17. Claudia
“So, what do you think of my plan?” I asked Elle following her around her garden while she watered every flower and blade of grass. Elle loved to garden and took pride in her pretty house. Although we all had the same style house, Elle’s was painted more girlie colours and had garden ornaments and bird houses by the dozens. With my house next to hers and Gisele across the road, hers made ours look like weather beaten down hovels. Which they weren’t, thanks to Jock being our personal handy man, it was the colours and the garden that made hers look so much better.
My green thumb existed only in my imagination and in the pages of house and gardening magazines. Gisele’s front lawn consisted of swings slides and Miracle’s numerous bicycles.
“I think you should leave Gisele alone,” Elle answered me without looking at me. “You know she spooks easily when it comes to men because of that wretched curse. And from what I’ve noticed, Jami seems to be doing a pretty good job all by himself.” Elle was using her serious voice so that told me she knew more than I did.
“Okay chickee spill. What do you know? And why are you calling him Jami?”
Groaning in defeat, my sister turned around and gave me the glare she was famous for.
“Jami asked me to call him that because he mentioned our sister calls him Jamison. He seemed to like it. He also mentioned he was—is quite charmed by Gisele.” There was more, I knew Elle and there was much more.
“And?”
Smiling, Elle started chuckling, “Well when I picked up miss Miracle the other day for our weekly sleep over, Gissy splashed spaghetti sauce on her white dress.” I rolled my eyes at that because our sister was forever spilling something on herself and always when she wore white.
“Anyhoo, Jamison wasn’t due to turn up for fifteen minutes or so, but seems he likes to arrive early. As in he turned up when Gisele was completely void of the dress and standing in the kitchen wearing only a cute white lace bra and panties set. You should have seen it Claude it had lacy daisies on it, so cute.”
I mentally noted my rage over the bra and panties and the fact I had not been consulted and instead stood there with a huge grin on my face.
“No way! He saw her in her underwear?” This was huge, mind-blowing huge.
“He ogled her in her underwear,” Elle gushed, “and he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Trust me chickee, our help isn’t required.”
I squealed, clapping my hands jumping up and down like a schoolgirl at a Taylor Swift concert.
“Does Georgina know?” I asked hoping that the answer was no. Mother and Gisele had an ongoing argument about her non-existent sex life, hell she did not even date. It was a sore point between the two and I tried like hell to keep my distance whenever the subject came up.
“Not yet, but I’m sure our mother will sniff something is going on,” Elle muttered but the grin on her face said she couldn’t wait. Truth be told I was feeling the same way, maybe Gisele’s crush on the detective might keep mum from keeping on about Josh and me and why we were taking so long to give her another grandbaby. We had literally only just started trying again just days ago. I was still in the nervous stage to get excited, not about Josh’s swimmers hitting their mark. Just when they did, and if this time I get to keep my baby and not lose it again. Hold it.
It.
I hated calling my baby it, but when the hospital offered to do a DNA test on what they called the foetus I broke down right there in the trauma bay screaming at them for calling my baby that word. I’d gone nuts, ballistic to the point where the doctor wanted to give me a sedative and suggested moving me to another ward in the hospital that would deal with me better. Josh hit the roof, he threatened everyone with bodily harm if they even came anywhere near me. My dad arrived and bullied the doctors out of the way and Josh picked me up from the hospital gurney and carried me out, both of us sobbing from our lost baby and my dad daring anyone to stop us.
For weeks after I didn’t get out of bed, didn’t eat willingly, all I wanted to do was sleep and mourn. Josh never left my side, handing all the business work to Troy so I was never left alone. On the rare times he had to leave, one of my sisters, or my parents stayed with me.
Other than Josh and my family, what helped me to finally get up and start living again was my beautiful niece. Miracle spent every spare minute with me when she wasn’t at school. She would sit in bed snuggling with me, rubbing my belly and listen to me cry. It was a lot for a seven-year-old to cope with, but Miracle wasn’t your typical kid. She had a gift that no one had a word for we just knew it was there because we felt it every time, she was around you.
Georgina had a belief that Miracle survived for a reason. She didn’t speak for a reason and when the day came, and she was finally ready there would be no shutting her up.
I believed that too. Miracle was given to our family and her gift was healing us.
Suddenly two arms wrapped around me, a genuine smile breaking my sombre trance down the worst days of my life.
“It’s going to happen chickee,” Ellie whispered in my ear, her arms tight and comforting. “If anyone was born to be a mumma it’s you Claude, and Josh is going to be just as fantastic as a dad as he is an uncle.”
Instantly I remembered something that Miracle had said to Josh and me at lunchtime today. She usually liked to have lunch at the mechanics shop with her favourite uncle and I happened to be there to join them.
“Oh my god, you won’t believe the joke Miracle told Josh and me earlier today.” We always referred to Miracle’s signing as talking, speaking never signing.
“Oh lord, I can only imagine,” Ellie groaned, turning off the hose and threading her arm through mine, both of us turning to walk up the steps to Elle’s home.
“Oh no this is epic,” I assured her gleefully. “So, we are sitting in the office, Miracle is eating Josh’s lunch because she didn’t want the meatloaf sandwich Gigi made her and she says out of the blue what does DADS stand for?” Elle looked at me with a blank expression obviously stumped and waiting for me to give her the punchline.
“Dumb as dog shit.” As soon as the last word was out of my mouth Elle was on her knees on the step cacking herself laughing, taking me down with her. We sat there for a good five minutes just laughing uncontrollably, both of us in hysterics.
“Oh, that kid,” Elle spluttered not even trying to get herself under control.
“Thank god she’s ours.”
I nodded. I couldn’t agree more.