“Oh! I hate this.” Susan was on the floor of her bathroom, throwing up everything in her stomach. She had a light dinner last night, so there wasn’t much in her.

“It will end soon sweetie. I know it’s been a hard three months for you.” Rachel was holding Susan’s hair out of the way as she leans over the toilet.

“That’s what you said last week mom.” Susan hated the morning sickness she had. She never went through this when she was pregnant the first time. She was sitting on her cold bathroom floor in her night shirt with her ankle wrapped up. They had taken the cast off a week ago.

She still walked with a limp and was told not to overdo it. She was also nervous, because today, she had to tell and show Mr. Garrigan that he was going to be a grandfather to two baby girls. She was surprised to discover she was carrying twins. They had done a chorionic villus sampling to determine who the father was and to check the baby chromosomes. She vomits one more time and then wipes her mouth and slowly stands up with the help of her mother.

“Just think, next month this should all be over.” Rachel helps Susan up off the floor.

Her belly was already starting to show on her tiny petite frame. Susan just shoots her mother an evil look. The morning sickness had started back in October after she had found out she was pregnant, a week after Carol Ann’s birthday party. Since then, she has had morning sickness every day. She had hope it would be done by now, but it was still going on. Her doctor had cut back on her pain medicine. He didn’t want it to affect the babies growing inside of her. She also decided to go ahead and have the babies and raise them. So, Jake and Rachel were going to be grandparents and so was Mr. Garrigan. She hadn’t told him yet. He was supposed to come over and talk with her today at her request.

Susan heads back into her bedroom and start changing into a dress to wear. Rachel comes into the bedroom and helps Susan dress. She still couldn’t use her left hand while she dressed. Rachel knew it bother her about that, but the damage had been more sever then they thought to her wrist. Susan’s wrist was going to take more time to heal then her ankle. At least now she could limp around the house and yard. She still wouldn’t go out by herself at night. The last time she did go out, she nearly broke down in hysterics. She also avoided going near the trailer she had been raped near. It caused her to have flashbacks several times when she saw it.

Rachel brushes Susan’s hair. It had gotten longer since she had been living here. It used to be just below her earlobes, now Susan’s hair was almost below her shoulder blades.

Susan stares into the mirror in front of her. The scars she used to have we’re all gone and there were no signs that they had ever been any on her. Her eyes and cheeks were their natural color again. No bruising or discoloration at all. She smiles for the first time in recent months.

“What are you smiling about?” Rachel had watched as Susan finally smiled.

“I don’t look like a raccoon any more, mom. My skin is clear, and my face looks clean and free of bruises.” Susan couldn’t believe it.

“You just notice?” Rachel rest her head next to Susan’s

“Now you see what I and your dad have been seeing for the past few months.” She places a kiss on her cheek.

Mr. Garrigan had gotten Susan’s phone call last night. It was unusual for her to call him about anything. Normally, he had to plead to get her to go along with what he had in mind. He could understand how she felt about things, but his son had disgrace her. It was a matter of family honor that he looked after her and takes care of her needs. Even if the Meadows have adopted her as their own daughter. When she had asked him to come over this morning to talk about something important, he couldn’t figure out what it might be.

He pulls his sports car up behind her SUV. In the drive way and gets out. The weather had dropped some last night and there was a light dusting of snow all around him. He heads towards the door and just as he is about to knock, Jake opens the door.

“Morning Jake, it’s good to see you.” Anthony looks at his old rival. The two of them had been friends back in high school, till a girl came between them. He regrets what happened between them.

“You to Tony, Susan’s in the living room waiting to see you.” He steps aside to let Anthony by.

Anthony walks inside. The place was decorated for Christmas. He smelled fresh baked pumpkin muffins in the air. He turns to look at Jake.

“Do you know why she called me?” He was wondering why Susan would call him.

“Yes, I do, but I think its best if she tells you herself.” Jake closes the door behind him and then escorts Tony to the living room. He already knew where it was, but he figured Jake and his wife was going to be there for this as well.

As Tony walked into the living room, he notices Susan sitting in a normal chair, without her walking cast on. She still had her wrist covered up, but she didn’t have a cast or walking boot on. He also notices her cane near her as well. He gives her a fatherly smile and walks over to place a kiss on her cheek. He knew it had taken her awhile to allow any one she didn’t trust to do that. He knew she still avoid crowded places.
Susan allows Tony to kiss her on the cheek and watches as he takes a seat on the love seat. Jake and Rachel were seating a little to her left. There was a tray with a coffee pot, cups and condiments for fixing one’s coffee seating on a table between all three of them, along with the muffins he had smelled walking in.

