𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚

013.

"mommy. we get my nika birthday present and take her house?" rumi asked as i strapped her into the car seat.

today was onikas birthday, but rumi was more excited for it than onika herself. she wouldn't tell me what she wanted for her birthday once, so i had to go out and get her what i think she would like.

i know i don't have all the money in the world, she's doing better than me but i hope that my love was enough. for me it didn't matter about the money. buying materialistic things didn't go a long way with me, which she knows. and i know she's the same way.

the kids were adamant that they were to get a separate gift to what i was giving onika, especially rumi. she didn't even want to share the same gift with her siblings. so that meant three different gifts.

all the gifts were ordered, we just had to pick them up before arriving at her house. my mom and solange was meeting us there in an hour as that was the time we would be arriving too for the brunch that was planned for onikas birthday. happy that i was meeting her mother and vice versa for her.

i nodded, "of course baby. we are going to get all her gifts then go to her house and spend the day with her." rumi smiled at my response, happy to see her nika as she hadn't seen her since her mom has been in town.

blue and sir were strapped in already, blue talking to me about the gift that sir and herself chose for onika. all the kids wanted to show their gratitude to the woman who entered their lives and changed it for the better. especially blue. she needed another figure in her life who wasn't me.

the drive to the mall wasn't that far thankfully, as the kids were beginning to be reckless, wanting to get out the car, asking are we there yet countless times.

i got all the kids out as we pulled up and walked into the mall, first stop heading to the birthday party store to collect the balloons that i had pre-ordered.

bright pink coloured balloons that read, 29 in big numbers. i knew pink was her favourite colour so that was the running theme for all the gifts given from the four of us. i didn't have to get the cards as we already had those, and written in them two nights ago.

once the balloons were collected, we made our way to the floral store. a dozen pink roses i ordered. knew that roses were her favourite kind of flowers, and of course had to get them in her favourite colour. i hope she loved them as much as i did. i preordered them so they were more fresh, and thankfully they were.

then we made our way to the other stores to collect the kids gifts for onika. that left us going in and out of multiple stores.

finally, we made it back into the car without any meltdowns, which i knew it was because of the occasion that was taking place today. any other day, i couldn't take the kids to the mall altogether because we would be leaving in tears, all of us, including me.

once all the kids were strapped in and i was about to drive off, my mom called me. answering, having the phone connected to the car.

"hi mom. we are just leaving the mall."

"okay giselle, just seeing where you were. i didn't get a huge gift for her because i don't know what she likes, so i got her a bottle of wine, hopefully it'll be good enough for her. you know how those lawyers are." she chuckled.

"mama, onika is different. she's not like the rest. she'll be grateful for anything. she would be grateful if you came empty handed in fact, just grateful for your presence."

"okay that's good to know. we are leaving now so we should hopefully get there at the same time. see you soon, i love you."

i smiled, "i love you too mama. drive safe."