Our home was an open, farm-style house which had gained added-on apartments as our family grew. From the outside it looked almost lopsided but I doubted most human eyes would have caught the flaw. The clapboard siding hid a few sins with its rich mahogany stain. It was “our big cabin in the bigger woods.” as my Mom called it. Surrounded on all sides by miles of Allegheny National Forest, we were secluded and protected. It had always been the one place that was truly ours. The one place we didn’t hide.
“Tristan can you bring the hose and water the seedlings while we get cleaned up?” Mom called to my twin who was working near the greenhouse.
Mom and I were discussing nitrogen levels in the soil when a cold burst of water hit me in the back. I screamed and jumped several feet from where I had been. “Tristan! You ass, that’s freezing!”
“Just bring me the hose!” Mom commanded clearly annoyed.
Tristan didn’t move but just laughed at me.
I slapped my hands on my legs and whistled. “Come here boy! Good doggie!” He raised the hose again and I braced myself for another blast of icy water when mom yelled at us.
“Will you two please act like adults?! I swear you are worse than children.”
Gavin came around the corner of the house just then. “We need to have a family meeting so I need everyone inside.”
Tristan set the hose down tentatively as if he thought I might make a dash for it. I rolled my eyes at him and stuck my tongue out. Thankfully the weather was hot and rather humid or else I might have actually gone for the hose. I’m ten times faster than him and would have gotten the hose in no time. The look on Tristan’s face as I pelted him with a spray of freezing water would have been priceless.
Walking into the house I could still hear his laughter a few feet behind me.
I might not give up on that idea just yet. I mused.
The kitchen and dining room were basically one very long room at the front of our house. The dining room flowed into the living room behind it. Everything was open and white-washed but warmed by black cherry furniture handmade by Granddad or Tristan. The house would probably have been too airy for a regular human family who would prefer closer quarters, but with a family of eight adults, two teenagers, and two babies on the way, we needed space.
Everyone was already gathered around the extra large dinning room table where our most important family meetings took place. Granddad, my mom’s father, sat cattycorner from Gavin. Mom occupied her usual spot opposite the table from Granddad. Next to her sat Will, Mom’s mate. Or as I prefer to call him, my step-dad. Kylin and Ethan, my still yellow-eyed teenage brothers took up the spots next to Will. Lorelei and her mate John were on Granddad’s other side. So that left just me and Tristan to squeeze into the remaining two seats.
Tristan plopped himself down next to Lorelei and rubbed his head puppy-like against her arm, making whining sounds.
“Tristan! You are not a dog.” Irritated, she tried to shake his head off her arm.
“Sophie says I am.” He pouted and whined again until I kicked him hard under the table.
“Ouch!”
“That’s enough from the Terrible Two. We have some stuff to go over.” Gavin said over Tristan’s genuine whimpering. Tristan and I both sat up. Gavin had a commanding presence and you didn’t question him when he gave an order.
“Going over finances for the month I’m getting concerned. We just finished paying the property taxes from last year so that’s a relief. But Lorelei is close to giving birth and that means we’ll be getting some pretty heavy medical bills soon. Plus, John will be taking the first two weeks off after the babies arrive. So I’m going to need Tristan and Sophie to get jobs again.”
John spoke up. “Tristan, we are in need of someone at the auto body shop. It’s pretty good money and you can start right away.”
“Sounds good to me. Do I start tomorrow?”
“Yeah, you can ride in with me. I’d like to show you around while I can.” John placed a hand on Lorelei’s protruding belly and smiled.
“Where will I be working?” I asked Gavin.
“The Farmer’s Market is opening on the 12th. I thought that might be a good fit for you. I didn’t pick up an application yet so you should probably go into the borough office and grab one sometime this week.”
“Sure, I’ll make a trip to town tomorrow.” A flutter of excitement tickled my belly as I thought about working at the Farmer's Market. The building is open on three sides so that meant lots of fresh air. Last time I had a job I worked as a secretary at Thomas’s veterinary office and it felt as if someone had stuffed me inside a suffocating box and closed the lid tight.
