Epilogue Part Two (They Made a Life)
EPOV
Six Weeks Later
It was two in the morning and as much as I was completely in love with my son, I kind of wanted to sit him outside on the porch right about then. I swore I had just laid my head down on the pillow, but when I looked at the clock on the bedside table I realized that I had already been asleep for nearly four hours, Bella having taken the last feeding at eleven. She rolled over and sat up on what I was sure was pure instinct at this point. We were wearing our proud new parent stripes in the form of under-eye bags that size of Texas.
I guided her back down to the bed, knowing that she wasn’t fully awake. “Go back to sleep, baby girl. I’ve got him. It’s my turn.”
“Mmkay,” she mumbled. She rolled onto her side to face me. I didn’t think she ever completely slept when I did a feeding. She liked to curl around us and snuggle up too much and I wasn’t gonna lie…I loved it. I had my best girl cuddled up next to me while I held my best boy in my arms; what could be better than that?
I reached over into the cradle to pick up my little bud, who’s desire to be fed had escalated from the sounds of soft snorts and squeaks to what sounded like a mad kitten at that point. I still couldn’t get over that sound; it was sweet and crazy and music to my ears…just not at two a.m.
With sleepy eyes I dumped the premeasured powdered formula into the premeasured water in the bottle and started shaking it up while my little bud started smacking his little lips.
“Coop, what were we thinking when we chose the bottle over the breast, huh?” His wide eyes looked dark in our room that was only lit by the night light that we kept by his cradle, but I knew better. His hair was starting to rub out a little bit in the back, but the top fuzz was still there and chocolate brown, just like his mama’s. His eyes were still blue, not at all murky looking. I was betting they would turn green and Bella was praying that was a bet that I won. Other than her hair color, he had her little up-turned nose and that was it. Everything else was pure Edward Cullen. Bless his heart. I could only pray that he got his mama’s attitude and personality otherwise we were going to be butting heads like two rams.
“I’m just surprised your son took to a bottle over the breast,” Bella giggled.
I reached over and patted her hip, “Trust me babe. I would never choose anything over your boobs. Well…”
“Hush. I get my clearance today and it’s not like you’ve been neglected.” She was right. She had taken care of me for sure.
Once my man gulped down his bottle and let out a Cullen sized belch, we were all back to sleep before too long. I loved these quiet times in the middle of the night, as sweet as they were, but I was ready for the rascal to sleep through the night and move into his room so that I could get back to lovin’ on my wife, dang it!
Six Months later…
“Say Da-Da. Da-Da. Daaaaa Daaaaaa.” My child looked at me like I was stupid. The little turkey was supposed to like me better, but what does he say first? Mama. Of course.
“Say Cooper Scooper! That’s one’s funnier,” my idiot brother said to Cooper.
I shook my head at him. Bella had gone into work for a few hours and while I was still out of school for summer vacation, I had taken Cooper out for some fresh air to the park with Emmett, Riley and Ally. It was Daddy’s Day Out with the kids and oddly enough, we didn’t look out of place.
“Don’t do it Em. You know she warned you about that and you also know that she’ll do it.” His response was a scowl, I’m sure remembering what Bella said the first day he started trying to call our son Cooper Scooper.
“Look, Pops calls him Trip, and that’s fine…I get it…triple ‘c’…but his favorite Uncle needs to give him his own nickname, too. It’s for bonding purposes.” I swear I didn’t understand my brother.
“You are not calling my child Cooper Scooper! You know what it sounds like!” my gorgeous mama bear of a wife hollered at her brother-in-law…that she was about to castrate.
“Come oooonnnn, it’s funny!”
Bella walked over to him and bent down close to his ear, talking lowly but clearly so as not to disturb the little sleeping man in question, and said, “Just so we’re clear, I know all about your little snip and clip procedure after Rose had Ally. I also know that you had the one where they place little clamps in your boys that you have to check to be sure that they are still in place. I also know that the first time after your little procedure when you were checking those clips, you realized that one of your boys was numb and it stayed that way for a month afterwards. So you go ahead and call my son Cooper Scooper. But know this…he’ll be calling you Uncle Numbnut.”
She leaned back and gave him the ‘I dare you’ raised eyebrow.
“How ‘bout Coop de ville? That’s funny, right?”
