Chapter 14

Jami unlocked the front door of her house with a sigh. It felt good to be in familiar surroundings. Traci and Jami both dropped their luggage in the front hallway and slowly walked through the house. "This place definately needs a good cleaning." Jami stated. "Yep, and that's one of my specialities, so your lucky." Traci grinned. "The first thing we are going to need is groceries. And since I'm the nice sister that I am, I'll let you go to the grocery store. then if you want you can go to the video store and pick something up. Or you can look through our collection and that's what we can do later tonight, just like when we were younger." Jami told her, handing her some cash.

"cool. I'll be back in a bit, anything you especially want?" Traci asked. "Uh...coke and M&M's...then whatever you want for snack foods...and something we can fix for dinner and in the morning for breakfast. we'll get whatever else we need tomorrow when we get some cleaning supplies and stuff." Jami told her.

As soon as Traci left the house, Jami slowly climbed the stairs. She stood outside of the nursery for a few moments before opening the door and going inside. Jami slowly ran her hands along the cartoon border. her fingers trailed across a precious moments lamp that was sitting on the baby dresser. She crossed the room and stared down into the beautiful, dark, wood crib.

Jami reached down and gently pulled out a small white baby blanket with little yellow ducks on it. This had been her baby blanket, and her sister's and her brother's. Jami also had a baby quilt her grandma had passed down to her on the day she was born. Also in the crib was a tiny teddy bear that Jeff had had since he was born. Somewhere in the baby's closet were other stuffed animals both Jami and Jeff had treasured when they were young, plus a few clothes, blankets and toys.

Jami picked up another teddy bear in the crib. This one easily fit into the palm of her hand, and had pieces of his fur rubbed off in some spots. This had been her's. her favorite toy. Her mom had bought it on the day she learned she was pregnant with Jami, and when she was a toddler, it never left her side.

Jami cuddled the tiny bear against her chest. She continued to walk around the room, carrying the bear with her. She opened the dresser drawers and pulled out a small blue sleeper. Jami held it against her, fighting to keep her emotions in check. She knew that tomorrow would be the hard day. That's when Traci and herself would go through all the stuff in this room and pack it up. Maybe they could even get the wallpaper border off and repaint the room. Jami didn't want any reminders about how happy she would have been. How excited she'd been when they were decorating this room.

Jami knew Traci would be back any minute, so she put the clothes back into the dresser. Then she crossed back over to the crib and picked up her old baby blanket. Then she crossed to a smaller table. Inside was a pacifier that said, 'our first son' on it. They'd bought two of them, one for a boy and one for a girl, so that they'd have whichever one they needed. Then she picked up a small baby blue bible. It was a baby's first bible, where you can record certain highlights in the baby's life.

Then, armed with the bear, blanket, bible and pacifier, she left the room to return to her's. There she had a small silver gift box and she put all the items in there. Then she placed the box in the bottom drawer of her dresser, burried under some old sweaters.

She heard Traci's car pull into the driveway, so Jami went downstairs to meet her. Traci came in loaded with bags. As they took everything to the kitchen Traci rattled off all the stuff she had gotten. "Well, I bought you a six-bottle pack of Coke and a fourteen ounce bag of M&M's that you get to share with me. Then I bought a six-bottle pack of cherry pepsi for me, plus a package of starburst for us to share. Then I got some milk and Lucky Charms cereal, 'cause I know that is one of your favorites, plus I bought our favorite frozen pizza. And I bought that movie theater butter popcorn stuff-'cause I know we both love that! They guy at the checkout line told me I should get ice cream to go with all that junk! Yuck! I told him that neither of us likes Ice Cream. Then I went and got the movies, "save the last dance" 'cause that's my favorite movie and then I got "my best friend's wedding" for you 'cause I know you love that one. I tried to get Grease but they were all out of that one." Finally she stopped talking long enough to take a breath.

"Sounds like you thought of everything Tweedle. Good Job." Jami smiled before continuing, "Well, it's already eight...so why don't I throw the pizza in the over and you can stick our pop in the freezer so they will get cold faster and stick the rest of them in the fridge along with the milk. Then we'll go make the living all comfy for our girls night, okay?" Jami said. Both girls set to work.

They threw two huge comforters down on the floor in front of the couch. They grabbed every pillow in the house and threw those down too. Then they grabbed two quilts to use as covers. Then they both changed into P.J's. Matching ones, nearly. Both had tank tops and flannel pants on with their hair pulled back into messy ponytails. Then Jami put out some candles all through the room. After they were lit and the pizza and pop were on the floor with them, they put the "Save the last dance" video in and turned the lights off.

Jami layed back on some of the pillows, munching on pizza, drinking coke and enjoying the movie and flickering candles. She was actually enjoying herself, for real this time, no fronting. For the first time in days she smiled an actual smile, which Traci saw out of the corner of her eye.

When the movie ended Traci immediently popped in "My Best Friends wedding". Traci stood up and collected their empty bottles and plates. "I'll be back with more pop, plus our candy." she grinned before bouncing out of the room. A moment later Jami heard the kitchen phone ring and Traci yelled that she would get it.

"Jeff, she's doing okay. Yeah, right now we are watching movies. We just finished a pizza and are now moving on to the harder stuff....yep, M&M's and coke. yeah, that's the hard stuff.....But I did catch her giving a real smile tonight-during the movie. She looked so relaxed. We are just going to clean tomorrow, and if we get that all done, we'll fly out to Iowa the next day......okay, I wont' tell her it's you who called so she doesn't feel smothered. Yep, bye Jeffers." Traci said, hanging up the phone.

Then she returned to the room with popcorn, M&M's, Starburst, a coke and a cherry pepsi. "who was on the phone?" Jami asked, not taking her eyes off the movie. "Oh, Kyle. Just making sure I got here okay." Traci lied. She hated lying to her sister, but she had told Jeff she would.

Traci sighed to herself. She hoped Jeff was prepared to deal with Jami. She'd been through more with Jami then anyone else, and she knew her usual pattern. Right now she was going to be stubborn and insist she hides her feelings from everyone. Then one day she would just lose it. Traci only hoped that she wouldn't lose it all.

Chapter 15