an absolute afro rat's nest atop her head.
"Sofia Rosalie Manoso, I think you marched yourself in the wrong direction," I said, keeping my tone light so she knew she wasn't in trouble.
"In her defence, she'd only made it halfway up the stairs before Frankie and Nate were on their way back down," Carlos pointed out. "It's the little legs, isn't it amorcita?" He pushed off the bed, swooping her into his arms in the same swift motion as she ran toward him, a cheeky grin on her face as she neared. I had a feeling she'd deliberately defied her father's instructions, but there was no proof, and her giggles as he swung her up into the air were too sweet.
"Why Papa has whippy cream on you face?" she asked , dragging a hand through the remnants of the shaving cream and lifting it to show him, like he wasn't aware.
I snorted out a laugh as Carlos caught her hand in his, gently drawing it away from her mouth, as her tongue sneaked out from between her lips so she could take a taste.
"It's not whipped cream," he explained gently. "It's called shaving cream, and it's not for eating."
Her eyes widened even as she leaned in closer to her father's face, causing Carlos to adjust his hold to maintain the distance. "But it looks so yummy!" she protested.
I stood from the bed, reaching between the pair and using the washer I'd stolen to wipe the foam from Sofia's hand. "I know it looks yummy, baby, but it tastes yucky-poo," I informed her. When I was done with her hand, Carlos took the cloth from me and used it to remove the majority of the foam still streaked across his cheeks. "It's like Mama's hair mousse," I added. "It looks yummy like whippy cream, and it smells nice, but do we eat it?"
"No!" she cried. "Yucky!"
"Exactly," I agreed, attempting to take her into my arms when she reached for me. "It'll make you sick."
"Babe," Carlos warned, keeping a hold of her so I couldn't take her weight fully.
I sighed. "The doctor just said yesterday that I'm healing nicely and can start to resume my normal activities," I reminded him, giving a little tug on Sofia to drive my point home. But he wasn't budging.
"I don't think the doctor meant for you to be lifting your 25 pound child seven days after surgery, Babe," he argued, tugging Sofia back toward himself, and despite the slight overbearing nature, I couldn't help but smile at his continued protectiveness, without which, I likely wouldn't have survived this long. "You've gotta work your way up to it."
A week ago, I had woken in the early hours of the morning with agonising pain in my abdomen, a raging fever, and a strong urge to vomit. Upon following my hurried stumble into the ensuite and witnessing my distress as the convulsions of my stomach expelling the previous night's dinner against gravity increased the pain in my abdomen to a terrifying degree, Carlos had placed a call to Bobby, describing my symptoms.
And with how well-versed Bobby was in my aversion to hospitals, Carlos didn't hesitate to scoop me up and whisk me off to the hospital when the medic insisted it sounded like appendicitis and the dreaded hospital would be necessary. In a healthcare miracle, I was examined rather swiftly upon our arrival, and before I knew it, I was on the operating table counting backwards from one hundred, and belatedly wondering who was at home with the kids.
They performed a laparoscopic appendectomy, I was later informed, and the kids had been home alone for a total of eight minutes before the nearest Rangeman patrol arrived to keep an eye on them while they slept, blissfully ignorant, through the night.
Carlos had intended to take the week off work to take care of me and the kids while I was in the early stages of recovery so I wouldn't have to lift a finger. On day four, though, a high profile client had very publicly accused Rangeman employees of using the surveillance equipment she agreed to having installed, to spy on her and her partner while they were being intimate. He'd made a valiant effort to run point on damage controlling the situation from home, but after only an hour, I sent him into the office.
He'd tried to protest that I was still supposed to be resting and shouldn't be chasing after the kid's needs, which was a fair point, since I'd winded myself bending over to pick up the grape that rolled off the kitchen counter while I was preparing Sofia's lunch, but we'd compromised by having Ella come sit with me and make sure I didn't over tax myself while he was away.
I spent the following two days with first my Dad and then Carlos's mom playing babysitter to both me and the kids, and while I loved them all dearly, I was more than glad when Carlos arrived home at dinner time last night and announced that everything was back under control and that he would be staying home today, hence the sleep-in I was supposed to have indulged in if the breakfast disturbance hadn't happened.
