MJ’s Story

In my mind, she was soon there, "What is it, baby girl?"

"Why must it be Luke? Why does it matter who the father of my next child is?"

"Honey, you weren't supposed to live this long," mum answered honestly. "You were supposed to die having your fourth child, just as I did. Luke would have grieved for a time, then fallen in love with his secretary. Together, they would have raised your sons and daughter, plus had another three together.

Your dad dying out of his time meant I had to alter things. Stopping your ability to have children was one of them. But, my love, we're almost back where we should be. Luke will make you pregnant, and you will have the daughter you were always meant to have."

I worked this through in my mind.

"I'm still going to die during childbirth, aren't I, mum?"

"All things that are meant to happen will happen, Molly," mum said mysteriously. "Please trust me, as you always have, and know that it will all work out for the best."

Sighing, I made my way back out into the bar. Swinging my hips seductively, I sashayed past Luke. Once I was sure his eyes were on my ass, I 'accidentally' dropped my purse. Keeping my legs straight, and thanking the Gods I had kept practicing my gymnastics regime, I bent over with my ass pointed towards him and picked it up.

A quick glance in Luke's direction confirmed that I had garnered his attention.

I repeated this routine three more times before Luke finally left his group and followed me to the bar where I had taken a seat.

"That's some flexibility you have there, Miss...?" He said.

"Evelyn Waters," I lied, putting on a breathy, sexually excited voice. "You're the Treasurer, aren't you? Luke Docherty?"

"Tonight, Miss Waters, I can be whoever you want me to be," my ex-husband said.

'What a fucking sleazebag,' I thought. But I knew the type of woman I was pretending to be would find this line a 'come on'.

"Then I want you between my thighs and in my pussy," I roguishly said.

Luke smiled, "That can be arranged. I have a room here in this hotel if you'd like to come upstairs?"

I'm not going to bore you with the gory details of how Luke, like the pig he has become, took me roughly with no regard at all for my needs. All that needs to be said is that he came in me.

Six weeks later, I threw my breakfast up as soon as I had eaten it. I'd bought some pregnancy test kits in anticipation. Two blue lines, I was finally pregnant again.

My sons were a combination of delighted that they were going to have another sibling and perplexed as to how it had happened and who the father was.

Paul summed their feelings up.

"Mum, I didn't even know you were seeing someone to have sex with, let alone getting pregnant to that person."

Paul hadn't tried to have sex with me since that one night. He'd met a girl named Samantha only a few days after we'd made love, and suddenly I was out of the picture. I wasn't surprised or even disappointed because that had been the pattern with PT and Eddie as well.

Paul is such a sweetie, and I loved him best. Even though you're not supposed to have favourites amongst your children, every parent does. Here's how you know. If your mum hasn't told you you're her favourite, you're not.

I decided to let Paul in on the secret.

"You know that week I disappeared for a couple of days?"

Paul nodded.

"I flew down to Canberra and seduced your father. We made love, and my pregnancy is the result."

Paul was stunned. He shook his head twice. "You went and saw dad. He was happy to see you, then fucked you?"

"Not really."

I explained what I'd done.

Paul thought it was hilarious.

"If you don't sue him for child support and take this to the papers, I'm going to be bitterly disappointed in you, mum."

I shook my head, "I have no wish to destroy your father's marriage, honey. This has to stay between the two of us."

Paul looked at me for a long time before saying, "As you wish, mum. May I have your permission to tell my sister her origins after you've passed?"

Shocked. I replied, "How do you know I'm having a girl?"

"How do you know you're having a girl, mum?"

That son of mine is too clever by half!

"I don't," I tried to equivocate. "You seemed sure, though."

Paul junior smiled, "This is a little weird, mum, but sometimes it's like Nana, your mum, talks to me. I know that can't be true, but..." He shrugged, "That's how it seems. If something happens to you, mum, Nana has explained that I, and Samantha, will need to raise my sister."

Paul faltered to a stop.

"Tell me nothing will happen to you, mum, please! I think Samantha might be my one, but you will always be my favourite girl."

I lied to him, of course.

With a smile, I said, "I plan on living longer than your great-grandmother did."

Paul returned my smile, "Fuck, you'll be old by then!"

I think we both knew I was lying.

My pregnancy proceeded without any real problems or complaints. Around the three-month mark, the morning sickness disappeared.

My gynaecologist was happy with my progress, "Keep up the light exercise, Ms Molly. It's good for you and the child. Your body will tell you when to stop. Even then, make sure you walk at least 15 minutes every day."

