A Popular Son
Startled, Greg jumped up at once and took the box from Rachel.
Don't tell me she'd just quit and was coming straight over.
Anyone looking at her would have thought the same thing.
But inside the big box were none of the things Rachel used to keep at work. Instead it was packed bulk with brand-new supplies, as if she had swept the entire office-goods aisle at the supermarket.
"……?"
When Rachel first appeared carrying a box, I had assumed she had stormed out of the company with her own belongings. Turns out she had been shopping.
But this suddenly?
Greg must have thought the same thing, because he started pulling items out of the box and setting them on the desk as he asked,
"Honey, what is all this? What's going on?"
Rachel looked around at all of us, then declared with absolute confidence,
"I just hit them with a nice, clean lawsuit!"
Good heavens.
"Good heavens! Oh my, oh my, oh my!"
The gasp I had kept inside, Cassandra clapped her hands and let out loud.
"My God. Wait, for real?"
"No."
The follow-up answer, delivered like a joke, made the tension drain out of my body. I hadn't even realized how tense I had gotten.
"Rachel. You really scared us."
"But it's close enough. Today that damn—"
Rachel had been about to say that damn company when she glanced at the kids munching cookies.
She took a deep breath, calmed herself a little, and carefully sat down in the chair Greg had brought for her.
"Honestly I did think about actually suing them, but in the end I decided I didn't want to waste that much of my time on a company like that. Besides, there wasn't really any solid evidence or incident that would hold up in court."
She hadn't recorded anything, and she hadn't heard the talk directly from the people involved, so of course there was no hard proof. She could still have filed something, but as Rachel said, once you were already quitting, spending more time on it would only be more exhausting…
"If that's how you feel about it, then that's fine. But what are all these things all of a sudden?"
"Ah, this isn't even everything. Let me bring the rest in first and then I'll explain properly."
Finished speaking, Rachel tried to stand, only to grab her belly and carefully sit back down, clearly finding it hard. She looked at Greg.
"Honey. There's more stuff in my car. Can you go get it? Two bags in the back seat and everything inside the white box in the trunk. You'll have to make a few trips."
"Okay."
"I'll help too."
Greg didn't ask twice and headed downstairs; Cassandra followed right after him.
"Rachel, would you like a cookie?"
"Yes, please. I've been going crazy from that sweet smell for a while now."
I quickly put another batch of cookies into the air fryer for her. Right then Luca, who had just swallowed the last crumb of his cookie, piped up.
"Cookie."
Honestly, this kid had a sixth sense for whatever Dad was doing.
"No, these aren't for Luca. Luca already ate all his cookies."
With that I wiped his hands with a damp cloth, scooped him up, and carried him into the playroom.
"Uung…"
Luca stuck his lip out and glared at me with a sulky face, but no meant no.
"Uung, no. All gone!"
I repeated the little phrase I always used after meals and gave him a tight hug. My pretty baby—if he ate too much it wouldn't be good for him.
I sat the still-grumpy child in the ball pit, settled beside him, and took both of his hands, shaking them up and down and side to side in turn.
He was a stubborn, strong-willed ten-month-old, but when Dad put on this half-coaxing act, our Luca usually let it go.
"……Abu! Ababa! Appa!"
See?
As if the sulking had never happened, he burst into giggles. I picked him up again and covered his face with kisses, and his mood brightened right away.
"Okay, time to play hard so we can digest that food, yeah?"
With that I brought out the noisy blackboard toy—the one that instantly hijacked his entire attention with a single button press.
Luca's favorite was the puppy button.
Sure enough, the first thing he pressed today was the puppy face. At the cheerful "Puppy, woof woof!" he dissolved into peals of laughter.
That ought to make him forget about the cookies.
While I looked after Luca, I eventually left him to it and went over to Reni, who had been waiting patiently in a chair and was now chatting with Rachel.
I listened quietly. He was proudly telling her about everything he had done at kindergarten today—the same stories he had told me earlier.
Rachel listened with a fond expression.
Not wanting to interrupt them, I took the cookies out of the air fryer, poured a glass of warm milk, and set both in front of Rachel.
"Thank you."
I had just settled Reni into the playroom as well when Greg and Cassandra returned, arms loaded with bags and boxes.
"Whoa, why is there so much?"
A capsule coffee machine, pens and every kind of stationery, file cases and organizers—an endless stream of things poured out of the bags and boxes. There was even a wall clock (the one I kept saying I would buy and always forgot), desktop calendars for everyone's desks, and…
"Whoa, this is a mechanical keyboard! I've always wanted to try one of these!"
Greg was bouncing around like an excited kid with no filter. I asked in a slightly worried voice,
"Rachel. Seriously, what is all this?"
Even though she hadn't officially started yet, Rachel and I had been steadily messaging about every expense. She had always been meticulous and thrifty. So what on earth was going on?
Under everyone's puzzled stares, Rachel smiled a little wickedly.
