New Beginnings

Facing Reality

Summer vacation had finally sprung around, much to Polly and Betty's glee, and while her girls were preparing for a summer filled with fun loving chaos, Alice was preparing to enter her second trimester.

She stood by her full length mirror, glaring at her reflection and stroking her abdomen int he process. She lifted up her shirt and turned sideways for closer examination of her growing stomach, almost making out the tiniest of a bump, realising it would naturally be a little bigger since she was carrying two.

It had been sixteen years since she was with child, and the thought of carrying not one but two was adding onto the pressure she was already under over not feeling quite prepared enough.

She's disturbed when a newly walking Tyler toddles into her room, struggling to push the door open at first and waddle through the gap before babbling some adorable baby gibberish and wandering to over to his Grandmother.

She spotted his cheeky little smile in the mirror before turning around, her face lit up with excitement before lowering to his level and picking him up off the ground.

"Did you get out of your crib again?!" She gasps in faux excitement, her face displaying playful shock as he bared her a gummy smile before lightly tickling his belly, his guttural giggles filling the room.

The joyous moment had her thinking briefly on the pregnancy for a moment, the thought of having moments like this with her troublesome two in a little over 5 months.

"Just think, you won't be the only baby around here soon." She quietly confided in the infant, softly stroking his cheek as she did.

"Tyler!" Betty calls out from her bedroom, her footsteps moving down the hall soon after.

"In here!" Alice confirms as she continues playing with him, jokingly pretending to dip him down, causing him to laugh harder.

Betty quickly entered the room, releasing a sigh of relief and clutching her hand to her heart. "Since he started walking he's been shooting off."

"Before you know it, he'll be using those legs to sneak out past curfew." Alice jokes, handing him over to his Mother.

A tight grimace appeared on Betty's face as she positioned Tyler in her arms and bowed her head. "I just can't believe how fast he's growing up." She added in disbelief, staring into the tot's green eyes and softly running her fingers along his cheeks before suddenly becoming withdrawn.

As she gazed into her baby boys eyes, the same eyes he had inherited from his Father, she couldn't help but reflect on just how fast he was growing, and just how much his Dad had missed out on.

"You okay baby?"

Betty simply offered her mother a nod, before a tight smile of uncertainty etched over her face.

"Jordan, emailed me yesterday." She nervously revealed, earning a concerned but questioning glance from Alice, as Jordan was Tyler's Dad.

"Okay." Alice firmly responded as she prepared to listen attentively, even though every impulse in her body, combined with her protective motherly instinct and out of control hormones in her body was telling her to act out and curse the boy who knocked up her 14 year old daughter, got sent to juvenile detention and disappeared off the face off the earth shortly after, making no effort to see his child.

"And he wants to see Tyler." Betty reluctantly announced, bowing her head nervously as she awaited her Mother's fiery response. If anything, the chilling silence from Alice and stern knitted brows spoke 1000 words that Betty was all too familiar with.

"I see." Alice blurt out begrudgingly, pretending to fix her skirt to drift away from the tension that suddenly arose within the room. "What did you say?"