⇾ 𝐌𝐀𝐘𝐁𝐄 𝐈'𝐌 𝐀𝐌𝐀𝐙𝐄𝐃 | 𝐏𝐚𝐮𝐥 𝐌𝐜𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐈𝐈

𝙀𝙥𝙞𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙪𝙚 ➪ 𝙇𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙣 𝙖 𝙃𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙃𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝘾𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙮

ꕥ July 13, 1977 ꕥ

"Sam! Bring that back!" Mary cried, running after her little brother who had just come and snatched her pencil from where she was writing down song lyrics, strumming on her soprano ukulele. She had definitely taken after Paul. At just ten years old, she could already sing decently and was working on her songwriting abilities.

Samuel ran across the grass, much to the dismay of Mary, who groaned out loud as she sped up to catch up with the giggling boy. Paul, holding a container full of chicken eggs, jumped out of the way as they ran past him, and he looked up to meet my eyes, smiling. Adrianna-three years younger than the twins-came up behind him. Our chicken eggs had recently hatched into little baby chicks and Adrianna was the one who helped Paul with them the most.

Melanie was our youngest daughter and she was just a year-and-a-half old now. She was sitting on a blanket and Mary had been keeping an eye on her before Samuel stirred her up and she ran off to chase him down. When the little girl noticed that she was alone, she began to whine, so I went to pick her up.

Paul wandered up next to me. "Look at all these eggs!" he said. "We could make breakfast for our entire families with this!"

I had of course heard what he had just said, but the words didn't really register with me because I was too focused on his eyes. He noticed that I was staring and jokingly waved a hand in front of my face.

"Huh?" I asked him suddenly and he grinned. "You're staring, Jules," he said.

I smiled. "I just can't believe it's been ten years," I said to him, referring of course to our tenth wedding anniversary that was today. It was the first of all ten that we hadn't gone out alone for it because this go around, we were in Scotland and had no one to watch the kids for us.

"Stop taking my stuff!" Mary hissed at Samuel from behind us and we both turned to see her returning to her seat on the blanket she had in the grass. Then, her eyes lifted up and she searched for Paul. "Daddy!" she said and Paul immediately returned his attention to her. "Can you help me?"

At the same time that she spoke, Melanie reached forward towards Paul. "Dada!" she said demandingly. Paul reached forward and took her from me.

"Hello, baby!" he said as he propped her up on his hip. "Let's go help sissy, shall we?" He grinned. "Tell Mummy bye-bye."

Melanie grinned at me, then laid her head in the crook of Paul's neck to hide her embarrassment.

"Stella!" Mary yelled again and I turned to see the little boy threatening to take his sister's things again, perhaps under the command of her brother now, and Mary was clearly struggling to keep everything away from her. Sam ran out from behind the house and also began to try and snatch Mary's things.

"Oh, for God's sake," I muttered. "Sam, Stella! Leave her alone!" I called out to them, putting my hands on my hips. "Or you're both gonna be in trouble again!" They'd been sent into the house once already today for terrorizing the poor chickens and making Adrianna break down into bloody tears over it. They were both little troublemakers, and they always seemed to conspire together, and that always made it so much harder to catch them both.

The twins completely ignored me, so Paul stepped in to scold them too. They immediately stopped what it was that they were doing. I wasn't sure what it was about him that was so intimidating, but he was strangely good at keeping our kids in line now. Whenever they acted out in public, he'd get down on their level and give them a stern talking-to, and I'd never see them act out anymore. It was like bloody magic, let me tell you.

ꕥ ꕥ ꕥ

The kids and Martha were all sleeping in a pile on the living room floor while Paul and I looked at them affectionately. I had so many memories in this dingy house out here in Scotland now. After the surprise home birth of the twins, the rest of our children were born under this roof-though, they were much more planned than the twins' arrival had been. Home births were so much more peaceful and so much less stressful than my hospital birth had been, so I much preferred it that way.

I could remember so many years ago when Mary was so small, playing on this same floor with Martha. That was the night where Paul first told me that he wanted more children, and I remember feeling quite hesitant at first, but then the more I thought about the idea, the more appealing it seemed.

And look where it had brought us.

"I love you," Paul said quietly. "I can't imagine where I'd be without you, and I can't imagine what I'd do if I ever lost you. I just want to stare at you for the rest of my life. You're so beautiful." He out on a dopey smile.

"I love you too," I responded. We were no longer having the "more kids" discussion, because we were done trying. If the stars aligned and I happened to fall pregnant again, though, that would be perfectly fine with us. We were just so happy with what we already had that we didn't care if we had anymore.

Paul's music as a solo artist had worked out as a career for him. He had even formed a new band called Wings with which I played some keyboard and accompanied them as a singer for a little while, but after I had gotten pregnant with Melanie, the whole ordeal had slowly started drifting away, and Paul was now back to doing more things on his own than with Wings. I wasn't sure what the future of that group was at the moment.

"I love our life," Paul said. "Don't you know?"

"Well, you keep on sticking around, so I just kinda had a hunch." I grinned at him.

He turned his head to look into my eyes. "Happy ten years of marriage," he said.

"Happy ten years," I replied.

"And many more to come?"

"So many more to come, I hope." I grinned. He leaned down to connect our lips, and the passion was just as intense as it had been from day one.

"Let's put the kids in their beds," he said. "Then, we can celebrate." He broke out into a mischievous smirk and I nodded.

"Sounds like a plan," I said as we both stood up. I couldn't wipe the grin off of my face. I loved him so much.