Chapter 32
Avidya
“Do you have everything?” Krissy asked as she looked over the many boxes that were packed into the small U-Haul that was now attached to the dark red SUV that Zachariah was determined to buy. I really didn’t have that much to take with us. Only a few boxes were filled with Joshua’s clothing and blankets. His swing was folded up between everything, along with the bassinet that Krissy demanded that I take with me.
The portable crib like bassinet that Taylor had gotten me was also packed in there somewhere, too.
“I think it’s all too much,” I laughed. “But yes.”
“Call me when you get in,” she demanded.
“Of course,” I replied. “We’ll be just fine. May take us twice as long to get there, but we will.”
“Do you have to leave?” Catrina asked, again for the twentieth time.
“I do,” I said, bending down to her level. “My family misses me and would like to meet Josh now that he can travel.”
“But can’t you come back?” she asked.
“You’ll get to see me again in a few months,” I promised. “I’ll call you as often as I can.”
“I don’t want you to go,” she cried, flinging her arms around my neck.
“Neither do I,” Krissy said, running a hand over the top of the girl’s red hair. “But her family misses her. She’ll be back. If not, we will go to her to see her.”
“Promise?” Catrina asked.
“Pinky promise,” Krissy smiled.
“Okay,” she sighed, seeming to be okay with that as she pulled away from me. “Mommy?”
“Yes?” Krissy asked.
“Can I have a baby brother now?” she asked, her head cocked to the side.
“No,” Krissy said, hiding her laugh. “Maybe when we find a daddy first.”
“He can be our daddy,” Catrina said, pointing to my husband.
“Sorry, Miss,” Zachariah said, winking her way. “I’m only a daddy to one little boy.”
“Oh,” Catrina said, feeling dejected. “Guess I’ll have to find one then.”
“Good luck with that,” Zachariah laughed. “Are you all set?”
“Yep,” I answered.
“Good. Josh has been fed and changed, and strapped into his seat,” Zachariah said. “Just have to lock up the house.”
“Will it stay empty?” Krissy asked.
“Probably for a week or so,” Zachariah answered. “But you can expect someone else to move in sometime in the future. My family aren’t total monsters. We do help people in need.”
“It better be someone more social than Taylor,” Krissy laughed.
“No guarantees,” Zachariah laughed. “But I can keep that in mind.”
“I really like him,” Krissy staged whispered to me, causing me to laugh. “You have to keep him around.”
“He is pretty likable on most days,” I agreed.
After bidding us goodbye, and getting more than enough hugs to last until the next time Catrina would be able to see me, we headed out and back towards home.
Home.
The one place I knew I would go back to. I wasn’t sure if it would be now or years later, but I would have gone back one day.
On the way back, we had to stop every couple of hours to feed Joshua. What would have been an eight-hour trip ended up being a near twelve-hour trip. It helped that Zachariah didn’t take any round about ways back home. It was a pretty straight shot from point A to point B.
The entire way back, Zachariah and I talked about what we wanted to do with everything that went around in our lives. It was almost like we hadn’t been apart for almost a year.
“Have you been writing in the journals?” he asked. He had seen my stack of journals, some filled and some still empty while I was packing this past week.
“Yes,” I answered. “You didn’t get any of them from your father?”
“No,” he said.
“Oh. I sent a few to him and he was supposed to give them to you. No wonder you were so surprised when you showed up,” I said. Although I never wrote in them with what I was pregnant, I did hint at it more than once. I had just sent out my third shipment of journals a couple days before my husband had showed up at my doorstep.
“That would explain the box I hadn’t opened,” he mused. “My father dropped a box off at the house and I thought it had to do with work. Just told me to look through them.”
“And you didn’t,” I guessed. I wasn’t all that surprised, as Carlos was even sure what was in the box, only knew it had come from me.
“If I had known they were from you, I would have jumped right in,” he said, glancing at me. “But I thought they had to do with work.”
“That’s okay,” I shrugged. “You don’t really need to read them now.”
“You can count on me reading every single word you wrote,” he said, his voice firm. “Everything you have to say, written or spoken, is important to me.”
“Just know that I wasn’t in the best place when I wrote the stuff in there,” I said.
“I don’t care,” he said. “I’ll still read it. I wasn’t in the best place either, so we’re even.”
“Do you still want in the lifestyle?” he asked after a few moments as we kept on driving.
“The BDSM?” I clarified.
“Yes,” he answered.
“Yeah, I think so,” I said after thinking it over. I needed it. It made me feel like I had control over something in my life. What I had experienced before I left was exciting and something I quickly learned I wanted.
“Good,” he said as though he was afraid that I didn’t want that. “We’ll have to go slow, just like before. But I think everything that was laid out can stay the same, if you agree.”
“I think so,” I said. “We will just go at whatever we both feel.”
Why was there a need to have things laid out for us? We both knew what we wanted and needed. Just having each other was more than enough. The rest could be figured out later.
By the time we got home, it was well after dark and we were both tired. Unloading everything would wait until the morning. Although it wouldn’t have mattered much since Joshua wasn’t a huge sleeper and didn’t seem to be becoming one any time soon.
Zachariah beat me to getting Joshua out of the back seat as I got out of the front. He really was surprising me at every corner, and I wasn’t going to complain.
It all made me love him more.
It also made me feel slightly sad that I didn’t let him experience everything next to my side as I went through my pregnancy. I hoped I did the right thing, though.
“This will probably be the only time we have to ourselves here for a while,” Zach said, taking my hand as he led me to the front of the house.
“Did anyone know we were coming back today?” I asked. Technically, it was night already, but did it really matter?
“Nope,” he said, unlocking and unalarming the door so we could enter. “I wanted us to have at least one night. I’m sure they will know come morning, but for tonight we will not be bothered.”
“You sure about that?” I joked. His phone liked to ring constantly day and night it seemed. Not that he answered it every time.
“No,” he laughed. “But I want one night with just the three of us. Everyone else can wait until tomorrow.”
Once in the house, Zachariah left me to unbuckle Joshua as he went to make a bottle. The diaper bag sat beside the carrier on the couch. I knew come morning, everyone would show up and we wouldn’t have a moment to ourselves. But otherwise, it really was good to be home. I missed this. All of this.
I smiled at Zachariah as he handed over the bottle to me.
“I’m going to go change, then I’ll be back. After you feed him, there’s something I want to show you,” he said before kissing the top of my head.
I nodded, letting my eyes close at the contact.
How could he always make me feel so loved with a simple touch?