Who: Wren and Evie What: Back to school supplies! Where: IDK Target? When: RECENTLY
Evie did have a lot to juggle but she was getting really good at it. It was parking she still had a problem with. So she was way at the other end of the parking lot with no other cars on either side of her taking up two parking spaces. But getting the baby out of the carseat, into the sling, and juggling her across the parking lot was no sweat. Well a little bit of sweat, it was Vegas. In August.
She saw Wren and Gus and waved with one hand, smiling widely. Her blonde hair up in a ponytail, wearing a long white flowy skirt (with an elastic waist thank you very much), sandals, and a green tank top she was definitely still trying to be as comfortable as possible. “Hi!” she said brightly. “Gus, you ready for school supplies?”
Wren had never had to juggle. Gus had been old enough to walk at her side, fingers in hers, and only a booster seat in the car by the time he'd come to live with her. She'd never had to worry about bags and diapers and real carseats that were complicated. Strollers and baby bottles were unfamiliar things, and she was nervous about seeing Evie as a result. She was nervous, too, because babies still brought back nightmares of being sick and being tired, and those nightmares had been keeping her awake for nights in a row recently. But she really, really wanted to see the baby. And she thought maybe it was time to actually be around one, just to see if she could do it. Maybe it was a little late for that, but better late than never.
But still, having an almost-five-year old in the Vegas heat was still a little bit of a hassle. Wren was dressed in khaki shorts that she'd outgrown around the hips and belly, and a white tanktop. Gus was in camo shorts and a thin Batman t-shirt, and Wren had a bag with water and finger foods slung over her shoulder, her camera tucked away inside with the generic Cheerios and the wholesale animal crackers.
With Gus holding onto her hand, Wren crossed over to where Evie was and stopped just shy of the blonde with the sling and the bundle against her chest. She peered, trying to get a look at the baby, and it was Gus that spoke up, though he didn't actually answer Evie's question about the school supplies at all.
"Where's the beash ball?" Gus lisped, his gaze on Evie's stomach and a frown on his tiny bowed lips as he looked up at both women with confusion.
Wren smiled, and she ruffled the little boy's hair. He looked so much like his father when he was concentrating on something, and it was all she could do not to laugh. "Evie's carrying the beach ball now, bebe." She explained.
Evie chuckled when Gus approached, “The beach ball has deflated,” she said with a facetious pout in Wren’s direction. “At least a little.” She said making a face. She knelt down just a bit to show her daughter off to Gus and - most likely - blow his little complicated mind. “This is Daisy.” The baby was, of course, sleeping. And - of course - wearing a tie-dyed headband with a bow attached to it. She was nestled close to Evie, fists still balled up, but comfortably in her sling without much of a care in the world. Until, of course, the moment she decided to wake up and voice all of her cares to all of the world. Loudly. But for now, she was mellow.
Wren watched Gus' face, interested in the confusion she expected to see mirrored there; she wasn't disappointed. Gus' little mouth turned into an o, then a frown, and then he looked up at Evie in a very obvious attempt to see if she was lying to him. His eyes went serious then, too old and too distrusting, and then he was just a little boy again. He bit his lip, and he runched the fabric of his shorts at the hip, and he touched the baby's cheek with a kind of slow-motion carefulness that made Wren smile.
"It's okay, bebe, you won't hurt her," she said, glancing at Evie to make sure it was okay for him to touch the sleeping baby. "She was growing in Evie's belly, and now she's here."
Which, of course, led to a litany of questions about whether or not he had come out of a belly too, and Wren spent the next few minutes alternating between staring at the infant and trying not to make birth sound like a pizza being cooked in an oven. She failed, mostly, but Gus seemed pleased with the explanation, and she already have visions of him explaining pizza births during his first week of kindergarten.
Evie grinned and nodded at Gus when he moved to touch her, “She’ll be just fine, she likes to be handled,” she said smiling at Gus and widening her eyes at Wren just a bit to say ‘she demands to be held basically at all times day or night.’ Which wasn’t doing much for Evie’s sanity, but she could hardly say she minded.
Once the cat was out of the bag about the whole ‘baby in the belly’ bit Evie watched with interest. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t have done much better herself given the last time she’d tried she was pretty sure there had been a comparison to a chicken sitting on an egg. This kid was going to have some very strange conversations the minute he started school.
They started walking to the store and the blessed air conditioning and Evie sighed a sigh of relief. “I think you’ve given him enough ammo to be the coolest kid in class on his first show and tell day,” she said with a confident nod.
Inside the store, children were running and yelling, and mother's were frantically trying to keep up with lists and quickly-moving feet, but Wren didn't actually have any of those problems. Gus had wound one arm securely around her thigh, and he was pressed to her side like he might get pulled away if he left any space between them. She traced her fingers over his ear and along the nape of his neck, and she smiled every time he curiously tried to peer at Daisy again.
"I think I'm going to get a call about his overactive imagination by the end of the first week," Wren replied, stage whisper and a smile as Gus showed interest in some of the bright markers near the door. They weren't on the list, but she nudged at him, encouraging him to pick some that he liked from the collection that promised to be Kid Safe. She envisioned a future of bright green walls, and it made her smile.
