1.06 Blessings

Previously...

Amelia and Mort's honeymoon doesn't exactly go as planned. Mort, obsessed with treasure hunting, gets in a scrape and is close to death, but is saved by Tilly and Amelia finding him. Amelia is furious, and the trip ends abruptly, with the three of them going home early.After a long wait, the family can finally move into their new house, even if it isn't quite finished yet. Another exciting thing happens - Tilly takes her new boyfriend home for dinner. And unexpectedly, he takes Mort aside and askes for his permission to marry Tilly...

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A few heavy seconds went past as the two men stared at each other. Mort swallowed.

“Does Tilly know about this?” He asked, his eyes narrowing slightly.

“No. I wanted to talk to you first, sir.” Carl rubbed the sweaty palms of his hands against his shorts nervously. He was unsure whether or not he should go into another speech about how much Tilly meant to him. He was just forming the words in his head when he felt Mort's hand on his arm. It wasn't soft nor harsh. It just held on to him as he asked plainly:

“Do you really think you need my blessing?” Carl felt like his face must look like a big question mark. His lips had parted slightly and his eyebrows were knitted.

“What-” he began, but Mort silenced him with a hearty chuckle.

“As much as I love that girl, she'd never allow me to decide what she did with her life. Or who she spent it with for that matter. I suppose you know she wants to become a writer?” Carl nodded softly, still not knowing what to say, but feeling like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. Mort continued.

“Well, that isn't usually a very lucrative line of work, you know, and if I had to decide... I would rather have seen her doing something more stable, that's all. But if this is what she wants, then I'll support her all the way.” Carl nodded thoughtfully. Mort looked straight into his eyes with a very kind and reassuring smile and said:

“And the same goes for your engagement.” Carl lit up. “If she decides to say yes, of course!” Mort exclaimed with another little laugh.

He had seen more during the dinner than he had been letting on and was quite sure that Tilly would say yes without blinking.

“Thank you, sir.” Carl said and shook Mort's hand gratefully.

“Oh, don't “sir” me, we're practically family now, call me Mort.”

Amelia looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

She didn't like what she saw. A tired, worn and above all pale woman, with a big secret that would eventually have to come out one way or another. Of course, no one else could see that she was hiding something, she had made sure of that. Not even Mort seemed to be suspecting that anything was wrong. She hated to keep things from him, though. A familiar wave of nausea washed over her and she covered her mouth instinctively with her hand before falling down on her knees in front of the toilet as her breakfast made a reappearance.

With a disgusted grimace she wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand. She had to tell him, she thought with a sigh. There was no point in delaying it. If she waited much longer, it would be too late. She gussied up and dressed as usual and was about to go to work when, on her way down the stairs, she heard that Mort hadn't left yet. The slow cluttering, unlike Tilly's very fast paced one, of the computer keyboard keys told her that he was in the study. She peeked her head inside the door.

“Aren't you going to work?”

“Yeah, just a minute, wait for me?”

They usually took separate cars, something that Amelia had always insisted on, but there were the odd days when they decided to go together. For the environment, Amelia would convince herself. But today, she expected, after their talk, both of them would insist on separate cars. She took a few steps inside the still almost empty room. The shipment of the floor to ceiling bookcases they were planning to put up along the walls were delayed.

“I need to talk to you.” She said timidly, having stopped right inside the door as if an invisible barrier kept her from coming any closer to Mort. He stood up with a worried look on his face and walked around the table to stand right in front of her.

“What's the matter?” He could see that this was serious, and terrifying thoughts of illness or worse clouded his mind for a moment. “Has something happened?” Amelia wasn't sure how to begin. Was she supposed to ease him into it somehow? She decided that the best approach was probably to just do it quickly, like ripping off a band aid.

“I'm pregnant.” The words hung in the air for a few seconds. She was sure that he would start lecturing her about protection, just like her father had done that one time when she had had a pregnancy scare that had luckily turned out to be false. But the expression on Mort's face, to Amelia's surprise, slowly changed from worried to overjoyed.

“Are you serious, are you sure?” He grabbed her arms and pulled her closer, searching her eyes desperately. “We're going to have a baby?” Amelia was stiff as a board as Mort hugged her close to him. “Oh, honey, this is the best news!” He didn't seem to notice that Amelia's face was unchanged; her teeth clenched and her eyes burning with anger. But now, she wasn't angry with herself.

“What's wrong with you, Mort?!” She exclaimed, pulling away from his touch. “We can't have a baby! We have a company to run, how can you be so irresponsible?”

The words she had expected to come from Mort's mouth, were now spilling out of hers. Mort looked at her in shock and amazement. But she didn't give him a chance to respond. With tears threateningly piling up behind her eyelids she rushed out of the room and hid in the laundry room.

That was the first day in several years that Amelia had stayed home on a work day.