Like, duh! As if I hadn't already done this three times!

Things changed after the fifth month. I woke up with terrible stomach cramps and needed to take a dump very badly. I barely made it to the toilet before jettisoning everything inside my bowel.

When I wiped myself clean, there was blood. I was terrified it was from my pussy and that I had gone into early labour. Thankfully, it wasn't, but the scans showed I was riddled with bowel cancer.

The specialist wanted to carry out an emergency Caesar section, "The baby is viable now, Ms Docherty. If we do a caesarean, there's a 90% chance the baby will survive, and we might have time to save you."

That was never going to happen. 90% isn't 100%, and there was no way I'd risk her for only a chance I might live.

Two of my three uncles were still alive. PJ had passed earlier in the year from a heart attack. I called them to Nana and Pop's place and called my other two boys home.

After I explained my situation, they all tried to talk me into having the C-section.

"I will not!" I told them. "I will have my child, she will be healthy, and I will join mum and dad. You all will be happy because I'm with my mother and father again."

I was equally as impossible to refuse as my mother had been.

With a few more vague mumblings, they all agreed that they would support me and help to raise my child.

Samantha spoke up. I hadn't realised Paul had brought her to the meeting.

"It will be okay, mum," she said forcefully. "Paul and I are only young, but we will raise your child. A car accident when I was a baby left me unable to have children. It would be an honour and a privilege to be your daughter's second mother."

"My other boys will help, and so will their uncles," I reminded her

Paul and Samantha got married as soon as they could arrange it. It was such a beautiful wedding. We got permission to re-open the First Presbyterian church for the occasion. It all seemed so fitting.

My health crashed shortly after Paul and Samantha returned from a brief honeymoon with Matt and his wife in Thailand.

The pain was getting on top of me because I couldn't take much in the way of painkillers as they would affect my unborn daughter. By halfway through my ninth month, I was all skin and bones.

With the wonders of modern medicine, the specialist doctors were feeding my baby through a hose inserted through my stomach and into the umbilical cord.

Mum was a constant presence in my mind again. I talked out loud with her a lot. My kids were worried, but the nurse explained that a lot of people had this experience as their time neared.

I had to smile.

I went into labour only a few days before I was due. As the first contraction hit, my waters broke, and I passed out.

When I regained consciousness, my gynea was in a heated discussion with Paul Junior, Samantha, PT and Eddie.

"If I don't open your mother up and get the child, we'll lose them both!" My doctor yelled.

Samantha was the family's spokesperson, it seemed.

"No! Molly will recover and have this baby. Just wait!" She said vehemently.

The gynea threw his hands up in disgust, "They're both going to die!"

I spoke up, "Not yet, I ain't! Get over here, doc. It's time to have this baby."

Things went quickly from there.

As I tried to push my daughter from my body, a great peace came over me and I became aware my mother was with me. There was a quick, fast heartbeat, and it seemed like it was getting light.

"What's happening, mum?" I asked.

I could feel my mother's radiant smile. Heck, I could almost see my mother's smile.

"You're dying, my love. You're dying, and we're being reborn."

"I don't understand, mum. We're twins being born together?"

"No, Molly. You and I are one. Your daughter and we are one. Your dying paves the path for we three to become one again. This time I think we will always be one."

The nurse put my baby daughter on my breast. It was the weirdest sensation. I was looking at her. She was her, she was me, and she was mum.

I felt myself leaving the cancer-ravaged body I had been stuck in and felt myself merging with my mother and daughter.

"Wait!" Samantha yelled. "What do you want us to call your daughter?"

I smiled, "Millicent Valerie Docherty."

I died to the approving nods of my family.

I died, and yet I lived. Inside my daughter's mind, we: Mum, Millie and I, were still a little separate. The nurse cleaned us up and placed us in the baby's room crib.

There was a handsome man with his around two-year-old son visiting his wife, who had just given birth to their second child. The tousled, sandy-haired son came over to look in my crib.

When his eyes met ours, there was another of those audible clicks.

"Dad?" I asked wonderingly.

Mum's voice came from a million miles away, it seemed. She had already integrated into Millie almost wholly.

"Your father and our soulmate, baby girl. The four who shall be one."

Happy, I stopped resisting being integrated, and we became whom we were always supposed to be, Millicent Valerie Docherty. I could already feel my memories of ever being someone else melting away as I settled deeply into sleep.

The End.