---  2 Months Later ---

---  26th of June, 1962 ---

It has been 2 months since the both women were pressured and were down with nausea, exceeding mood swings, besides drastic changes in their weight as they were gradually, promptly gaining extra pounds due to their humongous, inhumane appetite which tormented their bodies. Despite their weary pregnancy, nonetheless, it didn't prevent them from having a great time and spending their leisure time by participating altogether in family activities as well. 

Even more the young singer's bruises were briskly recovering as no longer pink tints were sleeving her arms and legs. Her black eye and split lips weren't sorefully agonizing, besides despairing her appearance.

Furthermore, it has been a week since the former cop and Serena paid a visit to the Howards with his daughters during the weekend days. At last but not least, the security guard gave two compact, however, prominent presents for their unborn children such as a banana yellow knitted dress for Odette since he was completely sure she's expecting a daughter, whilst Jude received a navy blue T-shirt, in case, if she gives a birth to a baby son this time. 

--- Flashback ---

--- A week ago ---

--- 16th of June, 1962 ---

The weather in Vermont's countryside was embraced by the scintillating, early summer sun rays which dispersed as bullets through the big kitchen window, bathing the kitchen in a bright sunlight as if the sun and his children were the guests in the room. 

The former police officer and his daughters, Laura and Miriam have been at the Howards' mansion for an hour as the both young women were drinking coffee with their father and their hosts as well. 

They were seating altogether on the kitchen table as Odette was seating between her mother and father as she had a mere white mug of herbal black tea, whereas Jude and Timothy drank nothing at the moment. 

"We're so happy you're expecting yar little rays of sunshines within months!" The older man clarified by lightly, half-heartedly giggling as it tickled the corners of his mouth.

"We couldn't be more blissful for having them. They're our blessings as well!" The native Bostonian exclaimed by clearing her throat, whereas Odette sipped her hot herbal beverage by pursing absently her naturally rosy-coloured, plumpish lips.

"How long have you been?" Laura posed the question graciously by sipping her Turkish coffee which burned the corners of her oral caverns by licking greedily her lips after savoring its caffeine.

"Urm, 12 weeks so far!" The juvenile brunette stammered by replying instead her mother, whilst Miriam casted a leery piercing stare at the slightly younger lady by being beyond flabbergasted even envying her pregnancy, considering her privileges were tremendous especially for a young, fragile woman like her.

The both daughters of the former Irish policeman were a tad older with a handful of years Odette's senior as they were recently university students as Laura was a medical student unlike her sibling, Miriam who was currently studying psychology.

Laura is a young lady in the beginning of her 20s just like her sibling as she had slightly olive-tanned skin tone, mildly sharp facial features, thin lips highlighting upon her olive-tanned complexion as her eyes were as big as full moon with cunning sapphire blue orbs. Moreover she possessed well-defined, small dimples. Her halo ringlet of old Hollywood dirty blond curls descended her shoulders by framing ideally her youthful, soft as baby skin face.  Additionally, Laura usually wore dark garments such as deep hues of lavender and iris, besides her body structure was slender and her height was approximately 5'5 only. The young blonde was dating a boy for a year as they were planning to shape their own family and they were soon plotting having a child in a matter of months or due to a year.

Whilst her slightly older sister Miriam was another young woman with fair skin color, chestnut angled bob haircut, azure blue eyes, filled with searing zealotry of having a romantic partner and bearing his child though she has never been lucky with representatives of the opposite sex by having a stable, harmonic relationship as they always ended with her fanatical possessive nature which was the core of the split up. The brunette has been twice in romantic relationship as they finished months later after galore dates, romantic and luscious kisses, adorable and heartwarming snuggles which were predominant in their brisk relationships. But also Miriam stood 5'4 and her body structure was perfectly normal. She always dressed up herself in brighter, lighter clothes such as peach pink and pale amber. She eerily bear a semblance of her father by inheriting the majority of the facial features which he possessed, although Frank wasnt't as zealous as his creation, made of flesh and blood. 

"That's wonderful! They're going to be as beautiful as their parents for sure." Laura emphasized the adjective beautiful by sipping her afternoon coffee by tucking some hair behind her elvish ear as a kindhearted, radiant smile honed up in the corner of her lips. 

"I can't agree more! If they're girls, otherwise they're going to be as beautiful as their mothers." The younger man said in velvety voice by patting lightly, kindly his wife's shoulder as Jude and Odette nodded their heads in humble manner, affirming his words. "On the contrary, if they're boys, then guess what!"

