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Chapter 9
SADIE
My world had become very, very small.
I sat on the bed in my new living space, a little studio apartment-type area above the garage of the house where I’d grown up.
It wasn’t a bad space at all. In fact, with the windows open and the fresh breeze blowing in, along with the lovely view of Mom’s garden below, it was actually pretty darn charming.
Dad had helped me with the moving, bringing whatever furniture fit, and putting the rest into storage. He’d even helped me put up some art and situate my potted plants.
Despite my protests that I could pay for my own expenses, he’d insisted on making sure the kitchen was totally stocked with good, organic food.
I was all kinds of lucky. There were plenty of single moms out there who didn’t have a family ? or if they did, their family wasn’t in a position to help out the way mine had been.
It was early morning, the light pouring in through the gently blowing drapes.
There had been more news to process, news from my first ultrasound the day before.
I wasn’t just pregnant – I was pregnant withtwins.
It hadn’t settled in my mind just yet. I’d awoken that morning with my hand on my belly, the dreams I’d had throughout the night being wild and random. I hadn’t been able to stop putting my hand on my belly, in fact, since finding out I was pregnant.
Standing in line at the store, sitting at my desk at work – whenever my mind would wander, my hand ended up on my belly as if motivated by a subconscious desire to protect the little one inside.
But now it wasn’t justalittle one in there – they were littleones.
A knock sounded at the door, the noise bringing me to my senses.
“Come in!”
The door opened and in stepped my mom and dad.
“Good morning, Sunbeam!” Dad stepped inside the little apartment, a plate of food in his hands. Mom, curvy and blonde like me, came in right behind him.
“There’s the mama-to-be!” Mom gushed, her wide smile a mirror image of my own. She was dressed in one of her usual flowing dresses in lilac and white.
“Morning, you two,” I said. I stretched and got the last little bit of sleep out of me as Dad went to work grabbing one of the dinner trays out of the closet and setting it up in front of me. “What’s this?”
Dad set down the plate. “We’ve got eggs and vegan sausage and some sliced fruit – just what a mom needs to get her day started.”
Dad was big and broad-shouldered, with gray hair thinning around his temples and a body solid from decades in construction, having started out at the bottom of a contracting company and moving up to owner over the years.
Mom held up a steaming mug. “And here’s some decaf coffee with almond milk. I know it’s not quite the same as regular coffee, but I bet your mind can trick you into getting a little boost from it.”
Mom and Dad were both born in the ’70s, and their carefree, hippy-ish attitudes reflected that. Neither of them had batted an eye when I’d told them I was having the babies without a dad in the picture.
Mom and Dad, despite being together since they were younger than me, had never technically gotten married. “It’s just a piece of paper,” was their reasoning, along with a mutual distrust of institutions.
“Now, guys,” I said, looking over the food. “As much as I appreciate all this – and I sincerely appreciate it ? all the good food in the kitchen’s going to go bad if you keep making meals for me.”
“Come on now, sweetheart,” Dad said, sitting down on the bed next to me. “You really think we’re going to let our little girl do the cooking and cleaning all on her own?”
Mom stepped over to a vase of flowers that she’d brought in from her garden, fluffing them up and checking to make sure the water level was good.
“Relax and let us help,” she said. “That’s what we’re here for.”
The food looked damn good, and the pregnancy had put me in a near-constant state of being famished. I plucked one of the veggie sausages from the plate and took a big bite out of it – it was delicious, of course.
