Chapter two
hundred and thirty three:
Christy yawned
and jogged down the stairs. She had awakened to the sound of the shower
running, and a smile immediately came to her lips knowing she was in the home
that belonged to her and Isaac.
She stayed in
bed and tried to return to sleep as Isaac rummaged quietly through his
suitcase. He dressed and headed downstairs.
Deciding that
she couldn’t sleep any longer, Christy climbed out of bed and stretched. It was
early, nearly five in the morning, and she honestly couldn’t believe she was
awake on her own free will.
She walked into
the bathroom and neatly brushed her long dark hair. It was much longer than she
usually wore it, a good two inches longer, but she
loved it at that length. It now reached her elbows when she stood straight.
She returned to
the bedroom and neatly made the bed. She then wandered down the hall, toward
the sound of her husband singing to the radio and the scent of freshly brewing
coffee. She skipped down the stairs, and discovered him in the kitchen, mixing
the ingredients to make pancakes, one of the few of the nonperishable food
items they had brought from the apartment.
“Good morning
honey.” She crossed the kitchen and placed a soft kiss on his cheek.
“I’m sorry. Did
I wake you? I was going to let you sleep for a bit.” He turned and smiled at
her. She was wearing a pair of cotton pajama bottoms which she had roles down
the waist of to expose her still flat stomach. Her spaghetti strap-shirt showed
every curve, even some new ones that had formed.
“No, I woke
myself up…” She watched the coffee drip into the pot. “God, I would kill for
some coffee right now.”
“Well, how about
I make breakfast?” He asked, holding up the pancake batter.
She smiled.
“That would be great.”
“Do you want to
shower or anything?” He asked, removing a pan from a box on the counter. “Now is the time to do it. We’ll be on the
bus for a while.”
“That’s ok. I
think I might wear my pjs on the bus. I’ll probably
want to sleep through the morning sickness.”
“Would I be out
of line to request that you wear a sweater?” He asked glancing at her out of the
corner of his eye.
She smiled,
“Duly noted.” She lifted herself onto
the counter. “How are we supposed to have breakfast without a table?”
“Uhhh…” He laughed. “We could eat on the boxes.” He
shrugged.
Christy laughed.
“Sure. Make a little dinning room set?”
“Of
course.” He teased.
“Honey, I really
need to tell you, I absolutely love this house. It’s so perfect in every way.”
She smiled. “But… I’m not sure how we’re going to fill up all of those
bedrooms.”
He flipped a
pancake in the pan, leaving it golden-brown side up. “Well, maybe we should talk about that.” He
drew in a deep breath. “We never really talked about the prospect of kids. It
just kind of… happened.”
“Okay… how many
kids do you want?”
“I’m not sure. I
think it matters most what you want.”
“I want what you
want.” She said earnestly.
Isaac sighed,
“C, it’s not that simple. It’s putting your body through an awful lot, with
pregnancy and breast-feeding, and taking care of these kids. Getting them to
school and college and-“
“I want that,”
She urged. “I want to have kids running around and playing, and I want our kids
to be rambunctious and running around the house screaming at the top of their
lungs. I want mid night feedings and diaper changes, and I want to be your
perfect little house wife.”
“But
what about your dreams and aspirations? You’d be putting all that on hold to take care of babies…”
“Baby, before I
met you, I never had any dreams. I never saw a future for myself in any way
other than to die alone in an alley as a miserable old coke whore when my looks
started to face.” She shrugged. “Now that we’re married, I want all the stuff
that comes with it… a family.”
He smiled
broadly at that. “Okay… then let me ask
you this… when you see those kids running around… how many do you see?”
She smiled. “A handful? Five? Maybe six?”
He raised his
eyebrows.
“You had seven
kids in your family!” She protested.
“I know. But my
family dynamic was so different than yours.” He stacked some pancakes on the
plate she held out.
“Yeah, but if I
had a choice between the kind of family we were going to have, it would be more
like yours than mine.”
He smiled.
“Okay… so should we just let it happen then? Leave everything up to fate?”
“Okay.”
“Good… come on,
now. Go eat your pancakes.”
She looked down
at the stack on her plate. “All of these are for me? I don’t know if I can eat
them all.”
He leaned over
and kissed her. “Just try.”