"Is hugging my daughter not an essential part of my normal day to day activities?" I questioned my husband, giving another gentle pull.
Sofia, for her part, was having the time of her life playing the role of the rope in our little game of tug-of-war. Giggling and grinning ear to ear as Carlos attempted once more to pull her back into his arms without causing injury to either her or me.
It all ground to a halt, though when that same whirring, grinding noise carried up the stairs once more.
"Frankie!" Carlos called, brushing my hands away and stealing back our youngest daughter in a move so effortless it made it obvious he had mostly been indulging me by engaging in the back and forth.
He deposited Sofia on the floor on his way to the door, and I was denied the opportunity to snatch her up behind his back when she hurried out the door on his heels, waving her finger in the typical naughty-naughty gesture and yelling at the top of her lungs, "Frankie!"
"It was Nate!" Frankie called back when the blender noises shut off just as abruptly as they'd started.
I shook my head and shrugged into my robe, smiling at the chaos that was my life as I trailed behind them. It seemed my life had always been chaotic in one form or another.
When I was bounty hunting, a family had never been in the plans. Hell, I could barely scrape together a few dollars for peanut butter some weeks, let alone budget for multiple meals and all the other expenses kids come preloaded with. Money was tight, work was sporadic and dangerous, not to mention my attraction to both Ranger and Joe swinging me from pillar to post every other week. I wasn't good at bounty hunting in the overall scheme of things, and my lack of interest and commitment to the training offered to me had been a major downfall.
As multiple people had pointed out over the years, I would have been a lot safer, and a lot more effective if I'd listened to people like Ranger who have more experience and gotten training. Problem was, I was extremely lucky. At least, that's what I thought. And sure, there was a certain amount of luck involved, but after a few frank and honest conversations with Ranger, and even a couple with Joe, after Francesca was born and I had more distance from the situations I had been in on a daily basis, I realised that a lot of what I had thought was fortune smiling on me turned out to be a hell of a lot of contingency planning, stress and effort on the part of others.
Frankie had been a real turning point in my life, both in keeping me safe, and in getting my life together. Suddenly I had this tiny human depending on me for their every need. I couldn't just sail through life and hope for the best anymore. I learned to cook simple meals. I implemented routines both for Frankie and myself. And learned to temper my knee jerk reactions to a lot of things.
The biggest 'thing' being Joe.
I'm not proud of how I let that situation get out of hand, but I'll forever be grateful for the support I found all around me when I finally found the courage, the impetus, to leave him. Support in the form steady predictable fact that Ranger and the Merry Men would always have my back and ensure my safety (so long as they were aware of the situation at hand). And support that came from unexpected corners of my family as my experiences brought me closer with Angie Morelli.
It was only Angie who truly understood my fearful tears when I learned my second child would be a boy. I couldn't live with myself if my own son grew up to be just like his father and succumbed to the Morelli Curse. Carlos understood the reasons, of course, but Angie had already lived the reality. It was only when she pointed out to me that my son would not be raised by a Morelli Man and the impact that would have, that I started to calm down.
"There's nature, and nurture, Stephanie," she'd said, staring me down over the steaming cup of tea she held between her hands. "Joe and his father's behavior was shaped more by their environment than by genetics. I did my best to point my children on the right path, but Joseph was already well into his teens when his father died. The foundation had already been laid, and the patterns were already emerging, even if I didn't want to see it or believe it. But you have an opportunity to break this cycle. Your children, while they have Morelli genes, will not be raised in a Morelli household. You had the strength to say enough was enough before Joseph died. I know you'll raise children who are kind, considerate and respectful."
And speaking of raising my children…
No one was shocked by the increasing time I spent with Carlos outside of work - because of course he offered me my job back as soon as I mentioned needing to get back into the workforce to support myself and Frankie - but it didn't stop the Burg grapevine from gossiping about it. For almost a year, we maintained the carefully constructed boundaries of the friendship we'd settled into over the course of my marriage to Joe. He was available if I needed to talk, or when I needed a handyman. He joined Frankie and me for dinner at least once a week, sometimes more, and all touches were kept strictly outside of the bathing suit areas.
