And One More Makes Six

‘Honey,’ Mary called from the ensuite bathroom that was as small as a postage stamp, ‘honey!!!’ she said with urgency pulling her husband Kevin away from the ‘Philosophers Stone’, which he was reading to the eldest three kids as a bedtime story. He entered the tiny room as Mary produced a pregnancy test. Kevin gasped. One of their already five kids started to bang on the door contesting that he hadn’t finished the chapter like promised. Kevin put his weight against the door to prevent his eldest daughter, Alice, out as he stood gobsmacked.

‘How………wh…. wha?’ he had reacted in the same was Mary did, but 10 minutes later.

‘I had a vasectomy!’ Kevin stated and sat on the toilet seat in shock. He began to perspire uncontrollably and felt like he was about to be sick.

‘I know!’ Mary said angrily putting her weight on the door now. ‘But you never went to the follow up appointment!’ she began to tap her foot, something she only did when she was very angry. Kevin put his hands to his head and began to massage his temples.

‘But we’ve already got five!’ he said beginning to cry. He loved his kids more than anything but five of them was plenty.

‘With our finances as strapped as they are, can we even afford another?’ Mary asking the all-important question.

Kevins stomach jerked. He thought for a minute…‘I can take up that painting gig Jo has been hammering on about for forever. I mean its perfect, just weekends and evenings.’

‘Then how would you get to watch our, now six (Mary pointer to her stomach), kids grow up and help me mould them into tiny adults? I can’t control six of them on my own Kevin!’ she stated the obvious.

Kevin shook his head, he had no other idea as to how else he could make the money. He was already doing double shifts at the garage where he worked.

Finally, his body frozen to the core, he emerged from the postage stamp of a room and finished the chapter for the three older kids who cheered when they heard that harry was put into Gryffindor house. They begged for another chapter, like he knew they would, but he firmly yet lovingly put them to bed where they slept like babies the whole night.

He made his way into his own room where his wife was crying like one. Oh how he wished he went for that follow up appointment! He lay beside the crying Mary and joined her. He felt responsible for the sticky situation they were in. He felt, as a man, helpless, and cried himself to sleep.

Once in dreamland he found himself in a wizarding world of its own. He was faced with Dumbledore on one side of him and Darth Vader on the other each handing him what looked like a jelly baby.

‘If you take this sweet, you will see how life evolves with six kids!’ Dumbledore smiled through his half-moon spectacles.

‘If you take this sweet, you will be transported back to when you were twelve years old and get to live your life again!’ Darth Vader spoke.

‘Well seeing as I know what its like with five kids, I don’t see the harm in seeing what twelve-year-old me, with some adjustments, would be like!’ he promptly took the sweet from Darth Vader’s outstretched black glove and chewed it like you would any jelly baby.

Kevin felt a jolt in his stomach, where he could see his life take place, only backwards until he finally settled into what he presumed was the twelve-year-old him. He lived a lifetime, thrown with obstacle’s he had faced when he really was twelve but taking the opposite action to what he did in reality.

His first obstacle was when he started secondary school. He was first faced with the decision of either taking business or science. He decided to take science instead of business, the opposite to what he had done in his ‘real life’. Business class was where he had met Mary and now that her was in science class, he only ever managed to see her when she was kicking about the school, always in a group and never up to conversing with him. He got her on her own one day when he was about seventeen, just like he had when he was really seventeen, and asked her to the Debs. She flat out told him she was going with Tommy, the boy who neither of them had ever liked…the boy who had originally taken science and not business.

A sinking feeling, like a ton of weight dropped in his stomach and he nodded the nod of disappointment. He remembered that it was the night of the debs where he had gotten Mary pregnant for the first time. If he wasn’t taking her to the debs, and Tommy was, would Tommy be the father of his beautiful Alice?

He was jolted a few years into the future where he was in college, studying science no less. It was always his dream to go to college, but when little Alice arrived, those dreams went out the window and he learned a trade and became a mechanic instead. He liked college life. There were a lot of parties and a lot of girls. As it was, Mary was the only girl Kevin had ever been with and he felt a bit dirty even dreaming of being with any other.

