Juliet smiled to herself, thinking of how happy Stefan had been to know that they were expecting a second child. All he kept talking about was how he would send his little boy to school to give him the best of chances in life - chances he had been denied. Apparently when he had asked to further his own education, his father had refused, which was something he didn't want for his son. To that end, he had already started putting away some extra money so that we could afford to pay for high school.
I didn't dissuade him from believing that this was going to be a boy, but I was certainly well aware it could be another girl. My morning sickness seemed better this time around, but taking care of the baby at night as well as being pregnant was exhausting. I did what I could to help with the farm finances by knitting, but I wasn't able to do as much as I had been in the past.
Having to waddle out to the outhouse in the middle of a night time thunderstorm was miserable, but at least I made it all the way there. How I wished I could run back to the house to escape the storm - but, alas, I was stuck waddling. How undignified.
Thankfully, the storm was gone by the time we got up in the morning, and I was able to do some laundry. Leaning over the washbasin while pregnant was no one's idea of fun, but it was a necessary chore.
Stefan was proud of how their little farm was doing. Once again, making the weekly loan payment wasn't a problem, and he still had enough to start putting money away for his son's education.
He addressed the envelope to the bank, and headed out to the mailbox to send it. Opening the box, he discovered a letter addressed to Juliet from Brindleton Bay, and his heart sank. She was always so upset after hearing from her mother, and he had a bad feeling about this one. The last letter had not been good news, and he feared this would be worse.
He hoped that it wouldn't affect her pregnancy, but he knew he couldn't keep the letter from her. That wouldn't be right, either. He held onto it until dinner time, letting her finish up her daily chores and caring for Florence for the afternoon before burdening her with the letter.
As they were eating dinner, he brought up the letter, and Juliet immediately wanted to read it. He convinced her to at least finish her meal first - but she was too worried about what it might contain to eat any more.
Watching her read the letter was torturous. He watched her face go from worried to ... something worse.. in the space of a few moments. She almost looked angry. Apparently, her step sister had finally succumbed to her illness. The anger came from her mother assuming that Juliet could and would simply come home now. How could she? She was married now, and expecting another child. Traveling was out of the question. It was almost like Juliet's mother was saying we should move our entire family back to Brindleton Bay just because Mary was gone. Ridiculous. I comforted Juliet as much as I could, then went out to do some woodworking.
Juliet couldn't decide whether to be heartbroken or furious, and figuring out what to write back to her mother was out of the question. How dare her mother simply assume that Juliet would return in the wake of Mary's death. She had a life here now, a family. And her mother seemed unable to acknowledge it. Juliet took a deep breath and placed a hand over the baby in her abdomen. She had other things to worry about now, and she was no longer at her mother's beck and call. She gathered the dinner dishes and set about cleaning up from the meal.
She could hear Stefan outside working away on his newest project, whatever it was, and the baby was stirring upstairs by the time the dishes were done. She firmly put the matter of her mother's letter out of her head, and went to see to Florence.
The rest of the week passed in a blur. Between caring for the house, herself, and Florence, she was completely swamped, and the lingering sadness over Mary's death was soon forgotten.
By the weekend, she was more than ready for a holiday, and welcomed the local Trick-or-Treaters in with some homemade treats. Midway through the evening, however, she heard a ruckus upstairs, and left Stefan in charge of answering the door so she could go investigate.
She had known the day was coming, but finding Florence up and walking around was still a bit of a surprise. Juliet had thought she was already asleep for the evening. Clearly not. She had gotten into the wardrobe and strewn clothes all over the room. Chuckling to herself, Juliet cleaned up the mess and carried little Florence back to the bedroom to put her back to bed.
Florence, of course, had other ideas, and wanted to babble on excitedly about who knows what. Juliet smiled and brought out her knitting, trying to remember to reply to Florence as she would anyone else, to encourage the now-toddler to start to learn to talk.
She was utterly exhausted by the time she finally got Florence to sleep in her new room, and she trudged downstairs to head to the outhouse before she herself could join Stefan in bed.
She made it to the outhouse.. but not back to bed. Waking up on the kitchen floor was a horrible way to come to one's senses, too. Blinking in confusion for a moment, she pushed herself to her feet and practically crawled upstairs to her bed.
The sun was starting to come over the horizon when she woke again, urgently needing the outhouse. She had been so exhausted, she had slept too long.. and she ended up having to hurriedly clean up the mess so that Stefan wouldn't know of her embarrassment. What a way to start a day!
Aahhh....Florence is so cute!!! I love that little outfit on her! So adorable!!!