Page 76 of Ashes of Us

After Emilia and Xavier left, Danica sat down to eat her sandwich as Alex cleaned up the remains of his lunch.

“So? What do you want to do?” he asked as he pulled out his phone and checked the time.

“Because there are four historic sites they're planning to visit over there, and two of them are old forts and fairly large, so they're going to be gone for a while.”

“I was thinking we could rent a couple of paddleboards or kayaks or a canoe and explore the branch,” Danica told him after she swallowed her bite of sandwich.

“I also noticed you could rent pots and buy lobster and crab at the store, and since it's doubtful they will be back before dinner, we could do a small shellfish boil for ourselves.”

Alex looked intrigued by her plan and nodded. “Sounds good to me. We're gonna need to rainproof everything before we go, though.” He looked up at the sky, which was more cloudy than blue sky at this point. “Cause it's definitely going to pour.”

“Okay,” Danica looked around, wondering what she needed to do. “How do we do that?”

“If you wouldn't mind checking the three tents and making sure nothing is touching the walls in any of them, I'll cover the bikes and make sure they're secure in case the wind comes up, then we'll have to move the picnic table and gazebo over by the campfire.” He walked over to his bike and opened one of the saddlebags, pulling out a cover for it.

Danica opened Emilia and Xavier's tent and took a quick look around.

Their air mattress was in the center, but the head of it was against the wall, and both their bags were against the walls on the sides, so Danica pulled the mattress down a little and piled their bags in the center of it.

After doing a double check that there was nothing leaning on the walls and backing out, she zipped up both the screen and the outer door tightly.

“Why can't things touch the walls?” She asked as she walked over to the storage tent. Alex had wedged his bike between two trees and was covering it with the canvas rain cover.

“They're waterproof, but you know how water will bead on some fabrics, but if you touch the other side, the water sort of pulls through and soaks it?” He walked over to Xavier's bike and started to move it as Danica nodded in understanding.

“Same thing, and once the water comes through, it will keep coming.”

After she checked the storage tent and moved everything toward the middle, she went into her and Alex's tent and realized that to pull their air mattresses from the walls, they would have to leave the curtains open while they slept.

Deciding it wasn't a big deal, because it wasn't like the curtains would actually stop one of them if they wanted to crawl into the other's bed, she tugged both mattresses and the pads out from the walls and made sure none of their things were touching in the central area.

After they moved the picnic table and gazebo, they made sure there was nothing left out in the campsite to make people come in and snoop.

They went to the paddleboard and boat rental place and ended up renting two kayaks for three hours after a brief debate between them and the paddleboards.

The Branch was an inlet of the ocean with small coves and islands in between Hermit Island and the mainland, with the village of Small Point on the mainland side, which appeared to be mostly summer homes and small inns.

Their time out on the water was peaceful.

Alex pointed out a family of foxes playing in the tall grass near the shore on one of the islands, so Danica stopped to take some pictures.

“Do you think Emilia and Xavier will work things out?” Alex paddled up next to her and reached out, pulling her kayak toward him. “We're gonna need to head back soon.”

“If they do, don't expect them back tonight.” Danica lowered her phone and shot him an annoyed look as he made her take a blurry picture. He raised his eyebrow, grinning as he pushed her kayak again, messing up another picture.

“Really? You think they're going to get a hotel room and leave us alone at the campsite?”

“Stop.” Danica groaned, using her paddles to stop drifting.

“Let me take a nice picture.” She managed to get a few shots and then put her phone back in the Ziploc baggie the worker at the rental place gave her in case she dropped it overboard.

“After the conversation I had with Emilia on the beach, if they manage to talk through things, they'll want some alone time.”

“Huh.” Alex was quiet and pensive as they turned and started to paddle back to the rental place. “Are they planning to have more kids? Because I feel like another kid would put them right back into the same place they are now.”

“No.” Danica chuckled and shook her head.

