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Although I’d say Bishop might just be certified obsessed.
The man cannot keep his hands off me!
Even being five months pregnant he’s still chasing me around the house like we’re both a couple of teenagers.
I hear a knock on the front door and wonder why whoever it is didn’t just ring the bell.
“Is the light on?”
“No, I turned it off before we started the movie. No distractions during ‘us time.’ That’s always been the rule.”
“Hmmm. I wonder who it is.”
We both get up and race to the door.
“First!” we say at the same time which causes us to burst out laughing.
Bishop opens the door and I can’t believe who I see standing in front of me.
“Amber!” I say and lean down to give her a hug. It’s nice to be able to lean in to give someone a hug. I spend most of my days looking up to hug my big Bishop.
“Hi Penelope. Hi Mr. Boudreaux. I’m sorry to knock even though your light isn’t on. I didn’t come by for candy.”
“It looks like you made out as well as you did last year,” I say.
“I did, but maybe even better…because of you.”
“Because of me?”
Amber looks up at her mother Ashley. I remember meeting her once and it actually seemed a bit contentious. She looks different now. Happier.
“Penelope, I’m sorry for the way I treated you when we first met. It’s just…well…I didn’t really like the idea of her being in Big Brothers Big Sisters. It made me feel like I didn’t have my act together. But looking back now…well, I didn’t have my act together and it took something like that to make me realize it.”
Out of the corner of my eye I see Amber’s little hand take her mother’s hand.
“And when I realized just how much I didn’t have my life together, and how close I was to losing my baby…well you best believe this mother bear’s ears perked up and listened.”
Oh my god I was not expecting this right now.
“And I listened to what Amber said about the times you two spent together. At first I was so angry I wanted to come over and give you a piece of my mind, and if I’m being honest, my fists. But I have to admit now, I learned from you. I listened to what my baby told me and I learned the things that made her happy and I knew if you could make her happy a couple times a week and only for a few hours, well her mama sure can make her happy too then. Am I right?”
“Yes you are,” I say. “You sure are.”
I watch as Ashley's eyes start to water and I can’t help but lean in and give her a big hug.
“So we just came to say thank you,” she says in-between sniffles.
“Thank you, Penelope,” Amber says and that little girl absolutely melts my heart.
“Thank you,” I say giving her another hug. I realize this is turning into a cry fest so I have do something fast.
“High five!” I say and I give Amber a high five and then think, what the hell, and give her mom a high five too.
“Wish you all a happy Halloween,” Ashley says. “And congratulations!” she says looking at my stomach.
“Thank you so much. And happy Halloween to you two too. And don’t be strangers!” I say.
“Bye,” they say together and then disappear into the night.
Bishop puts his arm around me and shuts the door.
“She was hugging you for a long time,” he says. I quickly slap him on the arm. “What?”
I start laughing non-stop for a good ten or fifteen seconds. I’m really emotional right now to begin with and that little touching moment was a lot to handle in addition to everything else that’s going on.
“I can’t wait until we get to take this little goblin around trick or treating, can you?” Bishop asks putting his hand on my tummy.
“No. I really can’t. I wish this was a year, or three, from now and we were doing that right now. Don’t you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“No?”
“I’m not trying to speed up time, Pumpkin. I’m trying to slow it down. I want as many minutes and memories with you as I can. We’ll get there when we get there and when we do it will be well-deserved with a lot of memories from now until then…and a whole lot more then and after.”
“You’re right,” I say.
“We’re right,” he says. “For each other. Forever and always.”
“Forever and always,” I say.
“I love you my Halloween treat three hundred and sixty five days out of the year, every year,” he says and we kiss.
“And I love you my Halloween hunk, every day, but what about leap year?”
“I like the way you think. That gives us an extra day. And by the way, did you say leap?”