“Mom thought you might like a cup of coffee, before we began.” Susan had already poured herself one.

“Yes, I would.” He gives her a smile.

Susan picks up one of the cups and starts pouring. “Would you like sugar and creamer or?” Susan looks at him for his answer.

“Two sugars please.” He watches Susan as she prepares the coffee and then sets it on a saucer along with two muffins.

Susan fixes his coffee and then adds two muffins to it, before handing it to him. She sits back in her seat. She waits while he tastes the coffee to see if it was right and to see what he thought of her mother’s muffins.

Tony drinks some of the coffee and found it was little stronger then he normally used, but tasted fine with the sugar added to it. Of course, he had to try Rachel’s muffins. He knew she was a good cook.

Susan sits and watches him, before sliding the envelope she had tucked in the seat next to her, so he couldn’t see it when he entered.

“The reason I called you here Mr. Garrigan is I got a call back in October telling me that the pregnancy test I took the last week of September came back positive for me being pregnant.” She was watches Tony.

“I thought they gave you a morning after pill?” He had a friend up at the hospital that told him they did.

“They did, but because for some reason, my body didn’t accept it. I don’t know if it is due to all the meds they had me on or what. Even the doctor I have can’t figure it out, but the test was done twice to support what they found out the first time.” Susan had the result in the envelope sitting on her lap.

“Do they know who the father is?” He leans forward and places the saucer on the table.

“Yes sir, they do. Here are the results.” Susan hands Tony the envelope.

Tony accepts it and reads the contents inside. He couldn’t believe it. His son got her pregnant, before she killed him. He looks back up at Susan.

“How far along are you and do you know the sex of the baby yet?” He still held the results in his hand.

“I’m four months pregnant and the babies are girls.” Susan places her hand on her tummy.

“Babies?” He wasn’t sure he heard her right.

“Yes, babies as in twins. You’re going to be the grandfather to twin baby girls that is if you would like too. That’s why I called you here this morning.” Susan pulls a second envelope from between the seat and arm rest and hands it to him.

He puts the first one down next to him and opens the second one and reads the medical report and then looks at the ultrasound that had been done as well.

He looks back up to Susan “I appreciate that you consider telling me. Will you be able to raise them on your own? Support them and give them what they need?”

“I’ve been asking myself those question and then some, since I found out that I was pregnant. I have a family now that loves me and will stand by me.” Susan looks over towards Rachel and Jake.

She turns her attention back to Anthony “as for the answers to your other questions yes, I plan on giving my girls a mother they can be proud of and to protect them as much as I can. They are as much a victim as I am. The way they were conceived will be a stain against them, but I plan on showing them I love them for them, not how they were conceived. If you want to be in their life, I would consider it a second chance for you. You could show them the right way to go through life.”

Susan sits there and watches Anthony. She hopes he will be part of their lives. He wasn’t too bad once you got to know him. Plus, he has been making sure she had everything she needed.

“What will happen to them, should you die giving birth or if you’re unable to care for the girls?” He knew Susan had suffer allot of damage during her rape, plus he didn’t know if she had a job or not yet.

“Arrangements have already been made for that, just in case. We will become the legal guardians of her girls, our grandchildren.” Rachel looks towards Anthony.

He was going to ask where they were going to live, but he already knew the answer to that question. He knew Rachel and Jake would never ask her to leave, once she became part of their family. They would do everything in their power to make sure the girls were taken care of. He looks towards Susan and wonder why she was asking him to be part of their lives? Did she want something or was her offer genuine?

“I do have a question for you Susan. Why are you asking me if I want to be part of the girl’s life, after what my son did to you?” Anthony knew he was obligated to Susan, but the babies were a different story.

Susan inhales slowly and looks directly at Anthony “because even though your son did something so wrong to me, I believe that the girls should know who their grandfather is and how kind he is. I know you feel responsible for your son’s actions; you never did me any harm. If nothing else, you have gone out of your way to make me feel like a member of your family. So, I would like for you to be part of the girl’s life. I want you to help show them the right way to go through life and if nothing else to make sure mom and dad don’t spoil them rotten.” She looks over towards Jake and Rachel with a loving smile on her face.

Anthony looks over towards Jake and Rachel and knew the girls would be in good hands with them. He looks at all the information Susan has given him and then back towards her.

“Would you mind if I thought about this some Susan? It’s not that I don’t want to be part of the girl’s lives; I want to make sure I’m doing this for the right reasons.” He was thinking about contacting his lawyer and let him look into this to make sure it wasn’t some sort of con job.

