Hazel - 2 years
“Jack, they don’t need your help!” I called to our most eager, most dedicated employee.
Jack (short for Jack-o-Lantern) was our sweet Golden Retriever who came to us through a local rescue while we’d been knee-deep in wedding planning.
He’d been too energetic for his first home. But his high-energy, eager-to-please personality, mixed with his quickness in picking up new commands, meant he made the perfect house—and work—companion.
It took all of one day to teach him where he was, and wasn’t, allowed to go. He greeted each customer with bright eyes and a wiggling tail.
He loved to help people pull their garden carts to the car and, on occasion, drag a large planter around.
He’d been over the moon when we filled the place with pumpkins he could move as well.
But he was currently trying to help someone with their scarecrow before they finished stuffing it.
Jack, as it turned out, was a staple at the garden center. I actually felt bad on the days I wasn’t working, because people were disappointed if they stopped in and didn’t get to see him.
That disappointment would be growing soon, though, I thought as I pressed my hand to my rounded belly.
I was closing in on the third trimester. And Dante and I both agreed that I needed to step back from a lot of the actual boots-on-the-ground parts of running the garden center.
I could still do all the planning and management stuff, but from home mostly. At least until the baby was able to come to work with me.
Sunshine, fresh air, it would be a great place to raise a curious, energetic toddler.
But not great for a newborn. Or an exhausted mama.
Not that I would be too tired.
One major perk to the Grassi family was that it was the ‘village’ everyone said you needed to raise a baby.
I’d already been pulled into that with the others as they got pregnant and had babies. I’d made meals and delivered them, done shopping, chores, and, yes, pulled a few overnights so both parents could catch up on sleep.
As soon as we’d announced the pregnancy, tins of food started showing up endlessly. Then, I kid you not, a deep freezer to keep storing it all.
I was pretty sure that we wouldn’t need to cook for the whole first two months already. And the dishes hadn’t shown any signs of slowing down.
On top of that, both Giulia and Dante’s Aunt Adrian had promised to each come by every week so we could either have a date night… or a good, long nap.
It was easy to be excited about parenthood when you had such a great family to have your back.
Speaking of family…
“How’s it going?” I asked my sister Hannah as she walked up carrying a large pumpkin.
A few months ago, she wouldn’t have even been able to pick the thing up; she’d been so weak.
Hannah had shown up to our wedding looking gaunt, skeletal, only for me to realize that she’d taken our mother and grandmother’s food and exercise advice to the extreme.
It had taken a while, but I’d convinced them to let her come up to Navesink Bank with us, so she could attend an intensive in-patient treatment center for her eating disorder, followed by staying with us until she went back to college.
She wasn’t healed, per se. But the much healthier food culture of the Grassi family was helping her work toward that end.
“What’s that for?” I asked, looking at the pumpkin.
“Someone got… inventive with their carving of it,” she said, glancing around, making her black ponytail swish, then turning the pumpkin to face me.
Inventive, alright.
It was a mini penis with massive balls.
“Kids,” I sighed.
“And, yet, you’re still making one,” she said, looking to my belly.
Hannah had been pretty firm about not wanting kids of her own. Sure, she was young. And maybe she would change her mind. But for now, she was focused on herself and her big career goals once she got back on track with her college career.
Luckily for her, while she waited for the next year to start, she had access to some brilliant businessmen and women. She was currently bouncing around between all of the Grassi Family businesses to soak up everything she could about business.
“Hopefully this one won’t feel the need to carve phalluses into private property.”
“I don’t know, there’s a certain artistic…
” Hannah started, turning the pumpkin around.
“Nope. Just a dick. Oh well. We can cut it open for the squirrels in the woods.” She set it down on the pile of other pumpkins that had gotten crushed or broken.
Someone would set them out for the wildlife at the end of the shift. “Do you need me to drive you home?”
“Nope. Dante is coming to get me so we can go get some pizza.”
“You’re going to turn into a pizza.”
She wasn’t wrong.
My cravings were for three things and three things only: pizza, mashed potatoes, and white cranberry juice.
I was rolling with it after a truly horrific bout of morning sickness in the first and part of the second trimester where I couldn’t eat anything but dry crackers and tea, I went ahead and let myself eat whatever I wanted now that I could.
