The Thistles of Rose

32 • Faithful

The birds chirp as they glide through the sky. Aurelia and I lay on a blanket that I spread out onto the grass, reading a book under the sun. Ricky has settled down next to her, with his eyes closed.

Initially, I made her feel the grass but she got a little irritated with it.

"So they sent me a...," I lift the flap on the book, raising the pitch of my voice to a jovial tone, "a lion!"

I turn to Aurelia, "you like lions, don't you, Aurelia?"

She responds with a smile as bright as a star, hitting her hands on the book. Aurelia tries to yank the book from my hands and lets out an agitated groan when she can't do it. She's in that phase when she just wants to put everything in her mouth because she's started teething.

Poor child.

I find her lion toy next to me and rattle it in front of her. Her attention immediately diverts to her favourite toy and she leaps for it, shoving it straight into her mouth.

Ugh, she's so adorable with her sun hat, her cute romper, her chubby cheeks and her babbling. I just love her!

I squeeze her cheeks together like a pufferfish and slam a kiss onto her chubby, red cheeks. Aurelia fusses in my hold because I'm an obstacle in her chewing on her toy. She kicks her legs and hits my face, trying to push me off her.

Ouch, how rude. She definitely got her grumpiness from Luca.

I pull away, eyeing her with a betrayed look, "fine, don't love your Mama then."

The little backstabber is uninterested in this whole ordeal as she nibbles on the orange ear of her stupid lion. Suck on that all you want, because you ain't getting my boobs tonight.

"Rose," Alara says, stepping out onto the patio, "there's someone at the door for you."

I nod my head at her with a smile. As I get up, I tell her, "stay with this little backstabber."

I make my way through the house and to the foyer. When I round the corner of it, Marco stands in front of Anya, as he places the newborn car seat down on the floor for her.

"Thank you," she politely smiles and he smiles back at her.

Her smile is not the same. When I last saw her, she still had some life to it but it seems so worn out now. The same goes for her with the dark circles under her flickering, hazel eyes.

She's dressed for the chilly New York and not the warm San Francisco with her long, silky, black hair all up in a claw clip like she's running a quick errand. The toddler is latched onto her hand, staring around at the dark foyer. The second Maxim spots me, he runs over.

"Aunt Roro!"

"Hey, Max," I respond, picking him up and propping him onto my hip.

Anya's head whips to me and she smiles a sad smile that tells me the story. He's done something again and she needed to get away for a minute.

"I won't be home for dinner," Marco announces, opening the front door.

Everyone seems to have run away today. Luca's out of town. Roman got up at 9 am on a Sunday morning. Brando isn't here either which is strange since Alara is working. And now, Marco's going out.

I guess it's not that unusual since he now has a girlfriend. But, there's something going on.

"Is there something going on that you guys are not telling me about?" I raise my eyebrow at him, sceptically.

He laughs with nervousness, and the pitch of his voice rises, "no, not at all. Why would you think that?"

Marco can't lie and he can just about keep a secret. Brando said they literally had to tie him down from the number of times he nearly blurted out the nursery to me. From then on, Luca stopped telling him things.