Welcome Home Lia and Baby sign next. The screams and squeals started as soon as Claire and I made eye contact, and by that point, I was openly weeping.
She broke away from the group and reached me in a few long strides, about knocking me over when she flung her arms around me.
“You’re home. Oh, you’re home,
” she cried into my shoulder. My heart felt complete like it hadn’t since the day I left. “We’re having a baby
!”
I couldn’t even talk. I made no sense. Whatever words tried to come out of my mouth for the next few minutes were incoherent babbling and snot.
But they passed me around all the same. First Molly, who cupped my face and told me I was gorgeous. Emmett clung to my waist and informed me he’d grown two inches since I left.
Paige came next, tears coursing down her face (which did not go splotchy when she cried). “I hope you’re okay with me hugging you a thousand times for the next two days.”
“Y-Yes, please,” I hiccupped, holding her so tight that my arms ached. “I missed you guys so much.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” she whispered. “We missed you too.”
Paige pulled back and slid a motherly hand over my hair. “I think your brother has waited patiently enough, huh?”
I nodded, wiping super attractive ugly-cry snot off my face with the back of my hand and saw Logan behind us, his hands jammed tight in the pockets of his dark jeans, and his eyes suspiciously bright.
When Paige let me go, he looked at my stomach, and his jaw clenched. Then he held his arms open. “Come ‘ere, kid,” he said in a rough, uneven voice.
He folded me into his arms, and I left about a gallon of everything in that hug. All the fear, the disappointment, and heartache went onto my brother’s shoulders. Someone rubbed my back, but I wasn’t sure who. I didn’t care.
“It’ll be okay,” he whispered into my ear, tightening his hold on me. My big brother could hold up the entire world with those arms, and if I’d ever doubted it, I didn’t doubt it now. “You’re going to be the best mom, Lia, and that kid is already so loved.”
I heard sniffling from behind me.
Or maybe that was just me.
I was home. And that was all that mattered.
LIA
“But it doesn’t make sense,” Emmett said, staring at the fruit basket.
I grinned at Paige, then finished my bite of oatmeal. “What doesn’t?”
“The whole fruit thing.” He held up an apple and a banana. “How can the baby be compared to these two incredibly different fruits and still have it make sense. One is a sphere, and one is oblong.”
My eyebrows popped up. “Mighty big word for a nine-year-old.”
“We do have to learn 3D shapes, Lia. I’m almost ten.”
Paige snorted, holding out his backpack once she had his lunch finished. “Does that mean you’re going to start paying rent soon?”
“You’re changing the subject.” He pointed at my stomach. “You’re telling me that right now it’s a …”
“Sweet potato,” I supplied helpfully. “I felt a hiccup yesterday too.”
Paige gasped. “You did? When?”
“Last night.” I rubbed my bump. “Super weird.”
Emmett ignored Paige’s oohing and aahing. “And in a few weeks, it’s going to be a carrot, Lia.” He held out his hands. “A frickin’
carrot.
“
“You’re right.” I sighed. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Thank you.” He grabbed the backpack from Paige and hugged her around the waist. “Do I need my coat today?”
She pointed at the windows overlooking the backyard. “Do you see the snow outside? It’s January, bro.”
“Is that a yes?”
I laughed into my last bite of oatmeal. Paige walked to the mudroom and shoved his winter coat over his giggling face.
“That’s a yes. I don’t need your school sending your ass back home because I’m an inept parent.” She yanked a winter hat over his head once his coat was over his arms. “Especially since I’m just around the corner from being a non-grandma grandma,” she cried.
I shook my head while Emmett dissolved into laughter at her mock-crying. Paige was having an identity crisis over what her “grandparent name” was going to be, as she’d unilaterally dismissed the actual label of Grandma.
“Language,” I said.
She blinked. “What did I say?”
“Ass,” Emmett answered, pushing the winter hat up his forehead.
“That hardly counts,” said Paige.
The school bus driver honked her horn from the front of the house, and Emmett shouted his goodbyes to us, then disappeared.
“I frickin’ love that kid,” she said, peeking out the windows by the front door as the bus drove off.
“Me too.” I picked up the apple he’d discarded and started slicing it up. My new rule was one piece of fruit for every sweet or carb I wanted to shove in my face.
“What’s on the calendar today?” Paige asked.
“I have some reading to do. I’ve slacked off this week since I finally started organizing all that stuff from Christmas.”
“All that stuff from Christmas,” she mused happily. “Your face was priceless.”
The apple was crisp and sweet and crunchy, and I finished swallowing before I answered. “I’m going to have to move out simply because there’s not enough room in the house for me, little Sweet Potato, and all the shit you’re buying for it.”
Her face shuttered, and I had a momentary pang of regret for bringing it up again. But I made a promise to myself the first week home from England. No more avoiding the hard. It was not allowed.
Not like I minded living back at home for the past month.
The first week had been a lot of naps, a lot of Feelings Baths (where I cried in Logan and Paige’s sunken jet tub in their bathroom, surrounded by mountains of bubbles), and a lot of subpar non-British scones because I swear, they baked differently in the States.
The second week went better. Christmas kept us busy with lots of food and laughter and shopping and cuddling under blankets on the couch while we watched all the movies we loved. I only sobbed once during
It’s a Wonderful Life. Fine, twice. Claire held my hand under the blankets. And my family spoiled Little (at the time) Avocado with more gifts than should have been allowed, considering the kid wasn’t even born yet.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.