Chapter 8: Learning the Blues

          Finley wasn’t entirely surprised that Manu was seeing other women.

          She was however taken off guard when he decided to bring one of his conquests home. Home to her house! In front of their children! What in the world could the idiot have been thinking? Witnessing the lack of respect the he—the man she shared a bed with—had for her made Finley mad. No, not mad. Furious. But she wasn’t as angry as she had been when he aged Quinn up without her. Another emotion was edging out her fury, pushing it back as an amplifier.

          Desperately needing to get out of that house, Finley whisked her two sons away to the park. On any other day she would have considered jumping into the air out of excitement to spend an afternoon outside with Eddie and Quinn. After seeing Manu put the moves on another woman though, she felt as though she could barely walk, let alone jump.

          The boys flocked to the play pirate ship. They each called out to her excitedly. “Mom! Mom! Look at what I’m doing!”

“No, check this out!”

Finley’s eyes watched her sons playing, but she wasn’t really seeing anything. A soft tear caressed her cheek. Where had she gone wrong? What terrible crime had she committed that she deserved to be treated in such a way? Questions brimming with self-pity flooded her head, and she knew that she needed to pull herself together, but she couldn’t think how.

          Brandon always helped her out in a jam. It took some forcing, but she eventually pulled her phone out of her back pocket and clicked on his name. They only spoke for a few minutes; he had an award ceremony to attend in his home town. “The boys back home are always gettin’ medals. If you need me, then I’ll get out of this dang penguin suit and come around.” She assured him that she was alright. She hadn’t even told him any of what happened (he already thought so poorly of Manu). He must have been able to hear the sadness in her voice.

          After her quick chat with Brandon, Finley forced herself up. Eddie begged for her to play the role of the great sea monster in his pretend adventure. She obliged, playing the best damn sea monster she knew how to be.  It might not have been that good, to be fair she’d never seen such a beast, but it pleased the boys. They shot her mercilessly with bubbles.

“And now I’ve finally captured my prey!” Finley laughed raucously, grabbing Eddie in a tight hug.

“Not fair! You said it was time to go home!” He had a point; she had used that excuse to get her sons to come down from the ship.

“Alright Matey, I’ll let ya go. For the price of one kiss.”

Eddie mulled it over. With a pained look, he eventually allowed his mother to plant a quick peck on his cheek. He wiped it away with the back of his sleeve afterward.

          Finley fed the boys dinner and sat them in front of the television for a movie once they were home. Manu wasn’t anywhere to be found, thankfully. She’d half expected to walk into her bedroom to find him entertaining that woman in there.

          When she caught sight of herself in the mirror, Finley began to crumble. She never imagined she’d find herself feeling trapped in such a big world. Life had been a precious gift; how had she let it go sour? Soon she’d have three children with Manu, and not even with a steady income. Her job barely paid a thing. “Wait,” Finley mumbled to herself. Her throat croaked. Three children. Her usually inflated stomach had barely grown during this pregnancy. She must have been near the very end of it. Why wasn’t she hardly showing?

          This was where Finley learned what it was to truly cry. Sobs forced their way out of her mouth. Each felt like it threatened to choke her. Finley wanted to apologize to her baby, to her creator. She’d been so focused on her own problems that she’d been a neglectful mother to her newest child. If her words could have beaten out the retching sobs, she’d have promised a thousand things to the baby, so long as it came to her. All she could do was cry and hold her lacking middle, sometimes glancing at the pitiful sight that watched her from the mirror.

          Their house was a small one, so it was inevitable that the boys would hear their distraught mother. With little debate, Quinn was deemed the one to go into the big bedroom and comfort her. He held onto her until his father came home and took his place.

          Manu offered several lame attempts at apologizing for his transgression. He excused himself, saying she was simply a friend, and then made vague pledges of it never happening again. Finley didn’t believe him. She didn’t need to believe him and she most definitely didn’t want to think about him at the moment. “Did something happen to the baby?” she hoarsely asked. He looked at her and then pulled her into a long embrace, turning her face away from the mirror. Finley permitted it.

          Manu pulled the trick of temporary change out of his hat once again. He minded the boys for several days, going so far as to make the majority of their meals. Finley allowed herself one day to observe from afar, while she phased between being worried and despondent.

          The following day, Finley weakly helped her sons with their homework while Manu went to the river and caught fish for dinner. And then the day after she treated her boys to a surprise purchase. She and Manu assembled the monkey bars themselves. She spent the better part of an evening watching them excitedly climbing from one end to the other, taking breaks to pull tricks. Her boss called to say that she no longer had a job, but she couldn’t be bothered to answer the phone.

          A miracle was given to Finley. Not only was she fortunate enough to have been created, she would be allowed her third child after she’d almost given up hope of ever meeting them. She wasn’t sure how it happened. She simply woke up one morning with a huge belly. Soon after, she went into labor.  Manu, barely able to grasp the sight of sudden pregnancy, couldn’t do anything other than finish watching his show at first. Eddie pestered her about whether or not he was going to get yet another brother. “Please, please please!”

“I don’t know, Honey,” she giggled. Her own hands moved over her stomach as well. “I just can’t believe this is really happening. Manu, we should probably go to the hospital!”

 They did make it into the doctor’s care in time for the birth. Neither of them said a word about the strange pregnancy, not wanting to be pried upon or called crazy.

          Finley saw her creator once again. She thanked them profusely for her baby’s upcoming arrival, heart set upon the idea that they have gifted her another miracle. That notion evaporated soon, when the created breathed what sounded to be a sigh of relief. Perhaps she was not living a life that was safely cupped in their palms.

          She accepted this as enough for one meeting, and happily left their warmth to meet her first daughter, Frankie Harper.

Writer’s Note: Sorry if this chapter was a bit of a bummer with the baby mess. A really strange glitch or bug or something happened with my game. Finley became pregnant, getting the confetti after a positive pregnancy test. Her stomach didn’t fill out immediately this time though. I kinda forgot about it, and then four or five days passed and I realized that she didn’t look any more pregnant. She didn’t have the option to try for baby though, otherwise I would have just figured the game forgot she was knocked up haha. I think it was seven days after she took the test, she had this huge belly and then got a notice saying she was in labor. Very strange. I wonder if anyone else has had this happen to them.