“Take as long as you would like Anthony. I and the girls aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.” Susan still had her hand on her tummy.
Susan, Anthony, Jake and Rachel sat and talked about Susan’s recovery and other things concerning ranching and such for a few hours.
When Anthony leaves, he takes the paper work Susan gave him and leaves.

Susan watches from the front porch as he drives away standing next to Rachel.

“Mom, do you think he’s going to want to be part of the girl’s life?” Susan was thinking maybe she was wrong about him.

“I think he is going to want to, knowing what I know about him, but he is going to make it legal. He is going to check into what you told him and then come back with a bunch of legal forms for us to sign to make it official.” Rachel knew Tony.

“Well, he can put whatever he wants in them. I know what I said was straight and to the point when I made it official for you and Dad to be my baby’s guardians, should I become unable to care for them. I want them to have the best life possible. I don’t want them to ever want for anything, especially a mother’s and father’s love.” Susan felt Rachel’s arm wrapped around her.

“We know baby. We know. Now let’s go ahead and get your laundry done and start design the nursery for my grandchildren.” Rachel smiles to herself. She was going to be a grandmother.

Susan follows her mother to her room and start getting her laundry ready for wash.

Jake had watched his wife and Susan as they talked by the door while they watch Anthony drive away from the house. He couldn’t believe he was going to be a grandfather. He slips his heavy jacket and gloves on and heads outside to make sure the men were doing their job.

Susan sits in the living room and folds her clothes while watching a movie. It didn’t have any violence in it, which she was thankful. She has come a long way since September. She was still recovering from her ordeal, but at least she could do normal things now, like laundry and cleaning. She tries to use her left hand, but there are times where her wrist doesn’t want to respond to her. The Doctor thinks she might have some nerve damage in it, since a bone chip had cut a set of nerve endings. They did what they could to fix it, but she was told she wasn’t going to have full feelings in her wrist.

The movie she was watching was the one called Montana. She had watched it at the girl’s group home she had been sent too. As she is sitting there, she feels her cell phone vibrate in her dress pocket. She reaches inside and pulls it out and notices it was her friend Kelly calling her.

“Hi Kelly, what’s up?” She folds the pillowcase she had pulled out of the basket.

“Nothing, I wanted to see how you are doing and how the weather out there in Montana is.” Kelly was on her lunch break and had thought about her friend.

“I’m fine. We had a light snowfall last night. Did you get the package I sent you?” Susan had mailed out her presents to her friend last week, hoping they would arrive soon. She had gotten all her shopping down with her mother’s help.

“Yes! It came on Friday. I love the homemade cookies and brownies you sent. I never knew you knew how to bake.” Kelly had loved the homemade cookies, candy and brownies Susan had sent her.

“You can thank my mother. She helped me make them. I’ve been learning a lot from her. So how is Steve doing at his new job?” Susan remembers Kelly’s boyfriend. He used to be into drugs and such like Robert had been.

“He loves it Susan. Thank you for putting us in touch with Mr. Harris. I have never seen Steve work as hard as he does for any one. Mr. Harris let us move into a house his great Aunt had left him here on the ranch in exchange for Steve working for him. He put me in touch with a friend of his that owns a feed store that needed someone to run his office and do his books.” Kelly loved working for Mr. and Mrs. Connors. They were nice people and appreciated her talents. Unlike her last employer, who had tried to seduce her and wouldn’t promote her unless she put out.

“Don’t thank me. It was my father’s doing. He knew Mr. Harris needed a hard worker and I knew Steve was trying to get his life back on track. I just put in a few good words for him. I always did like Steve; it was Robert who had held him back.” Susan had told Jake about Steve and how he was really a nice person, but because he had been busted several times for drug possession, he couldn’t get a decent job and support Kelly and their baby boy.

“How’s little Bobby doing?” Kelly had sent her the latest pictures of him. He was getting big and was already walking.

“He’s doing fine. I’ve had to child proof the house with Mrs. Harris help. She fawns over him like she is his grandmother. Which is just fine with me? You know how my mother is.” Kelly couldn’t believe she had shown up drunk and such on Thanksgiving at her house.

“I know. So, I take it, she has gotten worse?” Susan lays a pair of sweat pants she loves wearing down, after folding them.

“Yep, she won’t stop drinking or partying at all. I don’t want her around little bobby. I talked with a lawyer, should something happen to me or
Steve, that the Harris’s take him, just like you did with your adopted parents. I trust Mr. and Mrs. Harris.” She didn’t want anyone other than those two to raise her son.

“Why not your older sister, who lives in Charlotte, N.C.?” Susan remembered visiting her once.