"I know already, Tim! And I've got presents for the ladies." Frank took off from his shirt's pockets folded baby garments by handing to the native Bostonian and her daughter as he wore a sheepish, boyish smile across his lips, awaiting for their reaction whether if they're going to be happy and beyond astounded by the presents which they receive or on other hand disappointed. 

"Frank, that's very kind of ya, but," As the former nun spoke, whilst the former patient responded with a sympathetic, grateful smile, flashing upon her young-looking face, Frank cut her off in her mid-sentence as her utterance abided unfinished. In the interim, Odette and Judy were surveying the baby clothes which gave them as gifts since they were pregnant. Their dark orbs were transfixed on the wee baby attires such as banana yellow knotted dress and navy blue T-shirt as their long, slim fingers caressed its fabric as they motionlessly laid on their laps like fallen leaf. 

"There aren't any buts. Stop being so modest, Judy! We've been friends for a long time." Mild exasperation was vomited in the slightly older man's voice as if snakes were snaking on his tongue, viciously envenoming it. Jude prefered to not quarreling blandly and neglect immediately her long time friend's gift by offending him.

"I-It's beautiful for my baby girl if I have it eventually." Odette heaved a sharp exhale as she was in awe by falling quickly in love with the celestial concept of having an unborn child and receiving important and beneficial items as soon as it emerges in this coarse, cold world. The other adults turned to Odette by fixing their eyes on her as Miriam was the sole adult, who glared at her, scowling by pondering deeply in her stormy blizzard of thoughts which assaulted her cells how is possible a young lady before her 20s birthday is carrying a baby and her parents are alright with that. Moreover, Miriam was on the opinion it's abomination even abominable having a baby before the age of 20 by considering the young girls and ladies as immature, immensely irresponsible and most of all bluntly selfish and careless for looking after one more soul especially made of their flesh and blood. 

"Miraculously, if it's a boy, it's going to wear it with a radiant smile on his shining face." Suddenly she grasped the T-shirt as her slim, nifty as engines fingers held by the both sides of the T-shirt by showing it to her daughter and husband, ushering them to express their opinions. "Hey, sweethearts! What do ya think about T-shirt?"

"Oh mom! It's adorable. Just imagine my little brother wearing it with a constant smile on his face as if he's wearing the prettiest garment he has ever worn in his life. Even running around the house with this T-shirt!"

"It looks wonderful, rare bird! It looks like Frank has a good fashion taste." The former Monsignor couldn't repress jeer to raise the spirits around his friends and family as everybody else couldn't suppress giggles, pocking the corners of their mouths as the decibels of their laughters increased as Miriam faked her titter by constricting her eyelids as if they alook like slits.

"Not gonna lie, Tim, I'm not having a good fashion taste since I should always be dressed in a special work uniform as a security guard of bank. I rarely wear something different than...ya know!"

"Don't talk like that! The baby clothes which you've chosen are wonderful choice for these beautiful creatures." The English emigrant inhaled softly as they sniffled the piece of garments for the future family members by burying their noses past the fabrics. Perhaps they smelled of baby and cream. Meanwhile Jude lightly rubbed her bump as she and Odette were a tad bigger, compared to the past weeks and months as the significant weight gain process were advancing with the days and weeks as if they turned in days and hours even less. 

"Hey Odette! What are yar thoughts on the banana yellow dress?"

"It's genuinely beautiful. I'm in love with it. Awww!" In the interval, the juvenile brunette's sparking hazelish-brown eyes met the security guard's sapphire blue eyes, locking up his stare as she was on cloud nine of the present he gave her, taunting her gleeful cells dancing in her mind and body. "I can already imagine my daughter wearing this and when she meets other children by hanging out with them." The former members of the church looked at their daughter in awe as serene, curled grins crawled on their yet youthful, ageless complexions. 

--- *** ---

 --- End of Flashback ---

Whilst Jude was making dinner such as roasted chicken with stew onions and carrots in oven by wearing a mere, clean white apron, Odette was in the bathroom upstairs as she has shut the bathroom door by scrutinizing her pale as ghost face on the medium sized mirror which hung over the marble sink by glimpsing below past Timothy's razor which he uses to shave his stubble and beard, heaving a jaded sigh. 

In this moment, Timothy was watering the flowers outside in the yard.

