I didn’t wait for a response as I opened the back door. Coby had an intense look on his face like he was concentrating. That was a sure sign he was in the process of filling his diaper. I reached in, set him free, and handed him to Ms. Lawrie.
“You might want to check him,” I suggested.
Little David was trying to work the restraints so he could free himself from the car seat.
“Hang on, Buster,” I told him.
“Out!” he commanded.
I was impressed that his words matched what he wanted.
“Yes, sir. Right away, young man,” I answered back as I undid his restraints.
He was all smiles when I picked him up.
“I need to change him,” Ms. Lawrie said as she took Coby to the house.
“Help is a wonderful thing,” Peggy said as the back door closed, and we were alone.
“I was afraid we would have to play ‘not it’ on that one,” I said, agreeing with her.
“I’ll take him since you need to go shower, and it’s freezing out here,” Peggy said as I handed Little David over.
She was right. It was too cold to be standing around after a run.
◊◊◊
When I came down, I found that Ashley and Scarlet had arrived and brought the rest of the little ones. This was what I’d been missing for the last couple of weeks. The sight of my children all gathered together made my chest tighten. While I felt the joy of seeing them, there was another part of me that wanted to scream, ‘Oh, my God! What have I done?’
I really should do a PSA about the consequences of not using birth control. I was just lucky that I had the resources to get away with this. If I’d been a typical teenager, I might have to be on that MTV show about teen dads. I could see myself more interested in playing video games than getting a job to help pay bills. I was sure I would be hated once it hit the airwaves.
Before I walked in to visit the kids, I stopped to talk to Ashley and Scarlet.
“I sold my first house,” Ashley announced.
“That’s great news. Mom told me that it can take a while to get your first sale. It sounds like you’re ahead of the curve,” I shared. “How did it happen?”
“They were a walk-in to the office. I’d been following your mom around, learning what she does, so I wasn’t nervous when I talked to them. I actually ended up showing and selling them one of your mom’s listings,” Ashley explained.
“That must have made her happy,” I surmised.
“Since it was her listing that I made an offer on, she had Pam’s mom help me with the paperwork and with making the offer. We wanted to make sure no one was given an unfair advantage.”
Mom had told me about the behind-the-scenes shenanigans that transpired when the listing and buyer’s agent were either the same or in the same office. She had made a believer of me when she explained why you should never contact the seller’s agent and expect them to treat you fairly.
All she had to do was point out that the seller was the one who paid your commission for me to see her point. It was only natural to want to please the person paying you, even if you didn’t do it consciously. Besides, a higher sale price meant a bigger commission for both agents.
“It looks like we’ll both be able to get funds out of our trusts early. Ms. Dixon got us in touch with someone in their family law practice, and they’ve filed the relevant paperwork for us. When that happens, you won’t have to give us money each month,” Scarlet shared.
“You don’t know how much your help has meant to us,” Ashley added.
“How come you didn’t come talk to me sooner? I mean, you both knew I was doing movies and had money. It just never made sense to me that you wouldn’t have looked me up sooner to help support my kids,” I said.
“We talked about it,” Ashley admitted.
“Honestly, we didn’t know if we wanted to get you involved,” Scarlet said, shocking me.
“Then, why did you?” I asked.
“I’d run out of options. The prospect of being forced to marry and live in a trailer on the farm made me decide to tell you. I called Ash, and she wasn’t much happier,” Scarlet said.
“What were you afraid of?” I asked.
“Oh, come on, really? You have no idea?” Ashley asked.
“Besides me being younger?”
“That, and how we got pregnant. We essentially took advantage of you with our little sex game. With that, and the whole statutory rape issue, we were afraid that if we approached you with lawyers, we would be even more screwed,” Ashley said.
“I think I’d better go do, uh, something,” Melanie said as she blushed.
Our poor cook/housekeeper always seemed to be in the room when these conversations started. I kept forgetting that she wasn’t used to the open discussions we had in our household. She grabbed Ms. Lawrie, who didn’t want to leave and miss our little drama, and took her to the living room where Peggy was watching the little ones.
Ashley blushed when she realized she had spilled the beans in front of the women.
“You have to see what a big decision this was for us,” Scarlet said. “It turned out all our fears were unfounded. You’ve been great, and if I could do it over again, I would tell you as soon as I suspected we were pregnant.”
