• It was a pretty normal day, I had been at school as usual, duh, but when I came home there were police cars and an ambulance. I stare at my house in shock as a covered body on a stretcher was being taken out of my house. My father was being consoled by my aunt and the woman from next door was hugging my brothers.
    I didn’t understand what was going on, I mean my nana wasn’t home so what the hell could have happened? I run up to my Dad and Aunt
    “What’s going on?”
    “Your mom-” started my dad
    “She’s gone Amber!”
    My aunt burst out hugging me tightly sobbing. I stood there stunned,
    “W-what happened?”
    My dad shook his head sadly and my aunt burst out
    “She killed herself! She took every pill she could find and-”
    “That’s enough!”
    I was stunned, I won’t claim to have any deep rooted mother daughter relationship with my mother, in fact we fought tooth and nail, very literally too. When I was a tween I began to rebel and decided to pick a fight with my mother, I had hit her and without any hesitation she wailed on me, she smacked me right in the cheek with a well aimed metal spatchula. When I threatened to call the cops she sneered at me and dialled them for me. I backed down and we’d only had screaming matches since, which I would win almost as often as she would.
    The next little while was a blur, no fights, no spatchulas, just taking care of my little brothers and talking with my dad a lot.
    My Dad had been fighting as hard as he could, and considering our family that was hard, to not have mom autopsied. He said it was useless to mar her body when we all knew what she died from, she over dosed and bled out from her wrists. If our mother taught us anything she taught us that any animals body was a sacred thing that should never be disturbed. One should merely die peacefully, be cremated and replenish the earth with their ashes.
    The autopsy people accused my father of foul play and since then he stopped fighting, a man came to our house to be with him, I had never seen this man in my life but apparently he had been a huge part of our life, or our parents life. I had also never seen my father so listless.
    I sit in the living room holding my four year old brother who was sleeping, the man came in
    “Hello dear, I’m very sorry about your mother, she was one of my best students.”
    I nod very uninterested in some old teacher, he looks down the hall and then to me
    “I’m Ian Miller, here,” he hands me a nice little business card “Call me if you need something or want to know anything, but right now I am needed elsewhere, I advise you talk to your dad, he needs you.”
    I nod and watch him leave, I look at his card and then shrug to myself and put it in my pocket. I then pick up Hades as quietly as possible, I make it to his room and tuck him in, I just barely remember to kiss his forehead before leaving the room. He snuggles up to his stuffy and begins a wonderful drooly sleep. I smile at my small accomplishment and then leave the room quietly. After getting the other boys to bed I go to my dads study.
    “Hey dad.”
    “Pippa did I ever tell you that you look just like Cat?”
    I nod, Cat was what he used to call my mother, don’t ask, I don’t know. I missed my mom but again, her and I were not alike, we couldn’t stand one another and avoided one another like the plague.
    “Yeah you have.”
    He was holding some old book, it looked really nice actually, it was leather bound and had an old world look to it, he had it open in his hand and looked at it.
    “You know you mother loved you a lot.”
    I sit down in one of the lazy boys
    “Yeah I do.”
    He shook his head.
    “I don’t think you do, when we met she didn’t want kids....


    I laugh and push Beau
    “Shut up you dork!
    “Oh come on, you’ve got to want them, c’mon their so cute!”
    “Ugh their worse than puppies! Kids don’t learn to poop in the proper place till their four! A puppy learns in four weeks!”
    “But babies live longer.”
    “And get pinworm.”
    “So do puppies!”
    “Kids put their hands down their pants and scratch their a** and then touch things when they have pinworms! Puppies whine and drag their butts on the ground!”
    Beau raises an eyebrow at me
    “Why don’t you want kids? Really Kitten, whats up?”
    She shakes her head.
    “Their gross, and smelly and use-”
    “Useless yeah I know but what about Shaun? What about Lauren? What about little Marky? You cant say you don’t love them! I’ve seen yo, you even slip the gaga voice some times!”
    “No I don’t! And their different, I didn’t have to haul their asses around for nine months plus!”
    “Oh pshaw.”
    “Ok fine want to know?”
    “Yes!”
    She looks at the ground and plays with the ringlet of dasies I made for her (fifth time’s the chram!)
    “I’m scared.”
    “Of what?”
    “Of everything! With me so much can go wrong, my allergies for one. My doctor says women who have it and get pregnant can have severe reactions because of all the changes going on, and lots of women get this allergy only when they are pregnant! It’s scary Beau, I’ve gone to emerge for it so many times, and I don’t even know what my body does on the inside!”
    “Okay I’ll give you that one that is scary but doctors are trained to handle any situation, and if it’s common it should go easily!”
    “Oh but then there’s the fact my body is so small, my doctor said to tell him right away if I got pregnant, he’s worried that a baby will break my ribs badly.”
    “Broken ribs happen all the time! Hell when my mom was pregnant with me I broke three of her ribs!”
    “Beau I cant afford to brake anything! Even with all I do my ankle still bothers me!”
    “Okay okay, beside those totally irrelevant factors what scares you”
    “What If I ruin my kids? what if I’m a terrible mom!?”
    “Oh are you kidding!? You would be an amazing mother! Kids adore you!”
    “I don’t want to ruin a little person Beau!”
    “Oh don’t worry it’ll be fine”

    Six weeks and Nine months later I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, I was covered in hives with two broken ribs and because of a ‘silly mess up’ my pelvis was broken by the doctors and with a little help from little Pippa broken a little more. They didn’t realise I was too small to do a natural delivery until it was too late, it was either brake my pelvis or Pippa died. I was furious, but I did it. Later I promptly sued the whole medical team in charge of me. But that didn’t help me with my Olympic problem.