“Don’t worry. Giulia is going to stuff me full of roasted vegetables tomorrow night. Are you coming?”
“Would I miss it? I’m actually going early. Giulia is on a one-woman mission to teach me how to cook.”
“Considering you’ve burnt everything you’ve tried to make so far, I think she has her work cut out for her.”
“I’m on peeling duty. And pasta-stirring. I may or may not have almost burned down her kitchen last week. Okay. I’m out. Therapy,” she said, giving me a happy wave then rushing off to her car.
I watched her pull out and wave to Dante as he turned into the lot.
Pressing a hand to my stomach, I felt a smile spread across my face.
I had a healthy sister, a growing baby, a loving family, and the best husband a woman could ask for.
Everything was perfect.
“That is… oddly fitting,” Dante said, eyeing my shirt with the garden center’s logo on it.
“What does that mean?” I asked as he opened the car door for me.
“You’ll see.”
I didn’t bother to ask.
When he wanted to be, Dante was annoyingly good at keeping a secret.
It wasn’t until we didn’t turn in the direction of any of Lucky’s pizza places that I felt my interest piquing.
“There better be pizza, whatever this is,” I grumbled, My stomach did the same.
“Would I ever under-promise on pizza?” Dante asked.
He was right.
I knew I could trust him.
Because as we pulled into Matteo’s event venue, where everyone was lying in wait to surprise me with a baby shower, there was a whole wall lined in tables full of different pizzas.
“I married the best man in the world,” I told him, leaning my head into his side.
Dante - 12 years
“That’s a lot of noise,” I declared as I walked in the front door of our house.
To be fair, in our home, it was always a lot of noise.
That’s what happened when you started having kids and just couldn’t stop.
“Help!” someone called from deep inside the house, making my heart gallop as I flew down the center hallway and into the kitchen.
I guess I’d expected Hazel.
But it was Hannah, standing in the chaos all around her: art projects strewn over the island, half-eaten food on the table, sauce simmering too high and spitting all over the backsplash, kids everywhere.
“Hannah, what’s going on?” I asked, snatching up a toddler as I made my way to the oven to turn the sauce down then give it a stir before it burned.
“I dropped in for a visit,” Hannah said, wiping some spilled juice before it could waterfall off the counter. “My sister had her head in the toilet and the whole house was going to hell.”
We hadn’t meant to get pregnant again. But there’d been a period between when the vasectomy fully ‘kicked in,’ and, well, we had another bundle of joy on the way.
“Shouldn’t they be in school?” Hannah asked, waving toward where one of the kids was dunking a Barbie’s hair into a plate of spaghetti.
Hannah had been true to her desire not to have children of her own. At least not the human kind. She had two spoiled rotten dogs who had a better wardrobe than I did. And, as she hoped, she was kicking ass in the business world.
Her visits were rare.
And she did try to time them for when she could spend the most time with her sister… without the kids interrupting.
“The school is closed for the week for teacher’s something or other,” I said, handing the toddler to Hannah. “Take them outside to run this energy off,” I said.
By the time they came back in, I had the dishwasher stacked, the surfaces cleaned, the meal back on track, and some tea and crackers ready to bring up to my sick wife.
“That was… seriously impressive,” Hannah decided once she came back in.
“I’m a skilled chaos manager at this point.”
“When I really need to do a deep clean of the penthouse, I can just… put the dogs in their crates.”
“Are you suggesting I crate my children?” I asked, smiling.
“Crate, soundproof booth, boarding school…” Hannah teased.
“We’ve learned to like the craziness.”
“Okay. Well, maybe—”
“Hello!” my mom’s voice rang through the house.
“Grammy!” the kids chorused, running out to greet her.
She emerged a few minutes, a toddler on one hip, her hand in one of the older kid’s hand.
“Oh, Hannah! Perfect! I could use your help.”
“My help?” Hannah asked.
“I’m taking these darlings back to my place for the night. I heard Mama is not feeling well. I could use an extra set of hands.”
“So long as it’s not in the kitchen,” Hannah said, shrugging.
“I will drop them back off tomorrow around noon,” my mom said, giving me a smile. “Hopefully Hazel is feeling a little better by then.”