“Also, we’re doing pretty well at keeping expenses down. Nobody has been going out on shopping sprees so thank you for that. But this past winter was a hard one and the heating bills were awful, even with using the wood stove as secondary heat. This year I would like to replace as many windows as possible. We need to seal up the house better before cold weather hits. But it’s going to be expensive so I have started a separate account so we can set back some money each month. My goal is to replace as many as we have money for by the end of September.”
Gavin went over a few more fixes he would like to see done to the house and dismissed us. Tristan, Mom, and I returned to the garden. Tristan watered the seedlings while mom and I gathered up our tools and put them back in the greenhouse. After showering and putting on clean clothes I walked into Lorelei’s apartment which was connected to the south side of our house.
I plopped down on Lorelei's super comfy suede-like couch and stretched out. Lorelei struggled in her effort to not fall over as she made a seat to my left. Her stomach rested on the tops of her thighs looking more like an over-inflated balloon under her shirt than a pregnant belly. “I feel like a beached whale trying to move.” She groaned.
“You have multiple babies in there. I’d imagine one would be enough but you have two.” I rubbed a hand on her belly. It was alarmingly rock-hard. “Is it supposed to feel like that?!”
“I’m having a contraction.” Lorelei closed her eyes and inhaled deeply through her nose. Her face relaxed as the contraction eased. “These Braxton-Hicks contractions are killing me. They are really strong sometimes.” Her nose crinkled in a grimace as she scanned the apartment. “This place is a disaster. I’ve been cleaning for two days straight and it seems like I keep finding more dirt.”
The place looked great, I thought. Besides a book and an empty tea cup on the coffee table in front of us, everything was put away and organized. Taking a closer look, I noticed that everything sparkled as if the entire place had just been dusted and polished.
“Have you been scrubbing everything?” I asked a bit more accusingly than I meant to.
“I have to. I feel like I’m going crazy with all the dirt.” Lorelei grunted as she leaned a hand behind her and tried to push herself up out of the sinking couch. “Ugh! I need help.” I stifled a giggle as I stood and stretched out a hand to pull her to her feet. Her belly nearly bowled me over as we collided mid-step.
“Thank you! Sometimes just moving is awful.”
“But you look amazing!” It wasn’t a lie. Her ivory skin was almost translucent. Honey colored hair fell in ringlets around her perfect heart-shaped face. Lorelei was the only one of our family to have any curl in their hair. Even Gavin, with a dark brown mop of waves, never actually curled. Mine was nearly toothpick straight.
But Lorelei's most striking feature was a small ring of gold around her pupils, blending into dark grey eyes. Although nearly every werewolf’s eyes turn from blue in infancy to bright yellow in adolescence, and finally to grey after reaching maturity, Lorelei’s retained the tiniest remnant of her youth. Made her look ‘like some weirdo teenage-leftover’ she would often complain. I couldn’t disagree more.
Lorelei rubbed one hand absentmindedly over her extra-large bump. “Okay, enough time wasted. Back to cleaning.” She immediately began digging around for some cl
eaning rags under the sink and with a determined look on her face took to washing every single thing in her kitchen. I grabbed a rag and tackled the bathroom even though it must have been scrubbed clean within the last few days.
Tristan stopped by the apartment at some point to find John. Lorelei must have been precariously perched on a dining room chair cleaning a light fixture because I came out of the bathroom to Tristan giving her a piece of his mind about it. After that Lorelei stuck to organizing her book collection alphabetically and Tristan cleaned all of the light fixtures in the apartment.
The three of us spent close to two hours cleaning. Finally Lorelei collapsed on the couch, too tired and sore to move. I opened a quart jar of vegetable soup and warmed it on the stove. Lorelei, Tristan, and I spent a pleasant evening discussing baby names and taking bets on whether or John would faint during the birth.
