Chapter 194
“I didn’t ask to get pregnant when my son was barely six months old,” Amal whined.
“You didn’t ask not to,” Tito sang back at her. Once his son was secure he turned around and
scooped her up off the floor. “Do you need the bathroom to be sick or to sit at the table and eat until you’re sick?”
“Eat.” She muttered as she tucked her head under his chin.
Kylen came into the space with his wife who was looking quite disheveled and nobody batted an eyelash. “What’s going on?”
“The kids stole Antero’s snacks. He was doing an interrogation.” Torq said proudly and Kylen offered Antero his fist to pump.
“He’s also breaking hearts,” Karolos commented dryly. “Both our daughters want to marry the same
man.”
Kylen shrugged, “Dolores is never getting married so Raquel can have him.”
“Daddy!” Dolores stamped her feet in the shoes she was wearing and her mother, Sal, bent down and ripped them off her feet.
“These cost a grand! You can’t be playing dress–up in my Louboutin’s.” She moved to sit with Genevra, “I swear they don’t understand.”
“They really don’t.” Genevra shook her head as she helped Sal look for damages to the shoes.
Torq watched the interchange and grimaced. Kylen and Karolos both spoiled their wives to the point they were brats raising brats and he looked to his own wife, grateful for her no–nonsense attitude.
She rubbed her own belly absentmindedly and he wondered if she even realized she was doing it. They’d only found out a few days before she was having another baby and she was struggling to come to terms with it, or at least it was what she said. Their birth control had failed. They’d decided to wait until Aya was at least four or five before having another one because she was the singular worst baby from birth until about one month before her second birthday. She was not a cuddly baby. She was colicky and cranky and barely slept through the night. Alcee struggled to wean her from breast feeding because the child refused to transition to liquids from any other source but her mother and became dehydrated. Their pediatrician said Aya Lozano was the singular most stubborn baby he’d ever met, and it was made all the more difficult because Antero gave her everything she asked for, even behind his parents‘ backs.
They did not want another one so soon. Yet, the test didn’t lie and there was another baby growing right now. Torq personally was thrilled.
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“I can’t believe the three of you are pregnant at the same time,” Sal commented.
“Who else is pregnant,” Amal questioned looking around the room.
Alcee held up her hand, “that’d be me. Sal, stop being so damn observant. I’m not ready to accept it yet. We only told Antero this morning.”
Congratulations poured from around the room and Alcee waved it off. Torq almost laughed as he considered she was still not quite resigned to the fact.
“It needs to be a boy to help me protect Aya.” Antero settled into his seat at the table. “Is lunch
ready?”
“It is,” Brunella looked impatiently to the door, “I was waiting for Lorita and the boys to get here but they’re late. Again.”
All the adults exchanged glances knowing exactly why Lorita, Tank and Alfio were late. Those three made the rest of the room seem like priests who took vows of celibacy. At Susana’s twin’s baptism they were caught in a car behind the church and the car was rocking so hard they didn’t even notice
when Torq shot all four tires out.
“We’re here!” Lorita’s voice called from the entrance of the house. “Lunch smells good!”
Torq watched his sister come into the room and frowned, “your shirt is on inside out.”
“This is the fashion.”
He smacked Alfio and Tank behind their heads, “this is how you bring my sister into our family
home?”
Alfio took the smack with a grin, “uh, you forget how I saw you bring my sister into our family home
two weeks ago.”
Michelo and his wife celebrated the baptismal of their son at Mercurio’s house. Torq and Alcee
attended as guests, but he’d needed to calm her nerves before they went in. He winked at her across
the room with the memory of how he’d done it.
Alfio walked to Alcee and kissed her cheek, “hello sister. That’s from Mercurio. Also, Mama is asking you to visit her. She said she is on death’s door.”
“The last time I was there she cried the entire time, and the nurses said my presence worsens her condition.” Alcee shrugged helplessly, “it’s best I stay away.”
Alcee’s relationships with her brothers after three years was still complicated. She got along much better with Alfio since he was underfoot all the time but the other three were loyal to their mother who Alcee couldn’t seem to be in a room with before one of them started crying or yelling. Torq
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hypothesized once the woman finally croaked, things would settle between Alcee and the Mariani
men.
Aya, still in his arms, saw Cicciu coming in carrying a roast turkey and started flailing excitedly. When they’d asked the two–year–old what she wanted for her birthday she demanded turkey.
“Our kids are weird, Torq,” Alcee muttered as he put the child down and she raced to climb onto a chair to try to rip a drumstick off the roasted bird. “One of them inventories his candy and the other
asks for fowl for her birthday.”
“We’re food motivated people.” He grinned at her and hugged her to his side as they watched the chaos unfold as everyone sat at the table and the housekeeping staff helped Brunella bring in the rest of the dishes. He rested his hand on her belly, “still pissed off?”
“No. Happy but I’ve been praying this one isn’t weird.”
“Baby, look around the table. Our entire family is whacky. There is no chance in hell this child is coming out fitting societal norms.” He laughed as she groaned and leaned her head backwards. “But do you know what?”
“What?”
“I wouldn’t change any of this for anything. I love our whacky family. I love how loud it gets. I love how we fight. I love how we love. I love how we are always here for each other. This is our very messy, dysfunctional, blended crazy family and I love it here.”
She wound her arms around his waist and hugged him. “Do you know what I noticed?”
“What?”
“They’re all food motivated, especially when it’s Brunella’s cooking.”
“True. Mama is a great chef.”
“They’re also food distracted.” She wriggled against him shooting him a look and then tilted her
head towards the door leading to the garden.
The duo backed up slowly before turning to run out of the house towards the garden, ignoring the catcalls from their friends as they disappeared away from the noise and into a small garden shed at
the back of the property.
This was the life
The End