Meanwhile the young lady was feeling hopeless and she has already dreaded living her life even having the baby. Swarm of questions flooded her mind as its stray answers were outnumbered as they were less than the questions. For example why she wasn't in the common room instead of catnapping in her ward then? Why she let the predator have utter control over her body and physical stamina by trapping her without an escape except the temptation, sinful rape consume her being as its silhouette was reflected on the barriers of the heart? What if she wasn't pregnant now? 

The young singer was feeling the shame and humongous guilt draining her mental stamina, incapable of resting for a single second by pulverizing her to edges, causing inner paroxysm and inner voices especially whispers electroshocking her frail skeleton, chiming her to do radical things which she would never do for her and unborn child's sake. 

"Slut! Be ashamed for letting the temptation consume your being!" First inner voice called in her mind by causing her to hold her head as her fingers kneaded lightly her temples by lowering her head against the sink's faucets. 

"What a pathetic whore! Aren't you a town pump for letting yourself be fucked by other men especially predators?" A second echo harmonized through the waves of its stormy sea of her mind by being down with bewilderment and vague headache. 

"S-Stop it! I told ya to stop this!" The brunette bewailed as she felt her knees' bones lacking of physical stability by feeling them weak as they enveloped the roundess which cusped her calves and thighs, being on her knees. 

"What about the predator when he beat you? Why didn't you fight him back? Why you are so weak and pathetic twat?"

"Full of shit!" The young woman's tears sprung up in her eyelids as its bitter swamp pooled them, freely gushing down her creamy cheeks by kneeling on the tilted bathroom flooring as her louder bewails crashed into the pale blue tilted walls. "Ya aren't even real." 

"They aren't real, Odette! They're just the inner voice which test your patience, dear!" All of a sudden, a feminine whisper mumbled behind her as if it was dying in the thin air by feeling on the top of her shoulder an amusingly warm hand pawing her shoulder's flesh, kneading lightly the lesen fabric of her stone blue sundress.

"D-Daphne, is that ya? What are ya doing here?" The brunette inquired by timidly turning to the black-haired girl as their eyes met, locking up her gaze as she was in awe to encounter the spectral of the barbarously murdered young woman, who was thrown away in the Florida orphanage's basement, recalling her young childhood's memories which resurfaced as icebergs in the ocean. 

"I'm here for my friend, dear. Please, don't cry! I hate it when ya are crying and crying even bawling your eyes off a good cry." The ghost of the orphan crouched down by grabbing Odette's chin by tilting her head to meet her gaze without averting it away. "I bet you remember me."

"I do, of course!" In the meanwhile, Shachath, the angel of death, emerged from nowhere as her black classy stilettos clicked against the tiled flooring as Daphne was alleviating the young lady by bracing her in a tight, warm hug with her bony arms. 

The angel of death's grand black feather wings flapped as soon as she was toddling up to the both young women as her gloved hand fondled Odette's waterfall of chestnut silken tresses in delicate, ginger way, without pressuring her. Earned her self-conscious stare which she has ever seen in a vulnerable, pregnant young woman, who struggled to embrace with open arms the vicious consequences of an ordinary pregnancy and who longed for a death. Muffled, enervated sobs shook her head as a tad earthquake. 

"Why didn't I die when this fucking rape took its place in my ward?"

"Shu, shu, shu, Odette! You deserve to be at peace with yourself for a while." Shachath inwardly, half-heartedly chuckled by fixing her ocean blue eyes on the brunette's honey brown irises, offering her a composed, affectionate smile, gleaming upon her porcelain, pale as snow complexion with her bloody red lips which were more than determined to kiss her impending victim, who either hankered for death or he could no longer bear the pain. "Why do you want to die? Spill the tea!"

"Ya don't have any clue what I've been through for these years. And now the fucking rape, and that pregnancy at such young age. Why now until I find the perfect man who loves me and sees the worth in me? I'm nothing than a flexible whore, letting this predator to finish me as if I'm a rag doll. I wish I could be physically strong to teach him a lesson instead of allowing my goose being cooked by a murderously dangerous lunatic with rich criminal history."

"And that's why you think you're not worth to live anymore, right?"

"Mhm! I just see the pressure is coming a bit too much for me."

"Odette, your time hasn't come yet to say farewell to this world! First and foremost, your parents and friends love you, no matter what have you done in your life. Second, even if the father is different of this child, do not lose this child by aborting or killing it in different way or your fertility will be gone forever, and you will deeply regret for this stupidity." The fallen angel commenced reciting her monologue calmly by cupping girl's cheeks in the palms of her gloved hands, whereas the other hand of Daphne lowered to Odette's bump, rubbing it through its lesen fabric of her sundress. Suddenly her sobs subdued in the hollow. "Third, one day you will fall in love and I'm completely sure who's already in love with you. He would never consider you a whore even if he bears your unborn child. He will love it for who's it, of course!"

