Chapter 22 - Welcome to the Family

 

"Gussie! Hey! How's life, man? What's up?"

If there's anything that Tiara is good at, it's pretending that absolutely nothing out of the ordinary has happened when she's slept with someone.

It's the men who seem a little less apt at playing this game. "...uh...I'm, uh, pretty swell. You?"

"I'm just great. Hey, listen, I just wanted to call you and tell you that you were right." She chuckled as she began pacing. "Man. All my talk about saving stray animals when I'm not even willing to help children? What's the matter with me?"

"Nothing," he says just a little too fast, just quick enough to make Tiara's smile turn a little sadder. "Nothing at all's wrong with you. Don't think that."

"Well, thank you for that. But I already made my decision and it stands. She'll be here in about an hour."

"What?"

"The girl I'm adopting. Her name's Marie."

Marie might be a very sudden decision for Tiara, but there's something about the two that meshes already. Besides a mutual love for the color pink, one that Tiara rarely expresses and one that Marie thrives on, they're both individuals in every sense of the word.

Marie, however, seems to have a complex about being rejected, whereas Tiara has never known what rejection feels like in her entire life. The child is quick to help out around the house, often doing her chores far before Tiara can ever ask her to.

In hindsight, it's probably a good thing Marie's around. This feels pretty familiar, and it'll be nice to not have to go it alone.

Tiara just barely stood above the financial threshhold required to adopt a child, but she's still poor enough that the two have to share a bed. But neither are terribly proud and the closeness is good for Marie.

Tiara's not really sure if she's excited or terrified about the prospect of being pregnant. It was one thing to have a strange man's child and to not have seen him since. It was another thing to have your best friend's child and have to see him at work every single day.

Megan watches curiously as she sucks at her bottle. Adults are so weird.

Though Marie and Tiara have been searching for a routine that suits them both, the one thing they don't worry about is having cake for breakfast.

"Hey, umm..."

Tiara glances up at Marie, smiling softly. "Call me whatever feels comfortable."

Marie hesitates, her eyes darting back and forth for a moment, before she gulps. "...hey, Tiara?"

There's sort of a vague sense of disappointment there, but Tiara shakes it off. "Yeah, honey?"

"What's gonna happen...y'know, when the baby comes?"

Tiara blinks before she shrugs. "Well, the house'll be really loud and-"

"No, no, I mean...what'll happen to me?"

"What do you mean?"

Marie sets down her fork with a contemplative frown. "Are you going to wish you hadn't adopted me when you have your own baby to take care of?"

Tiara stares at Marie with wide eyes for a long moment before she leans across the table just enough to catch the younger girl's eye again. "I will never regret adopting you." She lifts her eyebrows skyward. "Even if you never feel comfortable calling me Mom, you will always be my daughter, do you hear me?"

Marie stares back, a hint of shellshock in her eyes, but she nods obediently as she tries to process it.

Marie thrives on the presence of a routine once it is established. They do homework together every night before Tiara waddles off to work. The babysitter arrives shortly after and Marie spends her time bonding with the cats and reading to strengthen her brilliant mind, if not playing with Megan and trying to teach her simple words. Tiara returns home and the two go to bed.

One morning, Marie awakens with something damp covering the sheets. "..."

Count on a little girl to realize that Tiara's water has broken before Tiara does. Talk about traumatizing.

Once again, Tiara opts for having the child at home, just in case the babysitter wouldn't be able to get there in time to watch the children while she was gone.

Another healthy baby girl, this one named Melissa Toft. Tiara begins to wonder if the Tofts literally have an inability to have male children.

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I don't feel terribly bad about giving short chapters thus far, haha, given that I'm updating once a day. We've got one more almost filler-like chapter before we start getting into more of a plot and character development.

Three children down, one more to go! Yay!

PS: I apologize for picture 9. xD I'm in too much of a hurry to fix it now, but I'll trim it down later.