Needless to say, Cooper Scooper was dropped for good. I had mercy on him and let it slide just that once.
April 2014
BPOV
“Well hello again you two! I was thinkin’ it was about time for y’all to be comin’ in to see me!” Dr. Brady said.
“What can I say? I finally wore her down plus we had a good Valentine’s Day,” my husband smirked. He had gotten entirely too chummy with the good doctor during our last pregnancy. “Oomph!” He deserved that sucker punch to the gut! Gah! I was already sitting on a table covered only from the waist down with paper. I didn’t exactly need anything else to embarrass me. Clearly the good doctor knew what we had been up to without Edward announcing it.
“Sorry.”
“Well, you know the drill. We’ll take a look see in here and then we’ll take a peek with the ultrasound.”
………
Rachel had been looking around for so long that it seemed like the gel was starting to spread thin.
“Would you like to see your babies?” she asked us as she rotated the monitor towards us.
Silence all around the room. Not even crickets.
“I’m sorry, what did you just say?” Edward managed to choke out. Good thing because I was apparently shocked mute.
“This is Baby A and this is Baby B. You’re having twins!” My cocky, cool, calm and collected husband was stunned speechless. I’m just thankful that he didn’t pass the hell out. I would have had to tell the boys about that. I’m the one who had to drive us home this time, as it was, while he stared at the ultrasound of our babies…plural.
July 2014
“Hopefully they will cooperate for us today. You did say you wanted to know the sex of the babies, right?” Rachel asked us.
“Lord yes! This time the bet is double or nothin’…since it’s two of ‘em and all.” I rolled my eyes. I had given up on trying to guess the sex of the babies because I would probably be wrong again and be out a hundred bucks to Angela. She was trying to bless me with two more boys. The one I had was just like his daddy and rowdy enough; I couldn’t imagine having three!
“Just ignore him. His family bets on everything.”
“Okay, well, let’s see who is right, then, shall we?” Edward squeezed my hand and kissed my temple as she squirted the gel on my belly and started with Baby A. After doing a few measurements and looking at internal organs, stopping to capture pictures of certain things here and there, she clicked a still of the current screen and typed out “It’s a Girl!” across the monitor. My eyes instantly filled with tears while Edward let out a big ‘whoop’! I could only guess it was because he was one for one in the bet.
After repeating the same sequence on Baby B, she typed out “I’m a girl, too!” beside the arrow pointing to her girly parts, which in reality just looked like three white lines.
“Aw, hell!”
“Yes!” I squealed. Edward had guessed boy and girl. I was smart and went with Pops this time and guessed both girls. That man had some sort of baby sixth sense because he had guessed every grandchild right so far. Lesson learned…don’t bet against Pops. We knew that the babies both had their own placenta and their own amniotic sac, so now that we knew that they were both girls, we wouldn’t know until they were born if they were identical or fraternal twins.
“Looks like I’ll need a new nickname,” I murmured after getting dressed and waiting on the doctor.
Edward stepped between my legs as I sat on the table and held my face between his hands and kissed me so tender and so good I certainly had no problem remembering how I got in this position.
“Never. You are my baby girl. They’ll have to earn their own nicknames, just like the rest of us.”
October 2014
It was a cool, clear night the week before Halloween and I was sitting out on the porch, enjoying the swing as much as a woman carrying forty extra pounds could. I had never been more thankful that when we built this house, Edward had demanded on making the new porch swing himself. Swing…that was a laugh. It was more like a floating bed, or couch in the very least.
The girls weren’t due for another two weeks, but I had made it this far and they were ready, not to mention that I had no room left for them to grow. Baby A’s fluid had started to look a little low at my appointment the day before, so they were inducing labor the next morning. Dr. Brady felt like I would be a good candidate for induction since I had already begun to thin out and had dilated two centimeters since the previous visit.
I’d never forget Edward’s face the moment Cooper was born, which seemed like forever ago now. He was so elated that it was heartbreaking. I didn’t know if he was going to kiss or pet me to death before I sent him over to watch and take pictures while the nurses got our little man cleaned up. Talk about a daddy bear! He was a champ when it came to feeding and a whiz at diaper changing even though he said he felt like he was pulling Coop’s little boys off, trying to get rid of all ‘that weird tarry shit’.
