Chapter Text
'LENORE STOP THROWING SAND AT ME!'
'YOU THREW IT FIRST, JACKASS!'
'MOOOOOM!!!!'
Hailey sighs as her two children continue to chuck handfuls of clumpy sand at each other, their yelling quickly turning into laughter and a new game to play. Joshuah sits beside her, his arm wrapped around his wife's shoulders. His body vibrates with contained laughter as Keegan receives a flurry of attacks from his six year old sister.
'Hey, keep it away from the eyes!' He calls out to his kids, only receiving a yell from the ten year old that vaguely sounds like an 'okay'.
Hailey keeps her hands lain on her stomach, her eyes drifting away from her kids up to the cloudy sky now turning a bright orange as the sun sinks below the treeline and making the white clouds a soft pink. Joshuah seems to pick up on her distant state, squeezing her closer to him.
'It's going to be alright, Hay.' He says softly, brushing away a strand of her dirty blonde hair and kissing her temple. 'We can tell them when you're ready. Lenore might appreciate sisters to torment with her hairdressing skills in the future.' He says jokingly, trying to reassure his wife. Lenore had given herself an interesting haircut a few months ago, leaving her wearing a hat nearly every day to school to cover up her makeshift bangs until they could get her to a real haircut appointment. It had also happened to be the very week of the Asters' family photos.
Hailey doesn't respond verbally but she does lean her head against Joshuah's shoulder. She isn't ready. She doesn't know if she ever will be.
Keegan was deliberately planned about a year after their wedding. Hailey's parents had helped her with him while Joshuah worked to get them out of the apartment. When she was back in the office, they were out of the apartment complex within a few months. Everything was perfect for years.
Lenore wasn't planned.
Keegan was nearly four when Hailey had found out. She panicked. She hid her pregnancy from everyone for three months before Joshuah found out. He wasn't angry but he was concerned. Hailey wasn't doing well. He had been travelling for his work every other week, leaving her alone with Keegan and her parents to help, but he hadn't known that she was denying them access to her son and keeping both of them locked inside the house for days on end.
When he returned from one of those trips, it took Joshuah two days to coax his wife out of their locked bedroom. After mutually agreeing to send Keegan to Joshuah's parents for a few days, they got her help. Hailey reamined in therapy until she had Lenore 5 months later. It was hard on her, but she grew through it with the motivation to make sure her children had a mother to remember.
And here she is now.
Hailey and Joshuah found out three weeks ago that she was pregnant again, about two months in. They went to the hospital for an ultrasound and to find the sexes and make sure everything was going smoothly when they discovered they were twin girls. The pressure came hard and fast over Hailey.
Joshuah tried his best to prevent her depression once more. Making sure she ate and drank enough throughout the day, having at least one grandparent with her whenever he wasn't around, and staying by her side all day on the weekends. Yet it isn't working like it did six years ago.
Hailey's eyes drift back down to Keegan and Lenore, having moved to the swings to see who can go the highest. Keegan is basically a direct replica of his father, having his dark eyes, curly hair, and facial structure. Lenore is quite the opposite. Dirty blonde hair, blue eyes with a splotch of brown beneath her pupil in her left eye just like Hailey, and freckles all over her body.
She knows they'll grow up one day and look back at these moments to realize how distant their mother was. How often their grandparents were at their home, playing games with them, making them food, and helping them with their homework.
She knows how they'll grow distant from her when they get older. Prefer Joshuah over Hailey when it comes to asking for permission or advice. Knowing which one to go to when there's a problem or perhaps a new romantic partner.
She knows which grave will always have fresh flowers while the other remains still with faded plastic ones.
She knows they'll never meet their sisters.
Hailey has already named them. Dakota and Celeste. She imagines their faces every day. Dakota with her dark curls, always in two braids down her back or lain over her shoulders. Her bright green eyes from Joshuah's side of the family. Always smiling with her toothy grin and dimpled cheeks. Celeste, her pin-straight blonde hair always cut short. Freckles splattered over her face and arms. One blue and one green eye.
She learned how to braid Dakota's hair when they were only six and only allowing Celeste to touch it afterwards in Hailey's dreams. Lenore taught them how to climb the weeping willow in their backyard without falling. Keegan would always do something with them- puzzles, video games, catch. Joshuah would always bring them back little treats from his travels. The state flower, snacks, books, whatever he knew they'd like. Hailey would hold Dakota in one arm and Celeste in the other in their family photo. She'd walk next to Joshuah with Celeste on her shoulders and Dakota on his while Lenore and Keegan ride their bikes far ahead on the sidewalk.
'They'll be beautiful, Hailey.' Joshuah says with another kiss to her temple before getting up from the bench to separate Keegan and Lenore from a fistfight on the other side of the playground.
Hailey watches as he walks away, the sun casting shadows on her family's figures.
She smiles.
They'll be happier without her.
She knows it.