The months flew by with my pregnancy. Every morning, John would talk to my belly and give it special attention before he headed off to work. When we went to check-ups together, at the doctor’s office, John and I refused to let the doctor tell us what the sex of the child was. Since this was John’s first, he wanted it to be a complete surprise. I didn’t mind, however. I was fine with whatever was waiting to pop out of me.
Ella also sprouted from a beautiful toddler to an even more beautiful child, during my pregnancy period. Her brown hair soon turned from brown to blonde and her striking silver eyes made it very clear that she hadn’t inherited anything from me. I was sad to see her hair change colors, but in either case, she was still a gorgeous child with a lot of spunk.
She was a daddy’s girl, though. John and her had a connection so strong that even I was jealous of it sometimes. Ella grew up interested in almost a bit of everything. Her favorite was music, science and art however. Her teachers at school even phoned me several times to tell me how amazed they were with how Ella excelled each and every class she took. You could say I was a very proud mother.
When Ella’s classes were over, during the summer, she liked to help me out in my art gallery that I had finally opened. While in the store, she loved talking with the customers and telling them a little about the paintings or sculptures, they were interested in. I was pretty sure that she was the reason why I made so many sales.
When she wasn’t helping the customers in my store, she was behind the counter with me, talking to the baby through my belly. Ella loved to listen for any sounds that the baby was making. She was excited to have a sibling and didn’t bother to hide it.
One time, while bored at the gallery, she demanded that I allow her to set up her own lemonade stand outside. She was very persistent in getting what she wanted, and soon had her own stand right outside.
She felt really bad when she convinced one of my buyers to buy from her instead of me that she sent me one of her young friends, who to my absolute shock, purchased a painting costing four hundred simoleons. I tried not to be judgmental as I rung her up.
There were some nights at home while I was inputting the daily sales into my computer where Ella would come downstairs to the computer room and demand why she didn’t look like neither John or me. I never knew what to say to her, especially when she scrutinized everything I said.
“But momma, I don’t wanna be a blonde. I wanna look like daddy,” she’d screech.
And as always, I’d say, “Ella, you do look like your father.” It wasn't a complete lie. She
was the very spitting image of Eric.
She’d huff at me and stomp away, thinking that I was just patronizing her and I’d spend the rest of the night miserable.
It wasn’t until I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, that I realized how special the bond between father and child was. She looked every bit like John from her striking blue eyes, to her black hair. She was his bouncing bundle of joy. We named her, Jennifer.
Late night, I would find John in her nursery, singing a lullaby to her and gently nuzzling her to him. I could tell he was in love. It was when I caught him having those special moments with Jennifer, that the regret of not telling Eric about Ella, began to eat away at me. I decided there was only one thing I could do about that to ease my conscience.
I dialed his number and waited for him to pick up.
“Eric?”
“Adelaide?” he asked. “How is the baby?”
“Listen Eric, I need to speak to you, can you meet me at the park tomorrow,” I asked him, not bothering to answer his question.
“Uh..sure…is everything alright, Addy?” he sounded worried.
“Everything is fine, just meet me there tomorrow at noon.”
When he agreed and hung up, I wrung my hands anxiously. I didn’t know if what I was about to do was the right thing, but I knew it had to be done.
~
The next morning, I asked John to take care of Jennifer as I told him my plan to tell Eric. He was in full support and agreed to taking the day off to take care of her. I knew secretly that he’d been hoping for a full day alone with her so he could try to teach her to say “da-da”. The thought made me chuckle on my way out because she was still to young to pronounce words, but he was confident he could make her say them.
Eric met me at the park, hugging me when I drew close.
“Adelaide, motherhood sure does agree with you,” he chuckled.
I let out a laugh, “don’t tease me Eric, I know I look like shit. Its what getting up every other hour does to a woman.” I motioned him to sit down on the bench behind us.
“Why’d you want to see me, Addy? Especially at this park?” he gestured to the area around us. “This is where I first saw you, you know?”
I nodded, “I know, this place holds a lot of memories,” I smiled at him. “How is Adele?”
He looked at me as if I were crazy for bringing him out here to ask about Adele, but replied with, “fine, she’s looks more and more like Lexi everyday.” He laughed. “Its almost scary actually.”
I nodded, trying to find the words to tell him about Ella.
“So why are we here, Adelaide?”
“I need to tell you something,” I began. “And before you get upset with me, I want you to know that the reason I couldn’t tell you before is because…I didn’t want to break up your family, or burden you.”
“I feel like you’re going for the dramatics, Addy. Just tell me what’s up.” He sounded impatient and a bit scared.
“Well…Eric, we have a daughter together.” It almost came out in a whisper.
He sat there stunned. “How…when..how?” he stuttered.
“Back in Desiderata, before I left, I found out I was pregnant with your child. When I met Lexi, I knew I couldn’t tell you, so I just left.” I explained.
He looked forward for a second, blindly staring ahead of him.
“Her name is Ella,” I said to him, without looking at him. “I named her after your mother.”
He sighed and dropped his head, I could hear him breathing raggedly.
“Does she know about me?” he asked, “does she know I’m her father?”
I shook my head. “No, she grew up believing John is her father.”
“Oh,” was all he could mutter.
“Listen Eric, I didnt tell you sooner about her because you were a single father trying to raise Adele on your own. I didn’t think you needed this on your plate.” I tried explaining.
“So why now, why are you telling me now?” he demanded.
I shrugged, truthfully not knowing how to answer. “I guess, after I saw how John was with Jennifer being born, I thought you had a right to know.”
“Can I meet her, Addy?”
“I don’t know how we’d arrange it without her being suspicious of who you are,” I sighed. “I don’t want to just disrupt her whole life like that.”
He was silent for a moment. “Then how about we arrange a play date between Ella and Adele?” he suggested.
I raised my brow. Although she hadnt had a play-date in years, the idea was almost crazy enough to work.
“How about later today, after we pick the girls up from school?” I asked, looking at him.
He was ecstatic. “Today would be perfect,” he almost shouted gleefully.
We talked some more about our daughters until it started to rain. We got up and said our goodbyes, walking away from each other. I was about to get into my car when I heard him call out to me.
“Addy, does she look anything like me?” He shouted.
“Its like looking at a photograph of a younger you,” I shouted back.
I could see his smile wobbling a bit as he turned around and walked away.