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Number of reviews: 42
Print:  Chapter or Story
June 2014
“Josephine,” Justin suggested.
“Ewww … you’ve got to be kidding me, Justin,” Sierra turned around to look at him.
“I am. I just wanted to hear your reaction,” he grinned and walked over to the fridge. “Do you want something to drink?”
“I have some orange juice,” she answered. Lady jumped up onto the couch and laid her head on Sierra’s lap. Sierra shook her head but didn’t make any attempt to shoo her off. She had slowly been allowed onto all of the furniture in the house even Justin and Sierra’s bed.
“What about Madison, Elizabeth, Haley, Raina, Gabby, Sam, Sydney?” Sierra read them off the list she wrote inside the cover of a baby name book.
Justin didn’t respond as he finished getting a drink.
“I have the perfect name,” Justin said as he walked into the living room. He put his drink on the side table and then plopped down on the couch next to Sierra.
“What’s that?” Sierra asked with a smile. She ran her fingers through Lady’s curly hair.
“Carolyn Mae,” he answered. “What do you think?”
“I think you’ve thought about that one a lot,” Sierra stated immediately recognizing where all three names had come from. “I do like it though.”
“What do you think baby?” He put his head down near her stomach. “Do you like Carolyn?” Justin waited for a second. “She does.”
Sierra shook her head with a laugh as his eyes gazed up to look at her. She moved her hand off of Lady and up into his hair. Justin grinned at the feel. “You need a haircut.”
“Why? I was thinking of growing it out,” Justin sat up straight letting her hand drop from his head.
“Don’t even think about it. It looked awful when you had it long however long ago that was,” she shook her head in disgust.
“Thanks for the love,” Justin said. He leaned over and kissed her quickly. “So Mom said you guys were going to go shopping for stuff for the nursery when we go home this week.”
“That’s the plan. It’s going to be girls’ day, so you can watch Cameron for me. Please.” She said.
“I was going to take John and Steven golfing one day, so I guess Cameron can come along for that.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Yes,” Justin said. “He needs to learn how to golf.”
“I don’t know if he needs to, but that’s sweet of you to want to teach him,” Sierra grinned. She reached up and put her hand on his cheek before leaning in to kiss him. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too.”
“Will you get his old crib out of the attic and set it up in our room so we’ll have it ready when she’s born?” Sierra smiled against his lips as she rubbed a hand over her stomach.
“I knew you wanted something out of that,” Justin grinned. “I’ll get it tomorrow.”
“Thank you.”
“So what color did you guys decide to have the nursery painted?” Lynn asked Sierra as the two stepped into a furniture store outside of downtown Memphis a few days later. Justin had decided to take the kids to see a movie letting the two of them have time to themselves.
“Oh this,” Sierra said opening up her purse. She pulled out the lavender paint sample and showed it to Lynn. “I’ve got to give it to the painters when we meet with them this afternoon over at the house.”
“That’s pretty.”
“I found some bedding first and then we decided on this color,” Sierra continued as she put it back into her purse. “Well where do we start?” She looked around the large space.
“Can I help you with something ladies?” A salesman approached them.
“Could you just point us in the direction of the baby furniture?” Sierra asked.
“It’s to the left would you like me to show you there?”
“No thanks,” Lynn answered.
“Come and find me if you have any questions,” he said.
“Thanks,” Sierra smiled and then followed Lynn in that general direction.
“I want something white and something that she can grow into,” Sierra said as they approached the baby furniture. Lynn nodded.
“Well it looks like they have a decent selection,” she said. They browsed through a little bit before Sierra stopped at a crib to take a closer look.
“This is nice,” she stepped back and looked at the white, sleigh-style crib. “What does the other stuff look like that goes with it?” They walked around the crib and looked at the changing table and dresser. “There is a lot of storage in this.” She opened the cabinet doors on the changing table.
“Which is always a good thing,” Lynn stated as she eyed the price tag for all three pieces. “It’s a good price too, for all three.”
“Maybe I should get a second dresser though. Or that armoire we looked at back there would go good with it.”
“I think getting the armoire is a better idea,” Lynn said.
“I do too,” Sierra said as she looked over at her. “Let’s go find that guy and but this stuff.”
“Have you been out here at all?” Sierra asked Lynn as they pulled onto the property. It was a few hours later and after making a couple more stops they were meeting Justin and the kids out at the new house. Lynn parked the car behind Justin’s SUV.
“Yeah, the last Justin was here I came over with him,” she answered as they got out of the car. They walked over to the house and headed inside. The kids were running around upstairs and Sierra smiled as she heard Justin tell them to knock it off. Lynn and Sierra came around the corner at the top of the stairs.
“Grandma come on, you have to come see this,” Olivia grabbed her hand and pulled her towards one of the glass pivot doors that led outside. Cora followed.
“What are they so excited about?” Sierra asked as she approached Justin who was standing in the dinning room with Cameron on his hip.
“The stuff in the backyard, they love the swing-set and pool,” he smiled and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “How was shopping?”
“It was great. You’re going to love the stuff we picked out,” Sierra smiled and ran her hand over Cameron’s back. “Did you like the movie sweetie?”
“Yeah. There were funny animals,” Cameron giggled and rambled on about the movie for a little longer. Sierra smiled at his enthusiasm about the cartoon.
“Why don’t you go outside and show Grandma your tree house,” Justin suggested and set Cameron on the floor.
“Okay,” Cameron said and ran for the door the other three had just gone out of.
“When are they going to deliver the furniture?” He asked.
“The day we move in. They have to order it and I’ll call them when we get the final move-in day. I thought that would be the easiest,” Sierra said.
“That works, I just talked to Dave and he was saying the end of July at the latest. He was thinking more like 2 weeks though, since they just have to do all of the finishes and paint.”