Just like he talked to my belly while I was pregnant with Cooper, he had done the same with the girls; only this time he used it as an excuse to let his lips roam all around my belly, claiming that he wanted to be sure that all four little ears heard him. And just like Cooper, they loved to hear their daddy sing. Speaking of the devil…
I saw the flash of lights as he turned into the long drive before I ever heard the crunch of the gravel under his tires. I knew that he felt guilty about having to work late the night before the girls were born, but I had kept my promises to him by resting all day and only leaving the house to get my pedicure. The man was driving me a little crazy by texting me every hour on the hour, but I indulged him and went with it. It was only out of love that he had become such a protective worry wart.
I heard the spring on screen door stretch just seconds before he called out, “Baby girl?” Roscoe’s head popped up, though not as quickly as it used to. He was an old man in dog years after all. LuLu was upstairs asleep at the foot of Cooper’s bed, keeping watch over her best bud.
“Over here, sugar.” The door slapped closed behind him, followed by the slap of his bare feet against the concrete of the porch as he made his way over to me. Figures. That man starts stripping the minute he walks through the door…not that I minded. I mean, I still wanted to lick him every bit as much as the first day I saw him it was just that I wasn’t exactly in the position to appreciate even the thought of the awesomeness that was his ass dimples right then.
“Whatcha doin’ out here all by your lonesome? And why do I feel like I ask you that a lot?”
He sat in the corner of the swing and propped his back against the pillow and pulled me to rest between his very long, very muscular legs. Crap…must stop. Twice the hormones folks!
“I was just sittin’ out here listenin’ to you.” He hugged me tighter. He loved the fact that after a couple of years, my accent had finally given in to the unspoken southern rule that the ‘g’ is silent on all words ending in ‘ing’. He thought it was sexy. At this point, I just thought it was…normal.
“What do you mean, listenin’ to me?” He had gathered my hair and moved it to one shoulder and was nuzzling my neck and ear, and basically being very unfair to a woman who was about to pop.
“Well, I noticed a couple of weeks ago that if I sit out here, I can hear the band practicin’. Not everything clearly, but the really low pitches, the really high pitches, and of course the drums,” I said, leaning back to wink at him.
“Well, now I’ll have to be sure to show out every week until you can come back to watch. I missed you and Coop bein’ there tonight.”
“We missed you too,” I sighed. He pushed the swing a little with his foot, gliding us slowly as we enjoyed the calmness of the night with only a few crickets out to play for us.
“How was he today?”
“We owe Rose and Emmett in a big way. She showed up this mornin’ at a quarter ‘til eight and demanded my child. She grabbed an extra pair of clothes and underwear, a light jacket and a sippy cup and strapped him in her truck and took off. Apparently after school let out, Sassy picked all of the kids up and dropped the boys off at the practice field with Emmett. He was allowed to bark orders through the bull horn and help fill up the Gatorade bottles, which in his mind, made him way cooler than Uncle Em.”
Edward was chuckling and shaking his head at the mental image of our son as he twirled the ends of my hair around his fingers.
“Emmett then ‘allowed’ the little boys to run laps with the big boys at the end of practice, which Cooper thought was the best thing ever, until Grandme came and picked him up and brought him home. She fed him and gave him a bath before proceeding to stock our deep freeze with enough food to feed us for at least a month once everyone from church, school and work stop bringin’ food over. So if it’s anything like last time, I won’t have to cook for at least two months.”
“Well, we will definitely give them some alone time after the holidays then.”
“Sounds good. Ally is already claimin’ the girls as her sisters and is itchin’ to get her little hands on them.”
“Cute. You ready for tomorrow?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Guess not. I just can’t wait to see who they look like. I hope they look just like you, lovin’.”
“Not long until we find out I guess.”
“Nope. C’mon. Let me give you a back rub before bed. We have a very important appointment at the crack of dawn in the mornin’ and you need a good night’s sleep.”
He led me up the stairs and once we checked in on Coop and settled in the bed, he gave me the best foot and back rub known to man. I knew I married him for a reason.
“You know,” he murmured into my ear all sexy and suggestive-like, “I could pay your girls a little attention and you might not even need that induction in the mornin’.”
Pregnant or not, how was I supposed to say no to that?