Looking back, I think Carlos was allowing me the time to mourn not only Joe, but the innocence I'd lost by succumbing to his abuse, and to figure out who I was in the world again. It wasn't until three months after Nathaniel Luca Plum was born that our relationship became something more than friends, though.
It was a Thursday morning, I know because Frankie had taken to calling the night Carlos came over for dinner 'Wanger Wednesday'. And that week's Wanger Wednesday had gone off without a hitch.
Carlos arrived early, as per usual, and assisted with the final preparations for dinner, then stayed to help clean up, play a boardgame with us and then assisted with the bedtime routine as well. Frankie convinced him to read her a story while I fed Nate, and when they were both tucked in and asleep, he said goodnight and hugged me on his way out the door.
About twenty minutes later was when things turned to shit. I'd just turned all the lights off downstairs and climbed into bed myself, when Nate woke up crying, and nothing I did could set his world right enough to calm down and get back to sleep. At least not in a way that also allowed me to sleep. The only way he would stop crying was if I held him against my shoulder and rocked side to side or paced the room. Neither the rocking chair, nor the self-rocking bassinet were apparently good enough for his liking.
I didn't remember Frankie ever being this bad when she was a baby, but then again, I had Joe to tag team with, and he was actually present and attentive during the first couple years of her life. With no one there to take over so I could shuffle off to bed, I had no choice but to push through so my baby boy had the comfort he needed.
Things only worsened in the wee hours of the morning when Frankie woke up crying because she'd wet the bed and I had to put Nate down to deal with the wet sheets and pjs. So, while I was comforting one child, and assuring her that these things happen and I wasn't mad that she'd wet the bed, the other was screaming his little lungs out that he wasn't being held and rocked.
I got Frankie to help me get the sheets into the washing machine and set it to go while trying to get her brother calmed down again, and instead of juggling an upset baby to get clean sheets back on the bed, I told Frankie she could sleep in my bed for the rest of the night. Problem was, she expected me to sleep in the bed with her, which was just a no go with Nathaniel so out of sorts.
More tears followed, from all three of us, before she finally accepted that the best I could do was be in the room with her and drifted off. By five o'clock, I hadn't slept a wink, but Nathaniel had finally let me put him down while I went to the bathroom without so much as whining, and I took the opportunity, since Carlos would be waking up to get his daily gym time in, to call off work for the day.
He'd asked if everything was okay, and when I'd finished explaining all that I'd dealt with since he'd hugged me at the door last night, he let out a sigh. An audible one. "I can't do this anymore," he informed me, and I couldn't be sure, because I was fighting an uphill battle against utter exhaustion and the aching pain in my arms, back and shoulders, but I thought I heard his keys jingling as he picked them up from the dish by the front door of his apartment.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, tears falling and following the well worn tracks on my cheeks from the night's frustrations. "I just don't think I can function without sleep, and even if I could, I don't want to leave Nathaniel with my parents just in case he's coming down with something. At this point I'm pretty sure I'll probably sleep through my alarm, too, so Frankie will be late for school and -"
"No, Babe," Carlos's tone was gentle as he cut me off with another sigh. Two in the space of five minutes. I must really be pushing him past his limit this morning. "I meant I can't stand being on the sidelines and watching you struggle when I could be right there, sharing the load."
I shook my head, not really understanding what he was saying in my sleep-addled state. "You can't-"
"I can, Stephanie," he insisted. "It kills me everytime you tell me that you've barely slept because one of the kids was up all night, or you had to juggle making dinner, a million loads of laundry, and organising Frankie's show and tell for school, all on your own, and all with a baby strapped to your chest. I want to be there for you, not just as a friend, but as your partner. I want to wake up beside you, to comfort you when things get tough, and to celebrate the little victories together."
I could hardly breathe, let alone speak. Fresh tears welled in my eyes.
"Let me in, Steph. I'll climb down into the trenches with you. We can face everything together, as a team. I want to be the person you lean on, the one who shares every joy and every burden with you."
