Epilogue
A Few Years Later . . .
“It’s your anniversary!” Lula Ann sang to her best friend while everyone around them chuckled. The years hadn’t changed her outgoing personality in the least. She was still the life of the party.
Today was a very important day. It was the three-year anniversary of Mazikeen’s kidney surgery. It’d been three years of freedom as far as everyone was concerned. She still had lupus, but now she was at a place where it didn’t affect her kidneys.
“Tell auntie happy anniversary, Cindi.” Lula egged on her two-year-old daughter. She and Rome were married four months after Mazikeen’s surgery. She got pregnant the same month as her surgery.
Cindi was focused on the cake that was in front of her on her highchair. Her mama had to tell her again. This time, she looked up at her auntie. With a face covered with icing, she smiled. “Appy Anversasee.”
That was all they got. She had a piece of cake to finish, then unbeknownst to her, a nap to take. “That lil girl don’t give a damn about anyone. She is the most unbothered two-year-old that I know.”
When Cindi looked up and repeated her mama’s word damn, Rome sucked his teeth. “You know good and well that little girl can sus out a curse word in a moment. Come on, Cindi Ann.”
If there was anything and anyone that could make her abandon cake, it was her daddy.
Cindi Ann didn’t play about her daddy. Her arms stretched out so that Rome could scoop her from her highchair.
He didn’t care about the cake that was about to demolish his shirt.
It was a part of parenthood that he didn’t mind.
That was why washing machines and dry cleaners were made.
The three years had been wonderful for Mazikeen and her husband, Falcon. They were married on the one-year anniversary of Mazikeen’s surgery. It was small and intimate like they both wanted it. Rome owned an event space so that saved them a substantial amount of money.
She still worked at Queen Luxury Property Management and didn’t see herself leaving any time soon.
She loved what she did there. She no longer lived on the property, because a year ago, Rome built them a gorgeous house as a wedding gift from him and his wife.
Falcon thought it was too much of a gift, so he offered to pay for all the materials needed for the build. Rome and Lula told him to go to hell.
“Baby, your son is looking for his mommy,” Falcon said as he approached his wife with their four-month-old son, Haven Josiah St. Claire. “That boy is ready to eat.”
Mazikeen laughed before she kissed her husband’s lips, then her son’s cheek. Haven reached out to his mommy. He was ready to eat. That was evident when he leaned down and readied his mouth for her breast that was still in her shirt.
When Mazikeen came to her doctor about having a baby, she was told to wait at least eighteen months because of her lupus nephritis and history of kidney failure.
There was a process before the doctors approved pregnancy.
They wanted to ensure that her lupus remained quiet and controlled for six months prior to pregnancy, that she had a stable blood pressure, as well as little to no protein in the urine.
Her creatinine would have needed to stay below 1.
5 mg/dL. There couldn’t be recent objection of the kidney, and it needed to function steadily.
A crucial part of it all was the medication.
She needed to change to pregnancy-compatible options.
Some of the medications that she took post-op could cause serious birth defects or pregnancy loss.
The transplant team replaced the medications before she started trying to conceive.
Her anti-rejection medications weren’t changed or stopped.
There was a lot of medical care when it came to her pregnancy.
She was considered high-risk from the moment the stick read Pregnant.
The management of her pregnancy was a collaboration between her transplant team, rheumatologist, nephrologist, and a maternal-fetal medicine specialist, which was an advance trained OB-GYN who specialized in high-risk pregnancy.
“You hungry, baby boy?” Mazikeen baby talked with her son. “Let’s go eat.
Falcon watched in awe as she loved on their son. He could have never asked God for more than he had now. Their relationship was filled with love, understanding, and a whole lot of patience.
Mazikeen still had to manage her lupus. Now that she had a new kidney, there was a fear that she would do something that would mess it up or cause a rejection.
The fear caused anxiety which sometimes caused an attitude.
Falcon reminded himself that sometimes home could be chaotic and messy, but it didn’t change the fact that it was his home.
He was dedicated to his home, and Mazikeen was too.
They had proven that over the years and would always prove it.
Falcon walked to Haven’s bedroom where Mazikeen took their son to feed him without the noise from the party.
He stood in the doorway as she talked to him like he was the only person in the world.
Haven was the life that they created and added to their home.
Not the physical home that was a property, but the home that resided in both of their hearts.
He added love to their homes that was undeniable.
The day that Haven was born, Falcon gazed at him as he laid on his mother’s chest while the doctor delivered the afterbirth.
They decided to delay the cutting of the umbilical cord.
He couldn’t believe that they’d created a life.
He hadn’t said a word yet to his son. When he finally found the words, he leaned down and looked into his son’s brown eyes that were wide open.
His hand rubbed Haven’s head, then he uttered the words that were stuck in his throat. “Welcome home, Son.”
All Scootched In