Just The Way I Am - Jo Watson Page 0,146
out quite a bit when buying it.
“This is beautiful,” Frankie said. “So green. I’ve been living in a desert for a while. I haven’t seen this much green in ages.”
“It’s gorgeous,” Becca added, looking at the house in front of us. And it was. And unusual. I’d chosen a modern house full of glass to let as much light in as possible. A house with strange, cool angles that reminded you of a piece of art. I loved living in this unique house with the green, rolling lawns and more plants than I could have ever wished for.
“Who’s this?” Becca stopped at the massive aviary that we’d built under and around the massive oak tree.
“That’s Chloe.” I ran my hands over the cage and Chloe rushed up to it and stroked my finger with her beak.
“Naughty girls. Naughty girls,” Chloe said, and then whistled at us.
Frankie laughed. “Reminds me of a parrot from back home, except this one has a little more manners than the other one.”
We walked up to the entrance of the house and I pushed the massive glass door open and walked in.
“Wow!” Frankie said. “I love this. So much color.”
“Thanks,” I said, scanning the walls and floor of the house. I’d spent so much time decorating this place, to make it feel like a home. A colorful, bright home that was bursting with life. The floors were covered in intricate black-and-white tiles, the walls in colors and paintings and photos and ornaments that I’d collected over the last year.
“Reminds me of the floors back home at Mike’s and my house,” Becca said, looking at the floors and running a foot over them.
“This way.” I walked across the hall, through the huge sunken lounge, past the tropical atrium with the skylight and then up to the glass stairs that led to the upper level.
“What do you want to show us?” Becca asked, sounding excited.
“Wait,” I said, equally excited to show them. To show them the miracle that had come of that moment in the elevator just over a year ago. I stopped at a door and pushed it open ever so slowly. My mom and Sindi were sitting on a couch, and smiled at me as I walked in. My mom and dad had been staying with us for a week already, and Sindi was practically living here now—well, that is to say she visited every day.
“He’s just woken up,” my mom said, standing up and moving over to the cot. “Hi,” she said to the others. “I’ve heard so much about you guys.”
“Me too!” Sindi said, also standing.
“This is my future sister-in-law, Sindi,” I said. “And this is my mom.”
“Future sister-in-law and best aunt in the world,” she added quickly, and then I think they got it. They knew what I’d brought them here to show them.
“You’ve . . . oh my God, you have a baby!” Frankie said suddenly from behind me.
“I do.” I turned and smiled at them. “He’s only one month. I’m still a very new mom and I still totally freak out when I have to leave him. In fact, this might have been the longest I’ve left him so far.”
“Oh wow!” Becca said as we all walked up to the crib and peered in.
And there he was. Lying there, looking up with those big blue eyes, just like his dad’s. Noah and I hadn’t exactly planned on this, at all. We’d only been together for a few months, and I didn’t even think I could have kids. He’d just started nursing school and I’d just started my online card shop, Noah’s brilliant idea. “To give others the same joy that you have me,” he’d said. And then one morning, when I got sick after breakfast and went to the pharmacy, Andi and her strange psychic abilities had just known instantly and given me a pregnancy test, even though I’d insisted it was impossible! Turns out nothing is impossible it seems.
And although I say Zack wasn’t planned, that’s actually not entirely true. I think Zack had been planned since that day in the hospital that I’d given a card to a crying boy, and the plan was further actioned the day I stepped into the elevator with Becca and Frankie.
“He’s gorgeous,” Frankie said.
“I know!” I squealed in pure delight. I still wasn’t used to looking at his little face and feeling the love that rushed into me when I did. A love that was so vast and big that it felt like it might make my heart explode right out of my chest. I could stare at him for hours, and sometimes I did. I reached into the crib and picked him up. He made that cute cooing noise that he always makes when I pick him up, and then, like he always does when I hold him against me, he tangled his chubby fingers into my hair and pulled on it in the sweetest way.
“He’s so tiny.” Becca reached out her hand, but stopped momentarily. “May I?”
I nodded and she brought her hand down onto his. He curled his fingers around her finger, and she laughed. “Wow, this is amazing. You have a baby.”
“I have a baby,” I said, as Frankie laid her hand on his tiny back and rubbed little circles around it.
“And I would never have had this baby, if I hadn’t gotten stuck in that elevator with you guys that day.”
We all looked up at each other and something passed between us. This strange knowing. This knowing that those few moments together in the elevator had changed everything for each one of us. It was as if the hand of destiny had chosen us specifically and put us there together, because each one of us, in our different way, needed to change.
Our lives had needed a shake up, and that elevator had done just that, sending us off into different directions. The right direction. And for me, I had arrived at the right place. The perfect place. The only place I ever wanted to be. With Noah, Zack and Chloe, living in a house that was literally bursting with color, overflowing with life, and plants, and chilis and chocolates and everything that I loved in the entire world.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to thank Dr. Kim Nash for helping me with the medical elements, although I’m afraid I may have taken some creative liberties with them, so don’t blame her if some seem a little “less” medically inclined.
It all started with a love letter . . .
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She’s used to faking it.
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