Page 114 of Kylo
Work wise that was true. With the job from Teddy finalized several months back, it became abundantly clear that I needed some extra help at the shop. To replace Traeg, but also to help pick up the slack. Eventually, those employees got good enough to handle things on their own. I mostly dropped in on delivery days and came in to do all the trimming of the mother plants to make new baby ones.
It meant I had a lot of free time on my hands.
But I always kept my days full. There were always chores to do. Sometimes I worked in the garden out front, or visited my grandmother, or even went to the clubhouse to hang out.
So, no, I didn’t reallyhaveto do much.
But we had a baby on the way now.
I wanted to pick out paint, choose a crib, do a gift registry. And, you know, tell my parents. I was really dragging my feet about that part. Mostly just because I didn’t do the whole having-a-baby thing “right.” And “right” would be to do it after a tasteful wedding and a solid year of house-building.
The last time I talked to them, they’d still asked me when I was going to go back to college. Despite having a thriving business and a comfortable personal income.
Kylo had met them briefly when he’d taken me to New York City to spend a week in another of Teddy’s hotels—this one a boutique one that was more trendy than fancy—and see all the shows on Broadway that I’d been wanting to for years. My parents just so happened to be in town for some work meeting. We’d all met up for lunch.
Everyone had been cordial. But I could sense that my parents didn’t like that Kylo also hadn’t gone to college. And while he obviously didn’t tell them what he did for a living, he’d informed them that he was in imports and made a six-figure income (yes, they’d been rude enough to ask). That still wasn’t good enough.
I found, for the first time in my whole life, though, that I didn’t care what they thought when it came to Kylo. They would never understand what we had. I didn’t need them to.
Maybe, once I was rested and not so sick, I wouldn’t care what they thought about me doing the marriage and baby thing out of order.
My grandmother was over the moon.
She and her friends were all working on baby blankets. And I heard they were going to start a sewing club to make onesies and old-fashioned outfits—dresses and frilly diaper covers for girls, sailor rompers and dungarees for a boy.
Traeger was pinning the cutest baby accessories to a board he shared with me.
The club old ladies were giving me all their advice.
Thiswas the family that mattered now.
My parents could get on board… or not be involved.
That, I realized, was a huge breakthrough for me.
No more worrying about their expectations or being upset that I was always falling short in their eyes.
“That feels nice,” I said when Kylo’s fingers moved to my scalp, massaging in little circles.
“Sink into it,” Kylo invited.
I did just that, focusing on his fingertips, the calm, steady thump of his heart under my ear, the steady reassurance of his arm around my hips.
Just like that, all the anxiety slipped away.
And I slipped into a deep sleep.
Kylo - 6 Years
“What’s the matter, bub?” I asked, walking up to our son and sitting down next to where he was throwing a tantrum in the backyard at the clubhouse.
“He… they… I can’t…”
He was hyperventilating, his little chest rising and falling rapidly, his cheeks ruddy with his unspoken outrage.
“Okay. How about we take a big, deep breath like Mommy does sometimes?”
“Kay.”