Maybe it was the exhaustion, and the fact that I'd just spent the entire night on my feet so my son could sleep. Maybe it was that he turned up at my door fifteen minutes later with coffee and donuts, kissed me fiercely, and informed me that I was going to get some sleep and he was going to see to getting Frankie off to school. Perhaps it was just the love I'd always felt for him, finally cracking through the walls I'd built around my heart when faced with Joe's violence. All I know is that I did let him in that day, and I haven't regretted it a single day since.
He found his place in our little family, and made everything just better. The hard days didn't disappear just because he was there. We still had sleepless nights, and tearful days, and hectic weeks, but it was easier because I wasn't shouldering it all by myself, and Carlos seemed to instinctively know where he slotted into the puzzle.
Carlos's transition from "Uncle Ranger" to "Papa Ranger" to just plain Papa to my kids felt as natural and necessary to my life as breathing. His relationship with Frankie changed only in name, since he'd already made a point of sticking close and showing her that she could always trust and rely on him to be there for her.
And as for Nathaniel, well, Carlos was the only father he'd ever known. It was Carlos who taught him how to ride a bike, and throw a football. It was Carlos that Nate took to father-son days at school without a second thought to the fact that he wasn't his biological father. And it was Carlos who Nate ran to to celebrate when he aced his math test.
We got married when Nate was three and Frankie was eight, and I thought our family was complete as it was. Carlos never expressed a desire to have another child, and I figured he was content between Frankie and Nate, and Julie. But as luck would have it, a miscalculation of dates with my birth control shot, and a vigorous celebration of our second wedding anniversary led to two little lines on a stick that would once again throw my life into chaos. But a good kind of chaos this time.
I'll never forget the fact that it was Sofia's existence that really made our patchwork little family whole. I was about seven months along, and we'd just finished clearing the table after dinner when the topic of names for the baby came up.
We had been tossing around ideas for first and middle name combinations whenever they came to us since learning that I was having another girl, and I'd voiced another couple of options from my position on the bar stool while Frankie was scraping plates and Carlos was stacking the dishwasher.
Frankie's movements slowed as she looked from me to Carlos, a guarded expression on her face that immediately had me on edge. "What's the baby's last name going to be?" she asked.
I cut my eyes to Carlos, but he didn't seem to be any more clued in than I was. And we hadn't actually discussed the baby's last name, so I did the safest thing I could think of and tried to get more information from my eldest daughter. "Why do you ask?"
She set the plate she'd been working on on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest as she leaned against the sink. "Well, my last name is Plum-Morelli, because you were with Dad when I was born." As always there was a slight hesitation before she uttered 'Dad' followed by a glance in my direction to ensure I was okay with it. I wasn't sure how much she recalled from that 3 month period of our lives, but it was obvious, even after all these years that she was trying to protect my feelings. "And Nate's last name is just Plum because he was born after Dad died but before you and Papa got together. But when you got married, you changed your name to Manoso, like Papa. So, is the baby's last name gonna be Manoso-Manoso?"
Now is not a good time to laugh, I reminded myself silently, squashing the insistent urge. Frankie was asking a serious question, and from what I could tell, the answer meant a lot to her. More than I could fathom. "No, it won't be a double Manoso," I assured her. "But, I guess, probably just Manoso?" I glanced at Carlos again for confirmation that he was okay with it and he inclined his head marginally.
Frankie's shoulders slumped. "Like you and Papa."
I nodded, but my brows were pinching together in concern as I watched her sink in on herself. "Mmhmm."
"You don't like that?" Carlos asked, sliding the dishwasher closed even though there were still more dishes to be filed away on the bench beside him. He wanted to eliminate the physical barriers between himself and the girl he'd come to think of as his own, I realised, watching him inch closer to her. Because there seemed to already be a mental or emotional barrier there that she was holding up.
"My and Nates names don't match you," she pointed out. "And they won't match the baby. Everyone will know that you're the baby's parents because you match, but everyone gets confused by my name, and Nate's name. They won't think we're part of the family."
"But you are part of the family, Frankie," I reminded her. "You're a big part of the family."
