We had a fairly large pool going amongst us as to whether or not I would pop first or Stacy, and it was Stacy alone who raked in an impressive three thousand dollars when we both went into labor on the same day. Gabriel and Stacy’s son, Aster, was born at noon on the nose, and Adrian came along three hours later. Birthdays were going to be interesting going forward, and my mom had already taken to calling them twins. They looked alike and already had a penchant for calming quickly if one was crying and then was placed by the other. It was very Varasso of them.
“Happy Mother’s Day!” Alessandro walked back into the bedroom with a white breakfast tray in his hands, adorned with a surprisingly delicious-looking breakfast. “I cooked this!”
“Did you?” I looked up at him nervously, and he laughed.
“I’ve been practicing every day for the last three months with Molly. Ricky had to scarf down an unreasonable amount of burnt pancakes, so thank h
im for taking the fall when you see him.”
Alessandro set the tray down over my lap, and I laughed at the smaller plate next to mine that had been topped with smaller portions of all of the same foods my plate had. Alessandro sat down on the edge of the bed, noticing that I was feeding Adrian, and grabbed a fork.
He pointed at Alexis’s plate. “Here, baby. There are pancakes.”
Alexis sidled up to the tray, grabbed her cartoon character fork, and started tucking into her breakfast. Alessandro motioned to the different foods on my plate until I nodded at the eggs, and then he poked his fork into the fluffy eggs and ushered them into my mouth. I chewed them apprehensively at first, then smiled. They were well seasoned, nice and hot, perfectly cooked.
When they were gone from my mouth, I smiled at him. “It’s good, baby!”
“Yeah?” he said.
“Yeah!” I motioned my nose toward the bacon. “Bacon, please.”
Alessandro set the fork down, grabbed a piece of the bacon, and set it in my mouth, and I bit into them. He’d noticed that I always cooked my own bacon with a little more char to them and had done his best to replicate it. He hadn’t done an awful job of it, maybe slightly too cooked, but still very good. He continued to feed me my breakfast while Adrian and Alexis ate until his watch alarm went off. He peeked at it and looked over at me.
“Wow. Time flies when you get to feed a goddess breakfast.” He started to poke the fork in again, but I waved my free hand.
“It’s okay, baby. Go get ready. I got it.”
He tilted his head. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. Thank you.”
He stood up and kissed me on my forehead before turning his attention to getting some clothes ready. He slipped into the bathroom, and when he slipped out after an impressive five-minute shower, I sighed.
“God, you’re…”—I looked at the kids—“S-E-X-Y.”
He laughed. He was wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and a black t-shirt and had placed a black baseball hat over his curly hair. Even all this time later, I still wasn’t totally used to seeing Alessandro dress down. It was like when we were back in high school.
“Okay. I should only be an hour, and then I have to stop and grab a few things for the barbecue. Call me if you need me to come back and help you get the kids to the pool. Otherwise, I’ll meet you over there.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
He walked over, leaned down, and gave me a kiss. “I love you.”
“I love you. Tell Dr. Davison I said hi.”
“I will.” He gave Adrian a kiss on the forehead and then leaned over the bed to kiss Alexis on the cheek. “Bye, baby girl.”
Alexis pouted. “I wanna go with Daddy.”
Alessandro’s jaw dropped. “Sweetie, you’re not dressed or anything.” Alexis was already clamoring off the bed and running out of the room. Alessandro sighed. “I guess I’m taking Lex with me.”
I giggled. “You know you can tell her no, Sandro.”
Alessandro looked up to the sky like that was a foreign concept to him. “No, I don’t think so.”
“You’re sure she isn’t distracting?” I asked.
Per his promise to me back after everything happened with Denise, once we got to Maine and settled into our new home, Alessandro started to see a psychiatrist. He was officially diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. He received medications to help him regulate it and saw his psychiatrist once a week on Saturday mornings. When I was in the last trimester of my pregnancy, he started bringing Alexis with him and spending the day with her to both distract her a bit and give me some time to rest. She only got to go to a handful of appointments with him, but it was enough for her to now demand to go with him every time.