She didn’t even need to pack bags. My mom was the kind of grandma who kept clothes for all of the kids at her house, just in case.
“I really appreciate it, Ma.”
“Don’t mention it. I love having them over, you know that. The other kids are getting too cool for Grandma these days. I’m happy to have the littles while I still can.”
With that, she nudged the kids and their aunt toward the back door then shuffled everyone into her massive bus-like transit van.
And they were off.
I turned off the sauce, deciding it could wait until later, then brought the cup of tea and plate of crackers upstairs to find Hazel in bed with the lights off and drapes pulled.
“It’s quiet,” she said in a croak, like if she spoke too loudly she might get sick again. “Did the kids smother Hannah to death?”
“Damn near. No, Mom dropped by and took your sister and the kids to her house.”
“She’s a saint. Have we told her that lately?”
“Every time you speak to her.”
“It’s not enough. Let’s hire a sky writer. Commission a pop star to write a song about it that she’ll hear every time she goes to the grocery store. Nominate her for the Nobel Prize.” I kicked off my shoes, pulled off my coat and tie, and climbed into the bed with her.
She nibbled one cracker, then another, but before reaching for her tea and sipping carefully.
I gently rubbed a hand across her thigh.
“Any better?” I asked.
“I’m pretty sure the crackers are going to stay down. So that’s a win.”
“By my calculations, we are roughly four months away from all-pizza-all-the-time.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time. I don’t remember the last time the house was this quiet.”
“Sure you do,” I said, rubbing my hand up and down her arm. “The last time Ma took the kids.”
“Flowers. We need to send her about fifty dozen long-stem roses.”
“Get right on that,” I agreed. “So, judging by the sickness pattern—” I said.
“Yep. My money is on a boy. Your mom was right about this family’s genes.”
She was.
Five kids.
Only one girl.
Her Aunt Valley was going to have endless advice for her on surviving a house full of boys.
“What do you want to do with our free night? Sleep? Watch a movie?”
“Nope. We need to start planning next year’s Hollows. Grab the catalogs I left on your nightstand. We have a lot of work to do.”
Hazel - 23 years
“This is weird,” I declared as we watched our sons saunter (yep, they were in their sauntering stage of life) away toward the woods, each of them decked out in horror paint.
The next generation of DG Greens haunted woods performers had arrived.
It was an oddly full-circle moment.
We’d watched all the kids practically grow up at the garden center, working with me during the days, or coming after school to help out. And, of course, having fun during all of the seasonal events.
They were finally old enough to actually work there.
And they were stoked about it.
“It really is,” Dante agreed, sliding his arms around me.
“I’m going to have to see thirst trap videos of our sons online in reviews of this place.”
“Maybe we’ll be going on a digital detox until the Christmas season,” he decided as a group of girls, phones out already, started following our boys to the woods.
“I think you might be right,” I agreed.
“Look at this,” Dante said, giving me a squeeze.
“Look at what?” I asked.
“All we created,” he said.
I was helpless but to glance from the maze, to the craft station, the haunted house, the shop, and, yes, the woods where our kids were all gathered.
We really had created something, hadn’t we?
“I love you,” he said, turning me in his arms.
“I love you too. A million apple cider donuts.”
“Not a million slices of pizza?”
“Wow, what an ego you have. Trying to compare yourself to my one true love, pizza.”
“I guess I can settle for being second best,” he agreed, pressing his lips to mine.
“Keep kissing me like that,” I said, breaking off with a panting breath, “and we’re going to have to go lock ourselves in the gardening shed.”
“I don’t see a problem there,” Dante said, eyes full of promise. “Actually, how about you and I get out of here?”
“It’s opening night!”
“We’ve done twenty-three of these. We deserve to take one off.”
That was true.
We even suffered through an opening night when the whole family had a wicked flu.
We had a staff that damn near ran the place these days. And the kids would be happier to have their first night without feeling like their parents were watching their every move.
“What do you have in mind?” I asked, leaning into him.
“I was thinking we head back home, get in bed, and see how many times I can make you come while we wait.”
“While we wait for what?” I asked.
“For the pizza to be delivered.”
“Just when I thought it wasn’t possible to love you more,” I said, leaning up and pressing a quick kiss to his lips.
XX