"But they won't know that, Mama!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air and inadvertently flinging a glob of mashed potato that had been clinging to the spoon still clutched in her hand. "You're not listening to me!"
"What matters is that you know you're part of the family," Carlos said gently. "You and Nate. You're never not going to be included. You know that, right? You're not going to be cast aside just because the baby's name matches mine and Mama's."
She let out a frustrated growl and turned away from us to throw the spoon a little too forcefully into the sink, and it clattered loudly. "I know that!" she agreed. "I just…" Her hands were white knuckled where they gripped the edge of the counter, her head bowed and her shoulders creeping up towards her ears. "I just wish I had the same name. Papa is more my father than Dad was. And he's not around anymore, so why should I have to keep his name?"
So this is what it was all about. I exchanged another more apprehensive glance with Carlos, unsure what to say, because changing the kids' names wasn't a topic we had ever broached. We'd ensured Carlos had legal parental responsibility for Francesca and Nathaniel, but at no point had we talked about the possibility of taking it further.
Had I thought about asking him to adopt the kids and change their last name to his? Once or twice. But some part of me deep down worried that it wasn't something he wanted. Afterall, he'd never suggested it either. And as the kids got older and gained more autonomy, I worried that it wasn't something that they wanted.
"Names are important, Frankie," he said carefully. "They connect us to our family and our history."
"Exactly," she agreed, spinning around to face just him, determination squaring her shoulders, lifting her chin and hardening her gaze even as tears brimmed in her eyes. "I want to be connected to my family. To you, Papa. If Mama can change her name to yours, why can't I?"
I sucked in a breath. Apparently, I was wrong.
"Frankie, come here," I said, fighting back emotions too large for my hormonal body to contain. I held out my arms for a hug and she reluctantly stepped into the embrace, wrapping her hands as far around my waist as she could reach with the baby rounding me out. "I love you so much. Papa loves you, too. And a name won't change that fact, but if you're serious about wanting to be a Manoso-" She nodded her head against my chest and I ran a hand over her curls, my heart aching for her. "Okay, let us look into it. We want you to feel included and part of the family, because you are. You hear me, Frankie? No matter what."
She sniffed and nodded her head again, and after a minute or so, Carlos coaxed her into a hug of his own, ensuring she knew just how loved she was and that we would do everything in our power to make her feel that way on every level.
Once the kitchen was set to rights, and the kids were in bed, the serious discussions continued. And the next day I looped Angie into the fact that we were thinking of changing the kids names and having Carlos adopt them. It wasn't to ask her permission, because they were my kids and they were their own people, but rather, a courtesy to a grandmother who loved them and who was weighed down by guilt for the trauma her son had caused.
And ultimately, by the time Sofia was born, we were a house full of Manosos, united in name as well as in every other aspect of our lives.
Except, when it came to supervision rules for the appliances, it appeared. I entered the kitchen amidst a full blown argument between Frankie and Nate, and took in the state the splatters on the cupboards and the hint of something that definitely wasn't food sticking up from what remained in the blender
"This is not the relaxing sleep-in you promised," I muttered to Carlos where he stood assessing the situation just inside the door and handing
"It's not the surprise breakfast I had in mind for when you woke up, either," he muttered back out of the corner of his mouth. He surged forward a second later when Nate picked up half a banana that had been sitting on the cutting board and reared his hand back like he was going to throw it at his older sister. Carlos caught it just after it left Nate's hand, and took a bite out of it before setting it back on the counter.
"Okay, everyone take a breath," he instructed, stepping between them. "Let's figure this out." The look he sent both of them in turn was steady and calm. He was in control, patient and ready to listen and compromise. Like a good father should. "I thought we were chopping fruit and mixing batter; what happened?"
Frankie's gaze averted to her brother a mixture of exasperation and guilt in her expression. "Nate wanted to use the blender, and I said he had to wait, but he didn't listen."
"I just wanted to make smoothies like you do, Papa," Nate argued defensively.
"I appreciate that you want to help with breakfast," Carlos said as he unplugged the blender. "But we have rules for a reason, and the rules about only using the blender and other appliances when Mama or I are around to supervise are to keep you safe." Tipping the blender towards him, he peered inside. His brows furrowed for a second before he reached inside and extracted a spoon. "We're really lucky no one got injured by this," he pointed out, holding up the spoon as it dripped smoothie remnants down his hand. "I left Frankie in charge, so you should have listened to her."