……..
“Push, baby girl! C’mon! She’s almost here!”
Lord, I was tired and still had another baby to go after this one! I was insanely thankful that this labor had lasted only half the amount of time that Cooper’s had. And can I get an ‘amen!’ on the inventor of the epidural?
“Okay Bella, just a short push and then I’m going to tell you to stop. She’s right here, ok?”
All I could do at this point was nod. I had given Edward strict orders not to pet me this time because last time all he had managed to do was make my hair stick up on end and drive me crazy with it. Instead, he was holding my leg and kissing my knee as he watched and showered me with praise.
I tucked my chin and did as I was told and seconds later a beautiful gurgly cry ripped through the room just as sobs ripped through both her mama and her daddy. They sucked her nose and mouth out and allowed Edward to cut her cord before wiping her down and setting her on my chest while I rested and waited for Baby B to join us. All I knew for sure was that I was in a fog of new mommy love.
“Oh, Bella. She’s gorgeous! She looks just like you.” He was rubbing her cheek and her little nose and while I could definitely see me, I had nothing to do with that hair!
“I believe you contributed,” I giggled, peeking at her bronze curls.
The nurses took her over to the isolette so that they could get her cleaned up and keep her warm while we waited for her sister, who was blessedly taking her time, or at least it seemed like that.
“What’s her name?” one of the nurses asked.
“Masey Marie,” Edward answered while clicking picture after picture.
“Let’s finish this up Bella. I can see the baby’s head, so let’s have a few good pushes and get her here, alright?”
Edward darted back across the room to resume his place as my leg holder and cheerleader. Four pushes later and our second daughter had joined us, every bit as loud as her sister, and appeared to be every bit as healthy.
“I’m gonna need a really big gun with really big bullets,” Edward said as he looked at our newest daughter, who looked identical to her sister. Then his brow furrowed, “I think I also need a marker to write their names on their little feet. How in the hell are we gonna tell ‘em apart?”
That’s right. Edward and I didn’t have fraternal twins; his super sperm had split my dang egg and given us a set of identical twins!
“We’ll figure out their differences the more we stare at them. For now, they have hospital bracelets,” I sighed. He kissed us both and then followed the nurse over to the other isolette while the doctor put my cha-cha back together. Giving birth is so glamorous.
“And what is Baby B’s name?”
“Melody Rae.”
All of our kids had at least one family name, which was my baby naming rule and Edward’s rule was that their first name had to be the name that we wanted to call them. Cooper got Charles from my dad, Melody got Rae from Pops, who’s middle name was Ray, and Masey really got two family names; obviously Marie from me and Masey we adapted from Edward’s middle name of Masen.
As far as I could tell, the girls were going to be the exact opposite of Cooper. They looked like me, except for their mouths and hair. I felt bad for them because Pops had already said that he was going to call them the ‘Copper-Headed Snakes” if they had Edward’s hair. Their eyes were darker, more slate looking, so I had a feeling that they would turn brown before all was said and done, and their daddy couldn’t have been happier.
I didn’t have words, only tears when he walked back over to me, carrying two identical pink bundles. He gently sat beside me and handed one of them over. I checked her little bracelet just to be sure of who I had in my arms. Edward was right…they were gorgeous and healthy and here.
“Masey weighed six pounds, two ounces and was eighteen inches and Melody was six pounds, four ounces and eighteen and a half inches.”
Dr. Brady scribbled on the chart and told us we had beautiful, healthy baby girls before leaving us alone for some private time. We had an hour in this room before they would move us upstairs to the postpartum floor and after about twenty minutes of stares, unwrapping little legs and counting fingers and toes and giving too many kisses to count, we were ready to introduce them to the rest of their family, especially to big brother Cooper.
Christmas Eve…Two Years Later
“You’re puttin’ it in the wrong hole.”
“No I’m not.”
“You don’t think that’s something I’d know?”
“I’m the one lookin’ at the hole and tryin’ my damnedest to shove the thing in,” he grunted. “Give me a little credit.”
“It’ll never fit if you do it that way. It requires some finesse, sugar.”
“Well if you’re so honkin’ smart, you put it in.”
“Fine. Move over. I am the one actually readin’ the instruction manual, after all.”
