Shattered Pieces

The End

Five years later

"Leah girl, come on! We need to leave now, or we'll be late." I call up to my daughter, who already takes forever to get ready at nine years old.

"Coming, mom! Daddy is grabbing something for me."

"Seems not too much has changed even a decade later." Ms. Grace laughs. "You and Spencer still walk in and completely take over my house."

"If we wanted it to truly be like old times, my water would be breaking in this kitchen of yours any minute now."

"Don't even joke like that, Mrs. James. While I can't wait to watch you birth another one of my beautiful grandbabies, that little guy needs a little more time inside."

At 30 weeks pregnant, the logical side of me knows our son isn't quite ready to make his appearance yet, but the pregnancy brain side of me is ready to get this kid out!

"Mommy!" Grayson comes stomping into the kitchen. "Kiara won't stop crying. I told her to try being happy sometimes."

"I know I'm not the adult here, but you and Spencer should probably look into another form of birth control because whatever you have now is useless." Capri appears with my nine month old baby girl, whose eyes are puffy and red.

Don't even get me started on the fact that we have a nine month old, and in 2.5 months, we'll have another baby. My lovely husband convinced me to get one more baby out of the way, and then we'd be done before 30. So here we are.

"Oh, don't you worry. This growing human inside of me is absolutely our last one. We're severely outnumbered at this point."

"Maybe." My husband slyly makes his way beside me, sliding his arm around my waist and tugging me closer to him.

"Keep your over eager hands off of me." I playfully shrug out of his hold. "How are you possibly down here before Aaliyah? What is that child doing?"

"I'm here, mom. I'm ready." She smiles brightly at me, and any irritation I had with her fades.

"You sure you don't want me to come?" Spencer leans in and whispers.

"I appreciate you, but I got this, baby." I kiss his cheek.

"I love you." He tucks a curl behind my ear.

"Not nearly as much as I love you." I caress his cheek.

"Alright, get the three kisses out of the way before you make us late, daddy."

I swallow a chuckle because Aaliyah is absolutely the reason we are already late and also because she knows Spencer and I never leave one another without three kisses.

Spencer walks us out and watches diligently as Aaliyah and I buckle ourselves in the car. Despite me being the one in the accident, the driving anxiety went to Spencer.

"I puréed some butternut squash for Kiara. Try to actually feed her what I made and not food off of your plate."

"No promises. Now go, Little Tiger. I got this parenting thing down." He steals one more kiss through the rolled down window before I begin backing out of the driveway.

"How are you feeling about having another baby around the house soon?" I take this opportunity to get our oldests' thoughts. A lot has changed for her in six years since she came into our lives, and I want to make sure she's doing okay.

"I love having a lot of siblings. Kiara is like a little baby doll, so I'm excited to meet my new baby brother."

Everybody says Kiara looks just like a baby doll. Spencer even calls her doll face. Aaliyah named her, insisting that her baby sister needed a princess name.