Beyond the Broken Angel

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

— thirty-seven weeks —

May 10th, 2020

"COME ON, KID," Giselle said to her large baby bump, "you're gonna break one of Mama's ribs if you keep kicking around like that. Settle down a bit."

"He's kicking?" Hester asked as she walked in, beelining straight for Giselle.

"He sure is," Giselle said, rubbing her hand over her swollen belly.

Hester plopped down next to her niece, placing her hand just above Giselle's navel. She smiled when she felt the baby's movement. "Goodness! He must be doing barrel rolls in there!"

Giselle laughed, then winced when she felt her son send a kick into her ribs again. "Yep," she said, "sure feels like it."

"He's kicking again?" Selene guessed as she entered the room and took in the sight. She had a plate of sliced apples and peanut butter in hand.

Hester nodded. "He's going to be such a lively little boy. I can already tell." She leaned down to whisper to the unborn child. "Auntie Hester can't wait to meet you, darling. A few more weeks is just too long!"

Giselle watched the sweet moment, no longer perplexed by Hester's new personality. Ever since the day she and Hester found out about the pregnancy, Hester's normally crabby attitude had completely shifted.

She was nice now, and doted upon Giselle. She had even warmed towards Selene some, hurling fewer insults and irritated glares her daughter's way.

"Here you go," Selene said as she handed off the plate of apples to Giselle over her mother's bent head.

Giselle happily took the plate, balancing it on her baby bump as she reclined further into Hester's couch.

"So," Selene started as she sat down on the other side of Giselle, "how've you been feeling today?"

"I'm alright," Giselle said as she dipped an apple slice into the glob of peanut butter and popped it into her mouth. "Oh my gosh," she sighed, "that hits the spot."

"No tears today?" Hester asked.

Giselle shook her head. "No. Not yet, at least." Her mood soured then as her mind went to the place that normally caused her tears—Will.

She did her best not to worry about him, and tried to keep her mind in the present like she had been told to do, but her mind was too imaginative for that.

It liked to wander, and, even worse—create.

It created thoughts and ideas and different scenarios about the future, as if trying to prepare her for anything bad that might happen to Will.

Giselle had nearly gotten herself sick over some of the images she had seen in her head, over some of the possibilities she and her child might have to live through because of the war.

Many of them left her husbandless and heartbroken, a single mother to a fatherless child.

Because war was merciless like that.

She fought with herself constantly, trying to keep from searching Will's name online, from looking into old archives to see whether he lived through the war or not.