Catapulted even further into the future he found himself on his wedding day. He was up at the altar, his tuxedo looking amazing on his chiselled body. He couldn’t stop smiling as he knew that this was the day he was to marry Mary. He looked down the aisle when the processional music started and scrunched up his nose when he realised that it wasn’t Mary, nor was it any other girl he had ever laid his eyes upon…it was a stranger. It wasn’t until the vows that he learnt his bride to be was called Lauren. Before his mind could protest, he agreed to marry this Lauren and they ran down the church aisle hand in hand to a car with a ‘Just Married’ poster on the back. They drove off into the sunset.

In the hospital, where he found himself next, Lauren was in labour and he was there holding her hand and feeding her ice chips. They were in a room with two beds, and when Lauren reached eight centimetres who was puffing and panting on a wheelchair destined for the adjacent bed…. Mary. She looked beautiful and glowing. He forgot how much she glowed when she was pregnant. Tommy was the man who walked in after her, bag in hand, complaining about the parking. He got to talking to the love of his life out of longing as his own wife, Lauren, reached nine centimetres’.

‘Your first?’ Mary asked him.

He nodded.

‘This here is our fifth,’ she giggled, it was infectious. ‘Tommy here had a vasectomy two months ago, didn’t you Tom?’ he nodded, ‘so this will be the last bun out of my oven!’

Kevin laughed much harder than he should have as he missed his wife’s dry wit. Lauren hit him on the arm and it wasn’t until then did he realise how big of an engagement ring she had. Bringing baby Helen back to their four bedroomed detached house that was on an acre of land, was bitter sweet. He didn’t feel the same for Helen as he did any of his real five, but he was bowled over at the affluence that came with life with Lauren. He could imagine all five of his kids there, playing and laughing and running freely.

He got a call, it was from his boss, he was giving him paternity leave and congratulated him on a child he had absolutely no feelings for.

He continued to live the more comfortable life, another child coming into his world when Helen was four. He finally realised that it didn’t matter how much money he made. The two Mercedes in the driveway and the big old house were getting him down. Lauren wouldn’t let Helen eat or drink in the cars in case she spilled something. She also had a nanny, not giving Kevin much time with the little tyke. There were rules like no juice anywhere except the kitchen and no snacks that weren’t organic. Kevin began to get pissed off with Lauren and they ended up in the divorce court.  

Kevin woke with a start and sat bolt upright. Mary woke, wondering if he was, ok?

‘Are you my wife?’ he asked.

‘Last time I checked!’ Mary answered with a furrowed brow. She noticed that Kevin’s t-shirt was soaked through and advised him to put on a fresh one so he wouldn’t catch a cold.

‘Did we conceive Alice at our debs?’ he asked as he put a fresh t-shirt on, smiling as he saw that he had love handles again.

‘Yea,’ Mary rubbed her eyes, ‘are you ok?’ She asked feeling his forehead when he returned to bed to see if he was running a fever.

Kevin turned on his side and supported his head with his hand that was bent at the elbow which was on his pillow. ‘I think we can do this!’ he blurted out.

‘Do what?’

‘Have another baby!’

‘But the money is…...’ Kevin put a finger to the love of his life’s lips and shushed her.

‘All we need is love!’

Mary smiled, her cheeky grin sending tingles down his spine.

‘We could have all the money in the world and not be happy!’ he stated, ‘whilst each and every one of those five beautiful kids knows they are loved and come from a stable home!’

She smiled again and rubbed her belly.

‘I guess one more won’t be the end of the world!’

Kevin put his hand on top of that of his wife’s and said, ‘it surely wont!’

The pair fell asleep with their hands on Mary’s stomach, Kevin glad that he took the sweet from Darth Vader, as it made everything in his mind clear and he began to get excited to be a dad again.

The next morning over breakfast, as the kids threw cherios at each other, Kevin made the follow up appointment for his vasectomy, and as he was put on hold, looked at his brood adoringly. He realised he was the happiest man alive!

picture from pixabay