“Actually, I think I need to see you holding at least five babies just like that,” I said, smiling at him. “Even if they all come out looking like you,” I added.
Did it make me any better of a pregnant lady?
Not in the least.
But Danny was right.
When Bay came out, he was worth all of it.
Rowe - 10 years
“Ah, babe, can I see you over here for a minute?” I called, seeing Billie looking at me as she put down the pile of junk that had accumulated in the living room, despite having toy boxes in all the kids’ bedrooms.
“At my herb cabinet?” she asked, sounding amused as she rounded the couch and made her way over toward me. “What’s up?” she asked.
Taking a step back, I reached for one of her mason jars. It was labeled Bay leaves.
“Bay,” I said, naming our firstborn.
I reached up for a jar of liquid.
“Clary Sage,” I read off the label.
Our identical twin girls that came in short order after Bay were named Clary. And Sage.
Billie’s lips were pressed together at that, her eyes dancing as my arm lifted again to grab another jar filled with little red and black nuts, then grabbing another with dried yellow flowers and setting it down next to the nuts.
“Mace and Rue,” I read off the labels.
Just like our fraternal twins, a boy and a girl. Because, apparently, since Billie’s mom and aunt had only each had one child, we hadn’t realized that not only did twins, but triplets, ran in their family tree. We learned that only after we’d had our doctor look at us with a wince at the ultrasound just a year and a half after being blessed with our first set of twins.
“You guys are going to have your hands full.”
Those were his words.
And they proved very, very true.
“You named our children after your… herbs,” I said, a strange, airless laugh escaping me.
Really, it shouldn’t have surprised me.
This was Billie after all.
We’d struck the deal on the names in her first trimester of her first pregnancy, when she was sick and miserable and saw no light at the end of the tunnel. So I’d told her I would let her name the babies if she let me name the dogs.
I guess it never occurred to me to ask the origins of the names.
“Well, you can thank Hope for talking me out of naming them after crystals. She thought that even with a badass biker daddy, little Agate and Peridot and Tourmaline would get their butts kicked on the playground,” she said, smiling.
Agate and Peridot and Tourmaline?
“I owe Hope a bottle of Scotch,” I said, shaking my head.
Billie let out a throaty laugh at that, a sound that was interrupted with a ear-piercing shriek from the front yard. My whole body jolted.
Billie didn’t even flinch.
See, Billie might have been a terrible pregnant woman.
But she was an incredible mom.
Maybe all those years of yoga and meditation had given her the advantage she needed to deal with five children, four of whom were within two years of each other in age. And even Bay’s age advantage over all the younger siblings was only a year and a half.
Which meant we were currently dealing with a son who was about to turn nine, two girls who were almost six, and a boy and a girl who were four.
The house was indescribably loud and chaotic from the moment the kids woke up in the morning until the second they fell asleep at night. And there was Billie, going through her day with a serene smile and unending patience.
“If it makes you feel any better,” she’d told me once when I was mad at myself for getting short with the kids, “the only reason I keep my calm is because of my scream and cursing yoga classes,” she said, shooting me a wicked smile. “You get it all out there and come home refreshed.
“Sounds like someone is either missing a limb or can’t find their plushie,” Billie said, moving past me to head out to the yard where the kids had all been playing so we could clean up inside.
They were under the watchful eyes of Johnny and June, our absurdly massive Saint Bernards we’d invited into the family around the time Billie found out she was pregnant with the second set of twins. Had it been somewhat insane to add two giant dogs to the family when we were expecting two more kids? Absolutely. But in our defense, we hadn’t been planning on getting pregnant again, and we’d already reserved the puppies from an ethical breeder we’d spent years reaching and sitting on the waiting list of.
I’d been ready to cancel the reserve, but Billie had been the one to stomp her foot and pout and remind me that she thrived on crazy.