Kenni had to pry him out of my arms so we could swap over, eventually we held them both out checking them for physical injury and they both seemed to be ok, me and Kenni shared a look between us, a look of understanding.
The boys noticed everyone behind them and made a run for their grandparents, all four of them. Both my mum and Kenni’s mum were crying and were being consoled by the respective husbands. Eventually they got passed to their aunts and uncles before coming back to us.
Even Betsy seemed to be happy to have her brother’s home as she smiled widely, her brothers were also happy to see her as they cuddled her saying that they had missed her I said I would remind them of that later on in life, they didn’t really understand what I meant.
After all of the officers had left and everyone had settled both the boys were yawning repeatedly, they had been force fed food by Kenni’s mum since they’d been back. I didn’t want them out of my sight but I knew they were tired and needed to go to bed, I made them say goodnight to everyone before taking them up for a bath.
I once again checked them for physical injury when they were in the bath but couldn’t see anything, when I dressed them in their nightclothes I put them in our bed to sleep, Kenni walked in and gave me an understanding look, they would be sleeping with us tonight.
They dropped of fairly quickly and we just laid there with them. Eventually we got up and went back downstairs with everyone else taking the monitors with us, my mum had got Betsy ready for bed and she was already sleeping.
We spent about an hour with everyone before we went to bed, I gave Betsy another feed as she was disturbing, eventually exhaustion crept in and we all fell to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Things returned to normal the next day, with the exception of my family being there everything else was the same, they had decided to stay for a week. I had decided it would be a long time if ever before I felt comfortable leaving the kids at nursery.
Shelley had been really upset by the whole thing and I didn’t hold any animosity towards her, Jessica had kept her kids away as well, I didn’t ask her too but I understood why she did.
Two days after the boys returned Matt Kennedy was sat in our kitchen begging us not to press charges against his sister, he said she had a mental illness and needed psychiatric help rather than jail. I got where he was coming from but the wronged mother in me wanted vengeance and I couldn’t agree to it.
I knew Kenni was torn but he eventually backed me up telling him we couldn’t agree to that, Matt understood and told Kenni he was sorry about his sister and hoped they could remain friends,
Kenni was honest with him and told him that he doubted that would be possible, I felt bad about that but I didn’t want any part of that family in my life.
I busied myself with my family as they were only here for a few day, we didn’t leave the ranch much because there was still a bit of media hanging around. Kenni seemed to hit it off with my dad and brother and had fun showing them around the ranch. My brother seemed a little taken with Coral when she came around to visit.
Ruby, Jed, Coral, Caleb and Annabelle arranged to have a night out in town before leaving, I declined because I wasn’t ready to leave the kids alone and I was pregnant but I encouraged Kenni to go, he was unsure and eventually declined as well.
My parents and Kenni’s parents became firm friends and even planned a holiday away together strangely.
When the others returned from there night out I’m pretty sure some things went down, Jed and Ruby seemed strained and Caleb looked at Coral like the sun shone out of her arse, Coral seemed unaffected.
Eventually the time came to say goodbye to my family and we all drove together to the airport to say goodbye, which was a nightmare as we were recognised from the news and people started to surround us denying me the opportunity of a proper goodbye.
My family understood and just waved at me as I rushed to get the kids out of the airport and into the car.
After a couple of weeks had passed I was struggling to come to terms with Kenni’s part in the whole thing, he brought that woman into our home and essentially put our children at risk, even though I was able to see he honestly didn’t believe her to be a risk I couldn’t move past the fact that the whole thing could have been prevented.
I think he knew something wasn’t right because he started avoiding me, he busied himself with the ranch and I ploughed my time into being with the kids. I had relented on them sleeping with us after a few days and they were now back in their own beds.
We hadn’t been intimate since before they were taken and neither one of us wanted to make the first move. He started to go to bed after me and I was usually asleep when he came in. We were both ignoring the issues between us and his family picked up on it fairly quickly.
I had my first scan coming up and admittedly I was very tempted to go on my own but I couldn’t deny Kenni the opportunity of going as he’d missed out on all of that with the other three, when I asked him he asked what time the appointment was and said he’d meet me there.
He sounded angry with me and I didn’t understand where that anger as coming from, I’m pretty sure we were on course for an almighty argument though and I was bracing myself for it.
He met me at the hospital as he said he would and we went in for a scan, he seemed mesmerized by the screen and his child that was inside me.
I was estimated to be 8 weeks pregnant, which meant that he had indeed knocked me up that first time. He smiled at that. We had a couple of pictures printed out and we left together, we parted ways at the exit and I knew we had problems when he didn’t even kiss me goodbye.
I was unsure how to proceed for the best, my instinct was telling me to get the kids and get on a plane and go back to my parents but that isn’t facing up to my responsibilities, that would be taking the easy way out, if we were going to move forward we both had to work through our issues and we both had to fight for our marriage and fight for our family.
I asked Annett if she would watch the children on Saturday night so I could go on a date with Kenni, I think she felt honoured, this would be the first time I had left them, she assured me everything would be ok and she thought it was a good idea for us to go out together.
When I mentioned this to Kenni he told me he already had plans on Saturday night so I told him we could make it Friday night instead and he told me he had plans that night as well, I just told him to keep on pushing me and he’d see what happened, he asked me what I meant by that and I told him if he kept on pushing he would soon find out.
Once again we were at deadlock, he wasn’t speaking to me and I didn’t know what I had done. When I woke up every night for a whole week to him being absent I decided he had pushed me enough. I arranged a house to rent in town until things between us settled down or for me to live permanently if needed.
He walked in the bedroom as I was packing a suitcase.
“Where are you going?” I continued packing.
“I told you if you carried on pushing me you’d see what happened, this is what happens.”
“Once again, you’re walking out on me. I’m not even surprised anymore.” It was like a punch to the gut. He’s just sitting there, in my nursing chair, watching my every move.
“You haven’t given me a choice Kenni, I wanted to talk about our problems but you continue to push me away.” He sits there saying nothing, just watching my every move. I make a start on Betsy’s clothes and this gets his attention.