Gavin’s prediction that it wouldn’t be long until Lorelei gave birth turned out to be accurate. The next evening Lorelei began having more regular contractions. In the middle of the night her water broke. My family piled into our mini-fleet of cars and drove to the hospital.
Lorelei wanted John and Mom in the delivery room with her so the rest of us hung out in the too small waiting room. Gavin, Granddad, and Will took the only chairs available. The rest of us sat wherever we could find space. We must have been a sight to see. Five adults and two teenagers who refused to take off their dark-tinted sunglasses even though they were inside, all squished into the tiniest of spaces.
“I really hate these things.” Ethan moaned for the fifteenth time and removed his sunglasses after an attending nurse left us. “Why can’t I just get colored contacts? Nobody would see the yellow if I had dark brown contacts.”
“Because we don’t have the money for contacts, that’s why.” Gavin stated plainly. “So put the shades back on.”
Will leaned forward toward Ethan’s ear. “Just for your information, no optometrist will give someone with record-setting eye sight a prescription.”
“Humph.”
Thomas joined us shortly after the nurses took Lorelei to her delivery room. So now we were six adults. The cold tile floor wasn’t very forgiving and the few magazines available were squabbled over repeatedly. One of the nurses peeked in on us and asked if we would like a few more chairs. “Yes please!” Ethan called out with relief. So we rearranged our seating as the nurse brought in several more chairs.
At one point we heard a deep growl turn into a scream followed by a loud crash and cursing from an unfamiliar voice. A moment later, mom came into the waiting room looking a little frazzled.
“What was that?” Ethan asked.
“Lorelei was having a bad contraction and I reminded her to breath – that’s all I said! Well she got mad and broke the railing off the bed and threw it at the wall, almost hitting the doctor!” Mom took the magazine in Gavin’s hands and flipped through several pages, eyeing but not really seeing them. “Anyway, John said it might be better for me to step out for a while.”
Ethan laughed out loud until Kylin elbowed him in the ribs. Just then a new nurse appeared and requested me. Mom flashed me a look of betrayal for she had been replaced. I mouthed the guilty words ‘I’m sorry’ as I exited with the nurse.
“Your sister is really strong and her husband is having trouble keeping her still. He said to bring you in so you could help.” The nurse gave me a look that told me she didn’t think I was right for the job.
I put on a hospital gown over my clothes and walked in. The doctor instantly seemed relieved to someone else in there to help John.
“Can you sit behind her and help support her back?” He asked me. “She is having trouble maintaining a proper sitting position.”
I climbed onto the bed behind my sister and wrapped my arms around her chest. John stood to our left, retaking Lorelei's hand in his.
It seemed hours that I sat supporting my sister as she pushed and panted and cried out in pain. How long could the birthing process take?
Finally the first baby came. The head, the body, followed by the rest. Little gurgles turned into energetic shrieks as she entered her new world. Crying and kicking, red-faced she came. How could I explain the moment? Incredible doesn’t even come close. Mind-blowing would be truer. Seeing the newest member of our family, our pack, being born was breathtaking. Tears pooled at my eyes as I sat mute with awe.
Lorelei took a moment to breathe, leaning against me. The nurse cleaned the baby, wrapped her in a pink blanket and held her close so we could see her face. She was beautiful. Slate blue eyes sparkled in a chubby face beneath a nearly-bald crown. Breathtaking.
Lorelei’s body tensed up while I stared at the baby. Regaining my position behind her, she gave one last hard push and the baby’s brother was born. Looking like a miniature version of John with a full head of dark brown hair, he was just as adorable as his sister. Slightly longer than the girl and with a rounder belly, his cries were more akin to a lazy wail than anything. Good-natured, easy-going despite the ordeal of birth. The doctor delivered the placentas and began to clean up.
At last Lorelei gave in to the exhaustion. She collapsed against me and sobbed with joy and fatigue. I took a cool, wet rag from a nurse's hand and gently stroked her face and neck.