He dropped the spoon into the sink and turned to face Nate, who's head had been sinking lower and lower as Carlos spoke, his straight, dark hair falling in his face. He looked like he was about to cry. "Hey, it's okay, mijo," Carlos assured him, pulling him into a hug. "Next time, just wait, or ask for help. We'll make smoothies together, okay?."
He nodded against his father's bare chest, hugging him back. "Okay."
"And what about you, Miss Sofia?" Stepping forward, I lifted Sofia from where she had been standing on tippy toes to peer at her siblings over the counter and deposited her onto one of the stools, tickling her sides gently. "Were you helping or supervising?"
"Helping, Mama!" she giggled, and swiped her finger through one of the globs of smoothie on the counter in front of her, immediately sticking it into her mouth. She made appreciative little noises as she moved it through her mouth and swallowed, wiggling happily in her seat.
"It's yummy is it?" I asked, and when she nodded, I took her hand and swiped her finger throough another glob, bringing it to my mouth to suck the smoothie off. Banana, chocolate, peanut butter. "Mmm, that is yummy!" I agreed. "Nate, this is a good flavour! Why don't we clean up this mess, then we can make a fresh batch of smoothies to share."
"Yeah!" Nate grinned at the praise for his concoction, and slipped out from under his fathers arm, snatching the tea towel from its hook and jumping up to swipe at the smoothie splatters on the upper cabinets.
Carlos leaned closer to Frankie, looking from her to the mixing bowl in front of her and back. "How's the waffle batter looking?"
She made a face. "It got a lot of smoothie in it," she informed him.
Nodding, he picked up the wooden spoon and stirred it a little before scooping some of the mixture up and letting it plop back into the bowl. "I think it could still work. What do you think? Wanna give it a chance, or start again from scratch?"
She, too, contemplated the texture for a moment. "If it doesn't work out, we can always start from scratch later, right?" she checked, looking up at him.
"Of course."
"Then I think it will be okay," she confirmed, setting the bowl aside and grabbing another cloth from the drawer by the sink to start helping with the clean up.
I set Sofia back on the floor with a cloth and instructed her to wipe up all the smoothie splatters she could reach, then beckoned my husband over. "Have I told you lately that I love you?" I asked quietly when he stepped into my space, running his hands from my shoulders down my arms and causing a shiver up my spine.
"No, I don't think you have," he teased, leaning in even further so our faces were only an inch apart.
"Liar." I kissed him softly, keeping my tongue to myself in deference to the fact that the kids were in the room. "I told you last night when you came to bed." I'd told him with my words and with my body and just the thought of it caused heat to pool low in my belly. "I love you," I repeated for good measure as he pulled me closer. "I love that you never gave up on me, and that you chose to keep loving me even though I chose someone else, and that you make sure each of the kids feels just as loved. Every. Single. Day." I punctuated each of the last couple words with another quick peck on his lips, but he caught on by the last and held me there, deepening it for a moment before releasing me.
"I could never stop loving you, Babe," he assured me. "Trust me, I tried. It's the only thing I've ever been happy to fail at."
My attention was drawn over his shoulder as Nate rinsed his cloth under the tap, wrung it out then held it by one corner, swinging it around and around as he stalked toward her his sister. My Mama Instincts flared as the memory of Lester whipping Tank with a towel at the beach last July flashed in my mind, but my reaction wasn't fast enough to stop the attack. Frankie yelped and rounded on Nate, and Carlos turned to intervene. I caught him by the arm as the towel still slung around his hips slipped a little with the friction caused by his body shifting against mine, his hands darting to catch it before he was exposed. Honestly, I thought it was a miracle it had stayed in place this long.
"I've got this one," I assured him. "You go put some pants on." Dragging a hand over the stubble still covering the left side of his jaw, I added, "And maybe finish shaving."
END
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this story. It stirred up a lot of emotions for a lot of people and reading your reactions has been an honour.