“She got her own hoard to worry about. She’s got five children now and is working full time as a nurse. Her husband is a contractor and comes home late every night. I don’t think she can handle another mouth to feed or care fore. Mrs. Harris did promise that she would make sure
Bobby knew about his Aunt and cousins.” Kelly loved her sister, but she was already strained with having five children.

“So, how do you like living in the country?” Both Susan and Kelly were brought up in the city.

“It felt weird the first weeks out here. I was so used to hearing cars and people shouting at each other, that I was thinking it was all a dream.
Steve forgot about several items we needed for the house and hadn’t realize, you just don’t run down to the corner market to get it or that grocery shopping is almost an all day’s affair. Still, after we adjusted to it. I wouldn’t go back to live in the city again. I love the fresh mountain air first thing in the morning and the people are a lot nicer here, then back in Virginia Beach. I want to thank you again for the money you sent us to help us move, Susan. I don’t think we could have made it out here without it.” Kelly really did appreciate her friend’s helps.

“Any time Kelly. If you ever need anything, give me a call and I’ll do what I can for you. Have you been horseback riding yet?” Susan knew that Kelly knew how to ride. Both had been trained by the same teacher at camp. She was just a little better then Kelly.

“Yes! And Mr. Harris is letting me stable the horse I bought at an auction at his stables. Steve mainly rides him during the day, but Bobby and I have gone out on him a few times together. How are your horses doing?” Kelly looks at the picture on her desk of her friend’s horses.

“They’re doing fine. Midnight has calm down some and tries not to act as the head steed here on the ranch. Midnight Moon has fallen for her dark handsome lover. I expect a foal sometime next year. I am planning on giving it to Carol Ann as a present. I’ve bought a few more horses as well. Dad is working with them. Two of them come from a good jumper line and the other one is a mustang that I rescued that had been
abused. Dad and Gerald are doing what they can for her. She’s a nice mare and once she is doing better, I think she’ll be a perfect horse to let others ride.” Susan loved that mare she had purchased from her abusive owner. The poor thing was being neglected and was unkempt.

“You’re going to have a horse ranch of your own, if you keep buying horses Susan.” That was the one thing her and Steve had talked about, was a little ranch of their own. There was a hundred acres right beside Mr. Harris ranch that was coming up for bid and she was doing all she could to get a loan to buy it.

“Oh! Trust me. I’m not ready to run a ranch yet. Carol Ann knows more about running one then I do. I’m still learning. It will be a long time before I can ever do that. I’m planning on getting my GED sometime in March of next year and maybe take a course in land management or go to rodeo school. I still have to wait and see how my left wrist is going to be.” Susan hopes she can go.

“Susan, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Is the money you have, the money Robert left in the Cadillac?” Kelly figures it is, but she wanted her friend to be truthful to her.

“Yes. After I got off the phone with you the day I called you and you told me he was more concern about the car then he was about me, it got me thinking. So, I searched the Cadillac and found his hidden compartment in it. There were drugs, money and such. I empty the drugs on some poor farmers land and kept the money to live on.” Susan was smiling. It was in the middle of the night and she had empty the drugs and powder some poor farmer’s field with it.

She could hear Kelly laughing on the other end of the phone.

“Oh! I wish I could have been there. That is so funny. You poured out half a million dollars’ worth of drugs on some farmer’s field.” She was laughing her butt off.

“Yep!” Susan listens to her friend’s laughter.

Kelly gets herself under control and looks at the clock on her desk. She needed to start getting ready to close. The store would stay open till, ten at night, but her hours were till six and it was almost six now.

“Susan, I got to go, but I’ll call you later tonight, if you don’t mind.” Kelly was packing up her purse and shutting down her computer and making sure the safe was locked.

“I don’t mind. Just remember there’s a three hours difference between me and you now. So just remember that.” Susan sometimes had to remind her friend of the time difference.

“I will. Talk to you later.” Kelly cancels the call.

“Bye!” Susan waits till the screen shows call ended before sliding her phone into her pocket. She finishes folding up her clothes and hanging her dresses up.

Her stacks of panties were full brief or high cut and boy shorts now. She wouldn’t wear anything that showed her bottom off any more like she used to. She places all her folded clothes back into the basket and pick it up with both her hands. Her left-hand flairs up with pain, but her doctor told her she needed to use it more often in order to strengthen it. She grits her teeth and limps to her bedroom with the laundry basket in her hands. She sets the basket on her bed and reaches for the pain patch her doctor prescribes for her. She places the patch on her left wrist and starts putting things away.