Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
“See? Extra set of hands. Now, the diaper bag,” she said, coming over to the family room to set her nephew down at her side, so she could reach for her niece. “So, what kind of ice cream are you getting?” she asked my oldest. “Because I think I want vanilla soft serve in a cone with rainbow sprinkles.”
Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and knowing Islah was more than capable of taking care of the kids, since she was our go-to babysitter, I went ahead and got the diaper bag all packed while Islah strapped the baby into her carseat carrier, then handed it to the man who she had to be getting serious with if she was bringing him around to introduce to her big brother.
With that, she hoisted the three-year-old on her hip, put the bag on her shoulder, and took my eldest’s hand.
“Say bye to daddy,” she said as she shuffled my kids out the door.
I turned back from the door to find Elizabeth leaning in the doorway. Her eyelids were still swollen from the migraine, but the ease in her body language said it had finally broken.
“I guess she finally figured out that real men can be even better than fictional ones,” she said, following me over to the couch and sitting next to me, resting her head on my shoulder.
“How’s your head?”
“Better. Hopefully, there’s no rebound, but better. That was a banger.”
“Want me to make you some coffee?”
“Nope,” she said, sliding her legs over my lap. “I want to stay here, just like this,” she said as my arm went around her, pulling her close. “I love the noise, but it really does make you appreciate the occasional quiet. Well, relative quiet,” she said as Richard and the newest rescue Serano had dropped at our door, Donald, got into a little tiff over the dangling yarn ball on the tree stand.
We were currently at four cats.
Four cats.
Three children.
And only two sets of hands.
It was crazy around here more often than it was calm.
But neither of us would have it any other way.
Elizabeth - 25 years
“Okay,” our daughter declared from her side of the dinner table after nervously twisting her pasta, a telltale sign that she was nervous about something. “I finally figured it out.”
“Figured what out?” Elian asked, head tipped to the side as he looked at her, our only girl, though not our youngest.
I remember being dubious once about how many “a few” children meant to Elian. It turned out it meant five. An absurd number of children to raise in the city. But thanks to Elian’s forethought to buy the other condo in hopes of a family one day, we had more than enough room for all of them.
And, hey, that last one turned out to be one of the best decisions we’d ever made. Because that little dude had worked some kind of magic spell on my hormones, making my migraines all but disappear.
I still struggled with one here or there, mostly due to the weather or working out too hard, but it was nothing like I’d been experiencing most of my adult life.
“My major,” our daughter said, rolling her eyes like we all should have known what was going on in her mind every moment of every day. Despite her being our most mercurial child with a mind that flip-flopped from one thing to another in the blink of an eye.
Of all our kids, I guess she was the one who was most similar to me. Ambitious, but a little directionless. Eager to prove herself, but not sure exactly how.
At her age, I was exactly like her.
And, well, she was also a little mini-me. Except she’d inherited her father’s golden eyes.
“Oh, that’s great,” I said, happy for her, knowing how much she’d struggled to make up her mind, feeling like she was behind all of her peers who’d gone into their senior year of high school knowing exactly what they wanted to be when they grew up.
This had been an easier age for our older boys. Who, despite really strong urging on our part to get them to go to college, to travel, to have normal lives, had long-since made up their minds that they were going to follow in their father’s footsteps.
And while, sure, the Lombardi family was still very progressive and open to female capos, I had to admit that I was glad our girl had never shown any interest in joining the family business.
“What did you decide on?” Elian asked when she didn’t immediately offer up the information.
“I want to go for political science,” she said, making Elian and I share a look.
“Really?” I asked. “What kind of career are you hoping to go into with that?”
“Well, I kind of want to be a political campaign manager,” she declared a little shyly, letting me know how much she actually wanted that. Her uncertainties were always loud. Her desires were quiet. It was another thing I related to a little too much.