"Five hundred dollars' worth of stuff, so of course there's a lot. I'll explain now. Like I said earlier—I put out the vibe that I was about to sue the company, and this is what I shook them down for."
"Excuse me……?"
"During the regular meeting they asked if there were any special issues, so I went down the list of every rumor I'd been hearing, point by point, and called them out. I told them I'd heard this and that and asked if it was true."
She had laid into them about the talk that they might pass her over for promotion because of her pregnancy, about the new hire making more than existing staff, and about all the ridiculous holes in various projects that the rest of us had never even known about.
"……Just imagining it is pretty satisfying."
I could picture the faces of people who were used to a cool, competent employee suddenly watching her openly explode with anger.
An hour or two after the meeting, someone from HR had called her in and, along with some clearly scripted words of comfort, handed her gift cards.
"You know the ones they sometimes hand out to outstanding employees or business partners as a token gesture? I never expected a real response, but… they gave me three hundred-dollar cards, so I told them it was insulting and made them hand over two more."
Rachel snorted even as she spoke, still looking like she couldn't believe it.
Still, it couldn't have been easy to do that to people higher-ranked and older than her. Maybe it was because she was confident in her own ability. Or maybe she simply had nothing left to fear since she was about to quit. Or maybe she thought that kind of injustice shouldn't exist for the sake of the child she was about to have…
I might have been reading too much into it for a second, but either way Cassandra and I just stared, a little dazed, at Rachel sitting there like a victorious general.
Only Greg nodded vigorously, looking ready to applaud, and praised her.
"You did great, honey. I've been on the receiving end for years, so I know—when you scold someone or call them out, you're actually terrifying."
That's bragging, you idiot…
Rachel only nodded, looking faintly proud. Looking at them now, these two were clearly a match made in heaven.
I traded a secret glance with Cassandra behind the backs of the lovey-dovey soon-to-be parents when Luca called for me from the playroom.
"Appa! Pappa!"
"Yeah, Daddy's coming."
Every so often, if he couldn't see me through the doorway, Luca would call for me like this. In the past he would keep calling and get restless, but now as long as I answered right away he waited quietly.
I cracked the door open and stuck my head in. Usually once he confirmed I was there he went back to what he was doing, but this time he stretched both arms out to be held, so I figured I needed to pick him up for a bit.
I carried Luca out with Reni when I noticed Rachel sitting with both hands on her belly.
My heart dropped for a second. I thought something serious had happened—until I saw Greg standing beside her looking overwhelmed with emotion and immediately relaxed.
Cassandra said with a small smile,
"The baby moved."
At that, Reni bounced in place and asked,
"Wow, the baby moved?"
"Yeah. The baby in Auntie's tummy kicked her nice and hard. It's never kicked this strongly before…"
Cassandra patted Rachel's shoulder.
"At seven months you usually feel it a lot more."
Greg carefully lifted his hand and laid it on Rachel's belly.
"It's still moving. Just a little."
"Mm."
Reni, who had been staring intently, carefully approached Rachel and asked,
"Can I touch too?"
Ah…
The atmosphere was warm, but I suddenly got scared that it might bring up old memories for Reni. That he might remember the happy moments of a family that had once been whole and feel sad.
But my worry turned out to be unnecessary. The moment Rachel gave permission, Reni gently placed his hand on her belly and pressed his ear against it.
Just like he must have done with his own mother once upon a time.
Reni smiled softly and closed his eyes.
Then he whispered gently,
"A beautiful baby is going to come."
"Ah…"
At the child's sudden words, Rachel seemed to choke up and couldn't answer right away.
With his small fingers, Reni gave her belly the tenderest little pats, as if greeting the baby inside.
"Baby, when we meet later, let's play together."
"……."
The child wasn't trapped by an irreversible past. He held those memories dear while blessing the mother and child right in front of him.
Rachel and I were both still collecting ourselves when Greg ruffled Reni's hair and said,
"I think our Reni is going to be a great dad when he grows up and gets married."
"That's right!"
"Haha."
Reni's immediate agreement made everyone burst into laughter. Then he added an explanation.
"Angela said that today too."
Huh?
"Who's Angela?"
"A friend I met at kindergarten today! She asked me to marry her when we grow up."
I couldn't believe it.
I was so flustered I couldn't say a word, but apparently I was the only one—everyone else laughed like it was the most delightful thing in the world.
"Aigoo, how cute."
"But Reni. Isn't it a little early to promise marriage when you only met her today?"
"Is it~?"
When I asked, Reni tilted his head with a smile. He looked so adorable that I laughed along with the other adults—until his next words stopped me cold.
"But I already promised to marry three people today!"
"Th-three?"
"Yep! Angela, and Serena, and Chloe too."
Reni folded his fingers one by one as he listed them.
Well… our son is popular, huh…
Cassandra and Rachel laughed even harder, while Greg—soon to be the father of a daughter—folded his arms and said to me,
"Hey. You need to work a little harder on raising that kid."
Well, how about that.