Elaine smiled at her phone as she responded to her father’s text message. She found it amusing how he never failed to send her one each day from the secure phone Damien had given her, even though he hated texting. He called it a nuisance of the new generation and the fact that he suffered through it showed her how much he loved her. Each day she learned something new about her father that wasn’t the scary mobster persona he wore and she loved it, she loved him. It had taken her a while to get over the ‘I wishes’ and ‘ifs’ and just accepted, that what had happened in the past had happened and she had a future she could mold to her desires.
At the moment that future involved waiting for Dale and Ellie’s twins to be born. They were all in the delivery waiting room, counting down the minutes until they stepped out of the delivery room holding their babies. The kids were on the floor playing, the younger ones were asleep in their car seats and the adults took turns pacing the tiled floor. Elaine found it hilarious how Tasha kept on going to the door trying to listen to what was happening inside the room. She was so impatient, it made her seem even more different from Ellsa.
Ellsa used to lay with her rifle in one position for hours waiting for her target to move into view before she took the shot. Now, she looked like she was tempted to go into the room and pull those babies out already. But that was the point of their future. Their pasts were dead and gone and never to be revisited and all that was left was a future full of happy possibilities.
“What are you laughing at?” Derek came behind her, wrapping his arms around her belly as he kissed her neck.
She pointed at Tasha, who now had her arms crossed over her chest and her foot tapping, “I give it another minute before she’s in there demanding to know what was taking so long.”
Derek chuckled, “Was she in this much of a rush to have her own?”
Elaine shook her head, “I don’t know. I wasn’t there, but I heard Damien got hit a few times.”
“Will you do the same to me when you have this little one?” he asked sweetly, caressing her baby bump.
She looked down at her just visible lump under her shirt. It had come as a surprise when she realized she was pregnant. But the happiness and excitement that had followed wasn’t. Even her dad had lost his mind. He’d risked getting arrested just to come and deliver their gift, which they had done in private. Derek thought it best not to tempt Damien and at the moment, her relationship with her father was so new it was best not to put any strain on it. The one time he was in the presence of her entire family was when he walked her down the aisle in the private wedding ceremony in her backyard. But he left immediately after the ceremony.
She touched the pendant her father had given her mother when she was born. It was hard sometimes not to feel sad or wish she had both her parents with her and that they were as normal as Derek’s. It would have been nice and they would have been happy. Very happy, that she was sure of.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
Elaine blinked back tears, “Nothing. I was just swimming in the ‘what ifs’ pool.”
He hugged her tight, “I’m sorry you can’t have everything that you want. If I could, I would bring your mother back and your father would live next door—no, that’s pushing it—the next town from us.”
Elaine laughed, turning to face him, “Thank you. But you, Katya and this baby we’ll be having, makes up for all that I lost.”
“I’m glad,” he pressed his lips against hers in a gentle kiss. It would have gotten crazier if Tasha hadn’t yelled ‘finally’.
They turned around to find Dale and Ellie surrounded by their family as they cooed at the babies and congratulated them.
“So, what did you have?” Dale Senior asked.
Proudly Dale announced, “A boy and a girl and the last kids we’re ever having.”
They all laughed at that, but Elaine could tell Dale was serious. He was done having kids. He just hoped he could convince Ellie of the same. The way she was staring down at the baby she had in her arms, she might just decide to have another. But late night feedings and functioning on no sleep would help Dale’s cause. Twins were even harder than a single child, and they had two toddlers so yeah, Dale may just win this argument when it came up.
She on the other hand… laid her hand over Derek’s resting on their little bump, she enjoyed getting pregnant and having babies. Considering her past, it was a privilege and a gift she intended to take full advantage of, especially with her easy work schedule.
She and the twins had started a women’s, with the occasional few men, self-defense school that had taken off. It helped tremendously when their sexy husbands stopped by to give a class on Saturdays. That day was their highest enrollment of the entire week. But since she found out she was pregnant, they had to hire an instructor and Ellie had taken a more active role in the starter classes, bringing some of her art students along, because Derek had forbidden—yes forbidden—her from engaging in combat at the more advanced classes she taught. It had been a standoff and Damien had joked she might shoot Derek again to get her way. But then everyone had started putting their two sense into the argument, all taking Derek’s side and Elaine had been forced to give in when her father called and forbidden her—she was really having a hard time with that—from doing anything that would harm his grandchild. Derek had told on her. It drove her nuts just sitting on the sidelines, but she knew her husband was right. She couldn’t jeopardize their unborn child just because she liked to fight, and surprisingly, teach.
Life was finally the way it was meant to be and Elaine loved it. She’d got her American dream; the house, husband, the kids, the dog, the extended family and a career she loved. Whoever said normal was boring had no idea what on earth they were talking about. Normal was fantastic!