Ysis
The morning started off suspiciously normal, which in itself should’ve been my first clue that my husband was up to something.
Somewhere downstairs, I could faintly hear jazz playing through the house speakers while the smell of fresh coffee floated upstairs, wrapping itself around the room with a sense of normalcy I’d almost forgotten existed.
Pregnancy had changed the way I experienced mornings. Before these babies, I’d been the type to spring out of bed the second my alarm went off, already mentally organizing the day’s schedule before my feet ever touched the floor. Now...my children had apparently unionized against me.
Every muscle in my body protested the idea of moving while my bladder demanded I do exactly that.
To make matters worse, one of the twins had developed an unhealthy obsession with using my ribs as a jungle gym while the other seemed perfectly content treating my bladder like a trampoline.
Some mornings I genuinely couldn’t tell whether they were playing together or plotting against me.
I smiled to myself, letting my hand drift across the curve of my stomach as another tiny kick interrupted my thoughts.
“Good morning to y’all too,” I whispered, rubbing slow circles over the spot where I imagined one little foot had just made contact.
Carrying twins was unlike anything I could’ve ever imagined.
There were moments when I felt absolutely miserable, moments when I questioned whether my back would ever forgive me, and moments when I cried because the refrigerator ran out of orange juice.
Yet somehow, beneath all the discomfort, there was a peace I couldn’t quite explain.
Every kick reminded me they were healthy. Every sleepless night reminded me they were growing. Every stretch mark and swollen ankle became another chapter in a story I’d once believed I’d never get the opportunity to tell.
My eyes wandered across the nursery monitor sitting on the nightstand beside me before settling on the framed sonogram Kade insisted belonged there instead of tucked away in a drawer somewhere.
Looking at those grainy little images still felt surreal.
There had been a time in my life when I convinced myself motherhood simply wasn’t written into my story.
Too much had happened.
Too much had been taken from me.
Between that clinic, the pain I’d buried afterward, and convincing myself I’d eventually move on, I’d accepted that maybe becoming somebody’s mother just wasn’t part of God’s plan for me. Then Kade walked into my life and managed to rewrite a future I’d already given up on.
Thinking about him made me smile. Marriage looked good on my husband—not because it softened him, because Lord knew there wasn’t anything soft about Kade Myles.
If anything, it made him more intentional.
In the midst of becoming my husband and preparing to become a father, the man who once believed every problem could be solved with money or control had become the sort of man who kissed my forehead before checking his phone, who rubbed cocoa butter on my stomach every night because he swore it helped with stretch marks, and who spent too much time talking to babies that couldn’t even answer him yet.
Watching him fall in love with our children before they’d ever taken their first breath made me fall in love with him all over again. That wasn’t to say life had suddenly become perfect. It hadn’t.
Some days I still caught myself expecting to hear Aretha humming in the kitchen before remembering she was gone.
With no family left to claim her, we'd given her a intimate homegoing, inviting only the people who had truly loved her to the house.
After sending her off the way she deserved, Kade came up with the perfect place to keep her ashes.
Mama Sina, however still grew quiet whenever certain songs came across the radio, and every now and then I’d catch Kade staring out the office window a little longer than usual before forcing himself back into whatever work sat in front of him.
Grief had a way of moving throughout the house.
It didn’t always announce itself. Sometimes it simply found an empty chair at the breakfast table and stayed there until everybody learned how to live around it.
The bathroom door opened as I managed to sit upright, and out walked my husband looking entirely too handsome.
His charcoal suit fit him like it had been stitched onto his body, his beard had been freshly lined, and judging by the expensive watch wrapped around his wrist, somebody had every intention of heading into the office.
“Good morning troublemaker.” Kade’s voice carried that same lazy rasp it always did first thing in the morning as he leaned down to press a lingering kiss against my forehead.
His hand naturally found my stomach, rubbing slow circles across it like he’d done every morning since finding out we were having twins. “How my babies acting today?”
“Like your children,” I answered, earning the grin I knew was coming. “Somebody in here been practicing MMA since about six this morning. I don’t know if they fighting each other or just beating me up for fun.”
“They just excited.”
