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It’s not that she thought her secret would never be brought out into the open. Helena wasn't that naive; she knew one day Eddie would find out. She was hoping it would be on her deathbed, surrounded by her loved one's.
Helena was still so young when she and Ramon got married. Even still when she got pregnant with their first child, Adriana. Ramon was on the road often and Helena felt more like a single parent six months out of the year. Adriana was barely out of diaper's when Helena found herself pregnant with their second child, Sophia. Her husband missed that birth too. Still, she did the best she could with what little help she had. Helena had everything well in hand, a good schedule for the girls and a house that felt like home. Till her third pregnancy. There were so many complications with Eddie.
For starter's she didn't even know she was pregnant. Not until she was about four months along. Ramon thought she had a touch of the Flu and took the girls to his mother's place for two weeks. It was the longest she'd ever been away from her babies.
One hospital visit later Helena wanted to scream she was pregnant again. Three kids under the age all six she could manage; their financials would take a small hit, but it wasn’t anything they couldn’t make do with. That was until her third scan showed it wouldn't be just three. It would be four. She fully considered getting Ramon's tubes tied for good.
Helena told no one.
When it came time for the twin’s birth she was once again by herself. It occurs to her that while watching her babies sleeping that she could give them up to someone who could give them a better life, the proper attention and care they deserved. Helena was so tired, and she knew Ramon wouldn't be home for at least another four months. Adriana was always trying to help but made plenty of mistakes while doing so. Sophia was so energetic and needed plenty of out-door activities to get her tired enough for her afternoon nap. Helena loved her girls, but they were a handful at the best of times. She could see herself burn out just thinking how the boys would add to that. So, she made a choice.
It’s on the third night that one of the boys starts to cry.
Eddie.
Helena makes the mistake of picking him up and trying to soothe him. He’s sniffling and his cries die down. Helena can’t take her eyes off the small bundle in her arms. It’s then she realizes that she doesn’t want to put him down. She can’t. What came next was a painful series of events that she wouldn’t speak of for another eight years. One even the doctors tried to talk her out of.
A few days later she is driving home with her baby boy in the car seat, heading home to El Paso, and the other baby boy is heading home with his adoptive family.
*
Helena thought she could put the other baby boy out of her mind once they got home, and she did. For a few months things were a bit rocky getting used to another baby in the house, Ramon was home for about two months before he was on the road again.
That is until she met Julia Asa and her daughter Claire. Helena had let Adriana and Sophia enter a few play groups with the neighborhood kids. Adri came home one day raving about her new best friend Claire, and begging to do sleepovers, something Helena didn’t think was proper just yet.
She met with Claire’s mother Julia who lived a few roads down. Helena was happy to meet another friend who understood what she was going through. A few get together and the girls were having sleepovers two weekends out of the month. If Sophia happened to tag along, better. Helena was happy to have some quiet in the house, and her girls were happy to have a new friend. Which gave her a break from her children and gave her plenty of time to tend to Eddie.
For a few weeks everything was fine, that is until Adriana comes home one day and tells her that Claire’s new baby brother looks a lot like Eddie. It gave Helena a momentary pause because there wasn’t any way that was possible. Her seven-year-old thought that all babies looked alike.
It was a month before Ramon was due to come home that Helena figured it out. The day that Julia brings Adriana and Sophia back from a playdate, along with her baby boy. The same one Helena gave up not three months before. The same baby boy she hadn’t seen since she walked away that night, leaving him crying with the nurses.
In hindsight she may have overreacted. Accusing the woman of trying to play mind games with her was definitely over the line. Screaming at her to stay away from her family. Looking back, she can see Adriana’s anger came from the fear of seeing her mother so hysterical. Sophia didn’t understand and resorted to tears. Helena was too scared. Paranoid that Ramon would find out what she did and would leave her and take the children with him. She forbade Adriana from going over to the Asa’s place, which resorted to another fight that ended in tears and her eldest daughter locking herself in her room.
Helena lets her eldest grieve in her own way, she holds it together until the day that Julia Asa moves out of state with her family. Her husband had gotten a promotion and they were Florida bound. Adriana was upset at losing her best friend, Sophia was upset because her older sister was being mean and sullen. Eddie is the only one who didn’t giving her any trouble that day.
*
Helena managed to put the girls down for their naps after a long morning of fights and snapping at one another. Eddie was asleep in her and Ramon’s bedroom. She sits in silence for a few moments not realizing that she’d been crying till she rubbed at her tired eyes.
Helena gets up from the bed, walks over to the closet and pulls down the baby box her mother had made for Eddie. She places the envelope that Julia left for her into the box, she hesitates before opening it up and out slides a few photos. She hadn’t realized that when Julia took Eddie a few times before she made the discovery that pictures had been taken. There they were. The boys laying side by side, they were identical.
For the first time in months Helena lets herself mourn the son she gave up. She shook with disbelief at how the lord could do this to her, before closing the baby box and putting it at the back of the closet. It would be another eight years before Ramon would even discover the box and the contents of it. How heartbroken and betrayed he would be with her. It would be Eddie’s reaction though that would break her when he would eventually put it all together.
*