It was Christmas Eve and the kids were sacked out upstairs thanks to their older cousins who had run them ragged for most of the day. I purposely let the girls skip their naps so that we could put them all to bed early. Santa had a Barbie Jeep and a Spider Man bike to put together before the next morning and it was starting to look like Mrs. Claus was going to be doing all of the work.
I joined Edward beside the tree in hopes that I wouldn’t tear the girls’ Jeep up before they ever got the chance to see it. I couldn’t do any worse than Edward had been, that was for sure.
“You know if you’d just read the instructions, this wouldn’t be so hard,” I said, putting the door on the correct side.
He crawled over to me and growled in my ear as he pushed my shoulder, and thereby me, to the floor. “Maybe I like it hard. If memory serves me correctly you definitely do,” he said grinding into me and kissing down my neck. Barbie who?
“I think you just like it when I’m the one in control,” I countered, rolling him over to his back and straddling him. Oh yes sir!
“I like it any way you wanna give it baby girl.” He pushed his hands beneath the hem of my t-shirt and ghosted his insanely gifted fingers up my stomach until he reached the girls, giving them a teasing tweak that made my eyes roll back in my head.
“Mmm…speakin’ of givin’…I noticed that you and Cooper had an item in common on your Christmas wish list this year. Did you put him up to it?” I was rocking my hips over his very obvious arousal, just trying to get some kind of friction going. He lifted my t-shirt over my head and threw it over my shoulder, causing it to hang off of the handle bars of the already assembled Spider Man bike. Lord, surely we were the parents of the year.
“I have no idea what you’re talkin’ about.” He lifted up, sucking a nipple into his mouth before letting it go with a pop as I tore his t-shirt off of him.
“Right. You want me to believe…mmm shit…that Coop said he wanted a little brother because there was too much estrogen in the house?” I lifted my hips so that he could push my pajama bottoms down and then I took my turn relieving him of his. Lord have mercy…to be so blessed.
“Absolutely…oh, fuck yeah…he’s a smart kid. Shit, has it really been almost two weeks since we’ve done this?” he asked as I sank down on him.
“Oh, yeah…mmhmm…it couldn’t be helped. First Mother Nature was calling and then we’ve just been… aahh…busy since then.” Feeling him like this still nearly took my breath away; he was so deep and oh so good. I leaned down, placing my hands on either side of his face, making it easier for me to kiss the fire out of him. His lips were warm and wet and his tongue was sweet from the hot chocolate we had just finished drinking after putting the kids to bed. I wanted to devour him and by all practical purposes, I suppose I was. As our tongues tangled and twisted, I rocked faster and he thrust his sinewy hips harder until we both fell over the edge with quiet moans. Little ears and all.
Once we had regained control of our breathing, Edward rolled us over to the side so that we could look up at the tree. I grabbed the edge of the blanket that was hanging off of the armchair with my toes and brought it up over us.
“Christmas tree sex suits you, Mrs. Claus.” I smacked him. We watched the colored lights blink between pink and yellow, blue and green until Edward began kissing my bare shoulder towards my ear. “So…what do you say about our Christmas wish?” he whispered, giving me chill bumps and making me giggle.
We hadn’t really talked about having more kids after the girls, but I wasn’t against the idea. I loved being their mom and getting to be home with them while they were little. Cooper would be starting kindergarten in the fall and I had just turned thirty, so if we were going to do this, it seemed to be a good time.
I turned over in his arms and traced the line of his jaw over to his lips where he placed a kiss on the tips of my fingers.
“I think that can be arranged, but what if we have another girl? What then?”
“Then I will concede and you will remain the house majority leader.”
“Givin’ up and givin’ in, huh? Do I sense some submissive tendencies in you, sugar?” Quicker than I could think, he growled and pinned me to the ground again, kissing me into submission.
“Never.”
We tickled and teased and kissed and cuddled, finally finishing the jeep in the wee hours of the morning. We were exhausted and bleary eyed when we heard the sound of six little feet running down the hall towards our room way too early, but it was one of the most beautiful cadences I had ever heard. It sounded like life, love and laughter and as the owners of those six little feet pulled and climbed until they were in the bed with us, I thought about how I had never been so glad that for once in my life I took a chance and stayed in one place. Lucky for me, it was the place that I had always belonged.
THE
END