”I don’t know if I could do this several more times.” She whimpered.
“You were wonderful.” I whispered and kissed her damp cheek. “They are beautiful.”
After tossing the rag onto the night stand, I carefully got off the bed so Lorelei could at last lie down. The nurses handed the babies to her to feed for the first time. They showed her how to hold them both so they could nurse at the same time. The girl took to feeding like it was going out of style. The greedy little sucks and grunts she gave made me giggle. “She's a hungry one, that girl.” I noted. The boy just latched on gently and, eyes half closed, threatened to fall asleep at any moment.
After she was situated, I crawled onto the bed at Lorelei’s feet. Though her crown was matted with sweat and her face paled from exhaustion, she looked like an angel. Botticelli’s portraits had nothing on my sister.
“What are you going to name them?” I asked. Lorelei and John had picked out a lot names they like but had decided to wait until the babies were born to actually choose one.
“Well, this one looks like a carbon copy of John so I think that’s what we should go with.” Lorelei’s eyes shone brilliantly as she watched the boy feed. John nodded in agreement as he stroked his son’s hairy head.
“John William” John spoke up. “After Will.”
“John.” Lorelei cooed, taking in the sound of her baby’s name. “But we should distinguish him in some way. Maybe we’ll call him Little John.”
“Like in Robin Hood?” I giggled again.
“No!” Lorelei looked horror struck at that thought.
“Okay maybe we’ll call him something like LJ for short.” John offered.
“And this pretty little thing will be Sabina Noelle, after our moms.” Lorelei smiled at her mate. “But we’ll call her Nina.”
The rest of my family came in then to peek at the babies so I decided to take a break. I walked downstairs to the empty basement atrium where vending machines were located and cozy armchairs sat scattered in semi-circles throughout. I had just enough money for a small snack and so bought myself a packet of peanuts and water. Lazily, I plopped down in a chair along a far wall and grabbed a magazine from the low coffee table to my right. The stillness in the air was refreshing after exerting so much energy.
Suddenly, my reading was interrupted by a familiar scent. I didn’t even need to look up. I knew exactly who was walking my direction.
~Grounded in reality – or not~
“Hey! Thomas’s sister, right?” Jaime seemed surprised to see me.
“Sophie.” I nodded more than a little embarrassed. I was certain that I looked a tired mess after being up half the night. Almost involuntarily, I smoothed the hair around my face
.
“What brings you to the hospital so late? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“My sister Lorelei had her babies.”
Jaime smiled at me. That shock of electricity came back with a vengeance. From head to toe I seemed to buzz with the energy of an electric fence. What is wrong with me?! Mentally, I tried to shake it off.
“Babies, as in more than one?” He asked as he dropped his coins in the machine’s money slot.
“Twins – a boy and a girl.”
“Another set of twins! Congratulations.”
“Yeah, I would be more shocked if any of us had just one.” I chuckled. Werewolf families don’t have single births. “So why are you here?”
“Um, well, that’s a long story.” He looked a bit awkward, as if he were debating whether or not to let me in on a secret.
“I have some time.” I offered, intrigued.
Jaime dragged a chair closer to mine. For a minute or so he fiddled with his candy bar. His every movement was unusually graceful for a human.
“The truth is, a friend of mine broke his arm and needed me to drive him to the hospital.”
“He broke his arm in the middle of the night?”
Jaime laughed with a hint of moroseness. “Yeah. He has trouble sleeping. I think he has a problem but he refuses to get help. Anyway, he’ll go days and days with little to no sleep. But to ease the boredom he does things like trying to repaint his house or fix shingles on his roof. Well, not sleeping and climbing on rooftops is obviously not smart. So, this time he broke his arm.”
“Is it bad?”
“Yeah, it’s bad. Brian, that’s my friend, will be going into surgery as soon as the operating room is ready. His arm is a mess.” A moment of sadness washed over his elegant face. “Brian is a mess.”
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