Roomies - The Baby Years

Chapter 15

Sandwiches, clothes, showers, backpacks, coloringbooks, and toys toys toys. It was all I had on my brain these last couple of weeks. I could not understand how Stella did all of it by herself, or how Eli had managed to take care of his daughter the way he had. I kind of looked up to both of them now, after spending the last couple of weeks being a single parent to Benjamin.

It was Saturday, the rain had stopped for the day and I had promised Benjamin that we were taking a trip today. We were going to the London Zoo. Benjamin had expressed interest in going there since he heard about it from his friend, Sophie.

Sophie had been over at the house to play with Ben the other day. Her mother, Willa, had just dropped her off then driven off and picked her up at 7 again. Didn't know how that had been so hard for Stel and Eli to do.

Anyhow, Ben was packing a bag with stuff he thought he would need at the Zoo, and I had noticed how the bananas from the fridge had disappeared. I didn't mention it to him, I thought I would let him have his fun.

We drove the 20 minutes to the Zoo and when we arrived, it was cold in London and I put a jacket on Benjamin before we went in through the gates.

We walked around the park for a few hours before Ben decided that he wanted to play at a playground in there so we went to the Hollabazoo play area. It was huge, lots of kids and even more parents. As I was removing Ben's shoes, I heard someone through the crowd call out a name I hadn't heard in a very long time and probably wouldn't have reacted on if it wasn't that I recognized the voice calling out the name too.

I looked up from my son's feet and looked around, and there she was.

"Carly..." I got her name out, and I must have said it loud enough because her mother, Emily, turned around and looked at me. She recognized me straight away and I thought she was going to turn around and run out of there. But she didn't. She smiled, took her daughters hand and walked over to me. I couldn't get my eyes off of them, but I heard Ben say he had taken off his other shoe and he grabbed my hand.

"Daddy, who is that?" He asked and I looked down at my son, then back up at Emily coming towards me,

"An old friend." I answered him just as Emily came to stand in front of me.

"Hi." She said in that ringing sweet voice I had once liked very much. I could hardly get a word out, and my son noticed,

"Hello, my name is Benjamin and I am three going on four. How are you?"

"Emily, I can't... what are you doing here?" I asked, looking down at the girl holding her hand,

"Is this...?"

Emily nodded, "Yes, this is Carly. Carly, this is Niall. He used to..."

"You used to live with me."

"Before I lived with Claudia?" She asked, looking up at Emily whom nodded.

"That's right. You lived with Niall during a couple of months before you moved in with Claudia."

"Daddy?" I heard my son, as he dragged my hand to get my attention.

"I wanna go play!" he said and I nodded,

"Yes... of course."

"Carly, would you mind go playing with Benjamin whom is three, going on four?" Emily asked her daughter, who smiled and shook her head.

"No, come on, let's go over there!" She took Ben's hand and they ran off. I looked after them then heard Emily suggest we sat down, and we did.

"So, hi." I said and she smiled,