Been Here All Along

48| epilogue

*20 years later*

A lot happens in 20 years. I mean, a lot.

When baby Parker James was five months old, I discovered that I was pregnant yet again. I loved being a mom to Parker, though, so I was overjoyed. Mothering Parker alongside Mason was relatively easy for first time parents, so we figured another could not be that difficult.

Then Evan Fredrick was born on August 9 2027. Raising Evan was not as easy as Parker was though. He was a naturally fussier child, and I got a taste of what most parents go through with newborns.

Mason and I didn't really mind; we loved Evan and Parker immensely. We agreed to have one more child, in hopes of having a baby girl, but we didn't get around to it until Evan was 2 years old and Parker was 3 years old.

That's when I had Ava Shawn Cooper, my beautiful blonde hair and blue-eyed baby girl, on March 19th. She was everything Mason and I had hoped for and more. As a baby, she was more like Parker, didn't cry so much and slept easily, but as she reached a year old and two years old, she became more like her big brother, Evan.

It was a few months before Ava turned 2 that Mason and I started to fight and argue over stupid shit, like laundry and dishes. Arguments began over things that didn't even matter enough to fight over and have Mason sleep on the couch over. I began to remind myself of my parents, and I hated it. However, I didn't do anything about it. I sat back for months and let it gross worse and worse, like my parents would.

Ava was a year and 5 months old when I found out I was pregnant again, unexpectedly. Considering mine and Mason's unhealthy relationship at the time, of course we fought about it. Of course I yelled at him for getting me pregnant when we agreed three was enough. He yelled back. It was ugly. The worst part of it all was that the kids were just in the other room, and I was officially no better than my parents.

After my first ultrasound and I discovered I was already 9 weeks in, Mason and I sent the kids to Anthony's and had an adult conversation. We didn't yell, point fingers, or argue; we talked — something my parents hardly ever did. We tried to mend our obviously broken relationship by attending couples counseling, but we quickly realized it wasn't us; it was the marriage. Mason and I were not meant to be. In the heat of mourning of Ian's death, we confused the difference between friendship love and real love, and it got too far. For years, we were able to channel all of our energy into our newborn babies; however, as they grew a little older, it became more and more clear that Mason and I had messed up by getting married, even if the four best things to ever happen to me came from him.

I was six months pregnant when we decided to separate officially. Mason didn't want to leave me alone in a house with 3 toddlers and a pregnant belly, so he temporarily moved into the spare bedroom.

Parker was the only one old enough to really understand what it meant when his parents stopped sleeping in the same bedroom. Going to preschool three times a week was also impressionable. He never would explain it to his siblings, though, to spare them the young heartache and confusion.

Elianna Ann Cooper was born on March 21st, only two years and two days after Ava. Mason moved out when she was three months old and would take the other kids during the evening most of the time.

The kids adjusting to their father, or myself, not always being around at the same time was hard, undoubtably. They were so young and already dealing with divorced parents. It broke my heart.

For the first couple months of the arrangement, Mason and I were strictly just the parents of four wonderful children. Then we began to realize it wasn't enough. Not only did our kids need us to be friendly with each other, I needed Mason. He was my best friend, above all. For the sake of our kids and the sake of ourselves, we fixed our relationship so we weren't just parents to the same children, but we were co-parenting.