Wren turned her attention to Daisy then, finally, when Gus focused on the markers. She touched the baby's pudgy cheeks, and she smiled as Daisy yawned in her sleep. "She's beautiful, Evie. Really, really beautiful." She looked up. "And you look gorgeous. How's Will doing with the changes?"
“He’ll be that cool kid in class with all the extra knowledge everyone else wishes they had,” she said smiling at her friend. She was fighting the urge to do all of her own marker shopping at this moment and focusing on her discussion with Wren, who she hadn’t seen in far too long.
“Will is doing well, he’s getting used to things. Getting used to her, getting used to me as someone’s mom. We’re good. I keep waiting for the opportune moment to say ‘I told you so’.”
Evie looked down at Daisy, the world’s best distraction, and sighed adoringly with a small headshake. “I can’t believe she’s mine. I had all these ideas, or thoughts, and didn’t think I could ever make something perfect - and then I went and did it. Had help, but the sentiment is the same.” She said with a smile. She looked up at Wren, “Do you want to hold her? I can grab some markers.” She was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet.
"It makes things different," Wren admitted of being parents. And it was so nice to have Evie. It was so nice to have someone she could actually talk about this with, someone that wouldn't feel bothered or annoyed with her. "It's nice, though, when you get used to it. It just takes a little time to be three instead of two." It was experience talking, and a year of learning what it was like to have Luke worry about someone else every bit as much as he did about her. "Why would you say "I told you so?" she asked, genuinely curious, gaze straying to Gus and his inability to hold all the markers he wanted in one hand.
Wren glanced back at Evie a moment later, her smile going so much wider at Evie's obvious adoration for her daughter. It made her feel better, seeing it, and Wren needed that so, so badly just then. Evie had made it through. She'd given birth, and she had gotten sick, and she hadn't died. It hadn't been terrible. It hadn't been anything like Wren's own experience with Gus, and Wren breathed a sigh and tried to remember how it felt to be standing there.
As soon as Evie offered to hand the baby over, Wren smiled and nodded. "I think he needs help with the markers, and I haven't held a baby before. Not since she was born." That morning, when Daisy had been new and tiny, and Wren hadn't ever held Gus when he was little like that. "Gus, bebe, take Evie's hand," she urged, and she waited for Evie to hand Daisy over, the excitement barely concealed in her grey eyes. "I might not give her back," she added playfully. "Gus, do you want to keep her?" she asked, which resulted in a very, very skeptical look from the little boy, and then a shake of his head.
"We have dogs," he said sagely, holding his hand out to Evie.
Evie nodded, “It’s very nice, we never knew what we were doing half the time before she joined us - I don’t know why we’d be any different now. But we’re in it together more than ever,” she said with a laugh. “And because I did tell him so. I told him everything would be fine,” she smirked a bit, “Granted he did quite a bit of that of his own. Trying to pretend like everything was just fine because I was panicking enough for the both of us. It all seems a little ridiculous looking back on it. If I’d known it was going to be so great I’d have done this all much sooner.” It was mostly a figure of speech - there was no way they would have been able to manage when Will was having his problems, and her father dying. The timing for now was good. Better than good.
She handed Daisy over quite happily and kissed her forehead. She squirmed and grunted a bit, opened her eyes for a split second and decided closing them again was much better. “She grunts a lot.” Evie said and took Gus’ hand. “Dogs? Dogs are good. We have one too,” she knew he knew that, but it was a good conversation topic. “What colors do you want?” she asked pointing toward the markers and digging around in a bin.
Wren smiled when Evie went on about how scared and worried she'd been. It made her breathe easier, and she was smiling even more by the time Daisy was handed over. The baby was warm and wriggly for a few seconds, and Wren just cradled her in her arms and tried to get used to the weight. She leaned down just enough so that Gus could see, poke and touch, so he didn't feel left out, and then she smiled when he turned back to his markers without so much as a frown. She worried about that too, about Gus, who hadn't even had a full year with them, and who was still getting used to so many things that were different from his past.
The sleepy grunting made Wren smile, and her eyes watered a little in a way that she couldn't control, and she cursed hormones and freed one hand to wipe at her eyes with the back of her hand. "She's amazing, Evie," she said, awe in her voice.
Gus was babbling about the puppy. "Cygne is maman's chien," he explained, trying to fit another blue marker into his little chubby grip. "She ates my pancakes," he complained, sounding very put out by the entire concept of pancake theft. "Finch doesn't do that." He explained, because Finch was clearly superior to the rambunctious puppy that had saucer paws and insisted on destroying everything in the house. He held out a yellow marker. "I like this best."
Wren rocked the sleeping infant, and she used her free hand to reach for a little basket that was sitting to the side of the marker bin. "Put them in here, bebe."
Evie had moved from kneeling to squatting and all the way to sitting on the floor and digging through marker bins with Gus. She smiled at Wren, “She looks good on you,” she said nodding toward the baby Wren was holding and went back to talking with Gus about all things dogs and markers.