In the evening, oblivious to the drama in the house, Tilly happily went out to have dinner with Carl. Afterward he followed her home and they stood in the kitchen for a long time, kissing and talking in hushed voices.

Carl had been sniveling all evening and Tilly had secretly thought that he looked worse and worse as the night wore on. His eyes were bloodshot and a touch of sweat gleamed on his forehead. He suddenly pulled away from her and sneezed.

Tilly felt his forehead as she pulled him closer.

“Oh, goodness, you're burning up. You better sleep here tonight.” Carl agreed, albeit reluctantly.

If Tilly hadn't known better, seeing Carl's cheery, rested face the next morning would have made her suspicious. Had he really gone from feverish and ill to happy and healthy overnight? But the way he pampered her, getting her breakfast in bed and even picking up her dirty clothes and throwing them into the washing machine, she couldn't doubt how much he loved her.

So what if he had only pretended to be sick, if so, he had done it to be close to her. How could she really object to that? They spent the whole day at the house without noticing that the air between Mort and Amelia was unusually chilly. For several hours in the evening they all watched TV in the living room as if having Carl there was the most natural thing in the world.

But eventually the two love birds scampered off to bed, snickering and giggling up the stairs. Mort and Amelia were left alone on the sofa, thoughtfully staring at the TV.

Mort was the one to speak first, as usual.

“I get it.” Amelia kept staring straight at the television screen, but her brain didn't register the meaning of the moving images or the sounds. She listened intently. “I get why you're so worked up about this. I'm sorry. I was too stuck in my own thoughts. Work, the company, you know it means a lot to me, but it's not as important as my family. I would love to have kids. With you. Are you... Are you having an abortion?” Mort turned his head and looked straight at her.

“I don't know. It's not the right time.”

“Will it ever be?” Mort retorted calmly with a hint of hopelessness in his voice. Amelia thought for a while.

“Honestly, I've never really thought of having kids before. I love my work.”

“I know. But most people manage to have both.”

“Mhm... But what if I can't get back to work? What if people don't respect me anymore? Or if I can't catch up. A lot happens in a short time at that place, what if I loose my touch?”

She had barely voiced these worries to herself before this. They had been nagging in the back of her mind but never really surfacing. Now her fears hit her with full force. Mort wasn't surprised, but he could see a gleam of hope.

“You don't have to be away. Not for very long. We can get a nanny.” His eyes gleamed and his manner was more energized, more on edge, waiting for her response.

“Can we afford a nanny?” Amelia asked, looking back at him with an expression that gave him even more hope.

For some unthinkable reason, she hadn't even considered this before, but had assumed that a child would equal her being fettered down and stuck in the house. Mort pulled her closer to him, wrapping his arm around her.

“Of course we can!” He checked himself reluctantly. “Well, at least as long as we're both working, it shouldn't be a problem.” They sat silent for what seemed like hours. Laughter and shouts came from the speakers next to the TV. Mort thought he could hear a thumping sound coming from somewhere in the house. And then Amelia opened her mouth.

“Okay.”

From that day onward, time seemed to be crawling. Everyone in the household, including Carl, who had practically moved in by now, were excitedly anticipating the birth of Mort and Amelia's first child together. Even Amelia herself had changed her tune and was now busy baby proofing the house and decorating the nursery, on her days off, as she still worked full time and planned to do so as long as humanly possible. A few weeks after the pregnancy announcement, Carl built up his courage and proposed to Tilly, who as her father had predicted said yes without a second thought.

The atmosphere in the house was all smiles and laughter. Until the day, or rather night, came when Amelia's contractions started... Her roars of pain echoed through the house. Mort, Tilly and Carl were on their feet in an instant, having prepared for this day for weeks. Tilly and Carl called for a cab while Mort helped his wife into some clothes.

“Let's go honey, I think that's the cab now.” He said softly, letting Amelia lean on his arm for support. In between two contractions they managed to get down the stairs and out of the house, but just as her feet hit the soft grass, another wave of searing pain shot through Amelia. Mort gritted his teeth and lifted her into his arms.

“I've gotcha.” He whispered in her ear and carried her over the lawn to the waiting cab. He was painfully reminded that his body and strength weren't what they had used to and he had a quick, fleeting thought: Was he too old to have another child?

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Lots of exciting things happening in this chapter! I've realized that I write Amelia's character as if she's a hot-headed person. But really, it's just her workaholic streak that is causing all the drama in her head. Hopefully she will settle down a bit in the future and leave the tantrums to the little one. ;) So, what do you think the sex of the new family member will be?


/Alexandra

Vomit in the eye. Don't you just hate it when that happens?

A better look at cute Carl.

And here he is, plucking up his courage before proposing to Tilly.

"Oh no!"

"My wedding ring!"

Elders in this town seem uncommonly flexible...