“Don't get me wrong, they don't regret having Gracie, but she wasn't planned.

Emilia was done having kids, and Xavier had a vasectomy, but they didn't wait until they were completely cleared before they engaged in some unprotected fun.

Xavier has since been cleared, so there won't be any more kids.

You have to understand, both Benny and Delilah were happy to go with anyone, to the point that both of them at different points wandered off with people they didn't know.

Luckily, Benny wandered off with me the first time I met him, and Delilah went off with one of Xavier's cousins who was travelling abroad for her first year, so they were brought back and not hurt, but both Em and Xavier were afraid they would happily wander off with the wrong person.

Gracie would lose her mind if anyone, but Emilia or Xavier picked her up.

It's only in the last year, year and a half that she would hold my hand or let me sit beside her, and I've been in her life from day one.”

Danica let her kayak drift to a stop, pointing to some deer eating the grass in the salt marsh. “And when I say day one, I mean I was in the room when she was born and cut the cord. She's named after me, and I'm her godmother.”

“You cut the cord?” Alex drifted in beside her, watching as she pulled out her phone. “Where was Xavier?”

“Sitting with his head between his knees doing breathing exercises,” Danica smirked as she remembered Xavier's response to seeing his daughter's head come out.

“Em said she had a really easy, fast birth with Benny, they just barely made it to the hospital, it was her first child, so she was terrified, and her mother didn't make it in time to help Xavier support her, so he was holding her hand and encouraging her.

When she had Delilah, it was completely different; she was in labour for like ten hours, and Delilah was a big, chubby baby, just under ten pounds at birth.

It was rough, she got stuck, and they had to cut Emilia to get her out.

Once again, Xavier had to support her and didn't really see what was going on below Em's waist. When she had Gracie, I was there and it went much better than Delilah's birth, but not as fast as Benny's, so Xavier decided her wanted to see her being born and when her head appeared, he went white and then dropped to the floor.”

Alex swallowed. “Yeah, to be fair, I think I would be in the same position.” He admitted sheepishly. “So, you just stepped in and cut the cord?”

“Xavier told me to, he just sort of waved at it and muttered he'd done it twice before.” Danica picked up her paddle and started forward again.

“Anyway, the point of all that is that for the first two years of Gracie's life, she was either in Emilia's or Xavier's arms. If she was awake and they put her down or passed her to someone else, she would scream-cry and fail around which is super dangerous for a baby.

The only saving grace they had was that if she was swaddled tightly, once she fell asleep, they could put her down, and she started sleeping through the night fairly early.

With three kids who all needed attention and affection, Emilia just didn't want to be touched at the end of the day, which led to her rejecting Xavier a lot.

Now that Gracie is older and doesn't want to constantly be held anymore, she wants things to go back to how they were before Gracie was born.”

“And that means they won't come back tonight?” Alex caught up to her, and they continued to make their way toward the rental place slowly.

“Oh yeah, they could barely keep their hands off one another before.” That was one thing she had to say about the Preston men, for the most part, they were all very touchy and affectionate.

“Huh.” Alex shrugged. “I hope it works out for them.” He tilted his head at her. “What about you?” Danica glanced at him questioningly, not sure what he was referring to.

“You said you and Jasper were trying for a baby, and you miscarried twice.” He elaborated. “How many kids did you want?”

“No more than two,” Danica responded firmly. She had always known she didn't want more than that. Two was manageable, three or more was definitely more than she could handle. “And I'd still like to have at least one someday.”

“Really?” He looked surprised as Danica nodded, confused about why he was so taken aback by that. “Because you said at IHOP if you couldn't have kids with Jasper, then you didn't want to.”

“Ohhh.” Danica let out a laugh as she understood why he thought she didn't want kids anymore.

“No, I meant that I wouldn't use Jasper's sperm to get pregnant since he's not here to be the dad.

If I get into a serious relationship with marriage being discussed again and he wants to have kids, I'd be happy to have one or two.”

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