“Okay, I think I’m going to start feeling the stress of it all in a little bit. Since the baby is due in three weeks and we’ve got to start packing,” Sierra sighed. “It’s too much stuff at once.”
“Don’t worry about it all,” Justin said and wrapped his arm around her. He kissed her forehead and pulled away when some of the construction workers came back into the room. “Did you notice the floor?”
“Yeah, I did. It’s gorgeous,” Sierra looked at the mahogany floor beneath the thick plastic that was covering it. “It’s going to look really good with what we’re going to do to the walls down here.”
“Mmhmm,” Justin nodded.
“Justin, Sierra.” They turned around at the sound of Dave’s voice.
“Hello again,” Justin said.
“This is John, the painter,” Dave introduced.
“Oh great,” Sierra nodded and reached into her purse, “I have the paint samples we picked out right here.” She pulled the colored cards out.
“Let’s go upstairs then and talk about those rooms first,” Dave said.
“I’m scared,” Olivia said quietly.
“Understandable,” Sierra responded with a smile. “You’re big brother and big sister sound very nice.”
“I know,” Olivia said.
“It’ll be fine,” Sierra wrapped her arms around Olivia and gave her a hug.
“All right,” She pulled away when the doorbell rang. “I’ll go get it. Go ahead and sit in the living room with Dad.” Sierra gave an encouraging smile to Olivia before heading into the foyer to open the door. The two teenagers on the porch looked just as nervous as Olivia.
“Hello,” Sierra said. “Ya’ll must be Jill and Tyler come on in.” Sierra smiled at the two of them as they came inside. She closed the door behind him.
“Thanks for having us over Mrs. Timberlake.” Tyler said.
“You are both very welcome. Anything for Olivia,” Sierra smiled. “Let’s go on into the living room and ignore the mess please. We just got back from Tennessee this morning.” The three of them walked into the living room where Justin and Olivia sat on the couch.
“Hey,” Justin stood up and walked over to where Sierra was standing with Tyler and Jill. He held out his hand. “I’m Justin,” he introduced himself, “and this is Olivia.”
“Hi,” Olivia said quietly.
“Hi Olivia,” Jill smiled. Tyler did the same.
“Well you guys sit down,” Sierra said. “Does anyone want anything to drink?”
“No thank you,” Tyler said. Jill shook her head no as well. They sat down on the couch next to each other, while Justin sat back down next to Olivia and Sierra sat on the other side of him.
“Well,” Justin started. “I guess you guys can ask us anything you want and I hope that you’ll be just as open with us as well.” It was quiet for a moment before Sierra spoke up.
“Are you guys in school?” She asked.
“Jill is going to be a senior this year and I work. I want to take classes eventually but it isn’t an option right now,” Tyler explained.
“So are you excited about your last year of high school?” Sierra asked.
“Yeah, I’m just ready to get out,” Jill answered.
“I don’t blame you. I was ready to be done with it too,” Sierra smiled.
“Mom, I’m hungry,” Cameron came into the room with Lady trailing behind him. She noticed the two new people in the house and ran over to them.
“Lady, come!” Justin said. “Sorry about that. She’s still a puppy.” He called the dog over before she had a chance to jump on either of their laps.
“That’s okay,” Jill said. “She’s cute.”
“You’re always hungry,” Sierra said. “Let’s wait until dinner.” She pulled him onto her lap and wrapped her arms around him. “This is my son, Cameron. Cameron this is Jill and Tyler.”
“Hey,” Tyler leaned back onto the couch and wrapped his arm over the back of it.
“Hi,” Cameron grinned. Sierra kissed the side of his head. “Who they?”
“They are Olivia’s brother and sister.”
“Like me?”
“In a way yes,” Sierra answered.
“Oh-k,” he seemed satisfied with that answer.
“Where’s Cora?” Sierra asked before he could ask any more questions that she might not know how to answer.
“On computer.”
“Cora is my little sister,” Sierra started to explain to Jill and Tyler. “I’ve been raising her for about five years now, I guess …”
They made small talk for a while longer before Olivia brought up the topic of their mother.
“What was she like?” Olivia asked.
“Hmm …” Tyler thought for a moment. “She was nice for the most part, but than she got mixed up in some pretty bad things. When she got involved in that stuff it got really bad. She was abusive mostly towards me.” He cleared his throat nervously. He didn’t really care to talk about it but knew that Olivia needed to know.
“She just went off the deep end and was unable to care for us in the long run.”
“What kind of things did she do?”
“She got into certain drugs and alcohol,” he answered. “Social services pulled us out and the last time we saw her was when she terminated her rights as a parent, which was in 2005.”
“Do you know why you guys were never adopted too?” They both shrugged.
“Maybe because we were older. It’s hard to say why,” Jill answered. “I’m glad that the two of us were able to stick together and not be split apart though.” She looked over at Tyler who grinned at her. He moved his arm from the couch to her shoulders before giving her a light squeeze. “And we are glad that you’ve been able to have the family that you deserve.”
“You guys deserve a family too,” Justin said and smiled softly.
“Would you like to stay for dinner?” Sierra asked after a couple of minutes of silence. She pushed Cameron off of her lap and stood up slowly.
“Yeah, stay for dinner,” Olivia said.
“Well I guess we could,” Jill looked to Tyler for his response. They noticed that she turned to him for a lot of answers and guidance throughout the past few hours.
“Certainly,” he answered with a nod towards Jill. She smiled too.
“Great,” Sierra said and looked down at Cameron. “Do you want to help me out?”
“Yes!” Cameron said excitedly and took off for the kitchen. Sierra shook her head and followed him leaving the four to keep getting acquainted with each other.
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