“They’re disrespectful.” His laugh filled the room as he shook his head and lowered himself onto one knee in front of me, giving my stomach his full attention.
“I heard that,” he said, pointing a playful finger at my belly. “Y’all leave y’all mama alone before I come in there.” Almost on cue, one of the twins kicked hard enough against his hand to make his eyebrows shoot toward his hairline.
“They don’t listen to me either,” he laughed.
“I’ve been trying to tell you.”
He pressed another kiss against my stomach before resting his forehead there for a second. “We gone have to revisit this discipline thing.”
“Kade...they not even born yet.” I looked down at him like he’d officially lost his mind.
“And they already testing boundaries.”
“Your impossible.”
“Lies.” He looked up at me with that crooked smile that still made my heart skip. “I’m just trying to establish who’s in charge around here.”
“They kicking you too.” I folded my arms across my chest. His smile faded just enough for him to look back down at my stomach. “Aight, maybe we need to have another family meeting.” He stood, offering both hands to help me out of bed,making sure I was steady on my feet.
Once I was situated, he disappeared in my closet while I made my way toward the vanity, taking a seat long enough to brush out my hair. Looking at my reflection, I barely recognized the woman staring back at me anymore.
My face had fattened up, my body had changed, and my stomach had become impossible to ignore, but I’ve never felt more beautiful than I did carrying the two little lives growing inside of me.
“Ice,” he called from somewhere inside my closet.
“Hmm?”
“You seen my blue tie?” I frowned at my reflection in the vanity mirror, looking toward the closet.
“It should be wherever you left it.”
“I can’t find it.”
A laugh escaped me as I pushed myself to my feet and waddled over, only to find him standing in front of the same dresser drawer he’d opened at least three times in the last five minutes.
“Babe...” I folded my arms across my chest. “You’ve got about eighty-seven blue ties.”
“I specifically want this blue tie.”
“I bet you do.”
He continued pretending to search while I stood there watching him open the same drawer yet again. It would’ve been believable if I hadn’t been married to him. Unfortunately for my husband, I’d learned all of his tells, and this was definitely one of them.
“You know...you acting real strange this morning.”
“How?” He glanced over his shoulder without stopping his little performance.
“You ain’t found that tie because you ain’t really looking for it.”
“I am looking.”
“No, you’re opening the same drawer over and over hoping I’ll believe you looking.”
“So?”
“So...” I pointed toward the dresser. “...either you forgot where you keep your own clothes, which I highly doubt, or you’re lying.” He placed a hand across his chest like I’d just accused him of the greatest betrayal imaginable.
“You accusing me of lying?”
“I’m accusing you of being terrible at it.”
His laugh echoed through the bedroom as he gave up on the imaginary search and turned to face me.
“I got meetings today.”
“Mhm.”
“I do.”
“Mhm.”
“Marcus been blowing my phone up since seven.”
“I’m sure he has.”
“And I probably won’t be home until later.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” He smiled.
Something wasn’t adding up.
Normally Kade kissed me goodbye, reminded security to keep an eye on me, and disappeared out the front door before the first conference call of the day. Today, however, he seemed determined to linger.
Every few seconds his attention drifted toward the expensive watch wrapped around his wrist before bouncing back to his phone.
Then he’d wander into the closet, come back out, straighten something that didn’t need straightening, and check the time all over again.
Watching him try to act natural was honestly becoming entertaining.
“You sure you ain’t planning something?”
“Nope.”
I squinted. “You hesitated.”
“I blinked.”
“You hesitated while blinking.”
That earned another laugh as he closed the distance between us, wrapping both hands around my waist before leaning down until his forehead rested against mine.
”I promise Troublemaker, I’m just going to work.” His lips brushed mine in a slow kiss that felt distracting. I searched his face for another few seconds, trying to decide whether to keep pressing him or let him have whatever secret he was obviously hiding. Finally, I sighed and gave in.
“Fine.”
“I’ll see you later.”
“You better.”
“Always.”
He kissed me one last time before making his way out of the bedroom, and I waited until his footsteps disappeared completely down the hallway before the smile I’d been fighting spread across my face. That man was absolutely up to something, I just hadn’t figured out what it was yet.