"So that means I'm not ready yet to die?" Her ruddy, puffy eyes incessantly blinked the tears which itched her brittle eyelids. Whisper lingered on her wet tongue.

"Exactly! You're still young. If I take your life now, that means the fresh life which grows inside you dies either. Or rather, you both die altogether!" In the meantime, the angel exhaled abruptly as her gloved fingers gently, tenderly traced her well-defined cheekbones as if her caress resembled a mother stroking her newborn's head, admiring its facial features. "There's a big difference between a slut and a victim of rape. You're lastly a victim of rape which is obnoxiously apparent. While the slut is...you know what kind of a female!" 

"How I'll be able to carry this precious baby until I give a birth to it? How I'll survive this pregnancy? How about the child? What if I'm victim of miscarriage?" A couple of questions zinged momentarily her soaked in saliva rosy-coloured lips by wiping the last, drying tears of her face.

"You can do it, Odette! You're a fighter and a strong, young woman, known as an excellent survivor. There's always possibility of having even your soulmate's child if the miscarriage befalls you which I least hope to occur. You deserve happiness and just remember you're a lost soul, seeking the love from the perfect man, aren't you?" A tad, modest nod, confirming the fallen angel's exclaimation. "We're all lost souls, yearning for love no matter how hurt we're apparently. I'm sure one person really likes you though his harmonic marriage with his wife but the aliens abducted her." Her honey brown pools widened at the thought of the falsely accused patient, whom she was deliriously close to during her grim days behind Briarcliff's walls. "It's Kit!" After her honeyed whisper, Daphne and Shachath vanished as if ashes were the last traces of their presence in the bathroom, leaving Odette all alone with her train of thoughts and prejudices as she got from the ground by cleaning herself.

--- *** ---

--- A Couple of Months Later ---

--- 26th of October, 1962 ---

The early autumn days in Vermont were as cold as rainy and cloudy daily especially in the countryside outskirts. 

Odette and Judy were getting bigger and bigger with each passing week as they turned a month in a jiffy. Furthermore, they spent more time at home with one another, whilst Timothy was taking care of them without causing further problems to the both women in their small family. 

The both ladies paid a visit to doctor almost every month, in case, if their unborn children were alright as it was high time to check its identity. Namely their gender and whether if they are twins or otherwise an only child. 

After the married couple and their daughter got up in the wee hours of the morning by having a casual breakfast, hence they dressed up in more formal garments by leaving their mansion as they had an appointment for doctor to perform an ultrasound by supervising its fetal development as they were in the third trimester of their pregnancies. 

A half an hour in anticipation in the hospital's hall until one of the doctors' office doors finally opened by accepting the small family in the office as they seated, consultating with the doctor by giving him better details about their pregnancies and their wish to be perfomed an ultrasound test and reveal their child's gender.

"So Mrs. Martin Howard and Miss Martin Howard, it will take a in a jiff to discover your future family members' genders as I'm not sure who's going to be the first one who will take it." The doctor, who accepted them in his office was approximately in his mid 50s, having bald, grayish hair which capped his partly bare head, as a result of the aging process, besides his face was slightly, obnoxiously inked in natural wrinkles, exposing his real age as well. His skin tone was as fair as vanilla and his piercing grass green eyes were as studious as his acuity, acquired with the ginormous experience which he accomplished through the years and swarm of patients passing through his office for diversity of reasons. Moreover, his height was around 6'1 and possessing floppy body structure for middle-aged man.

"I'd like to be the first one." Odette insisted pigheadedly by lisping softly her utterance as Doctor Samuels nodded his head when the both women got from their seats by heading towards the en-suite room. "Ah shit! Another baby kick!" The juvenile singer's hands drifted down to her huge bump by caressing it with her fingers as soon as she felt the baby kicking vigorously inside her belly as if it spoke anything to her, rolling her eyes by earning her parents and Dr.Samuels' enquiring and concerned looks they wore on their faces. 

"As you insist, Miss Martin Howard! Everything is going to be fine! All you need is not pressuring yourself with further stress and pointless concerns." The older man opted to persuade the brunette.

Thereafter the horde of adults got from the chairs by walking up to the other room which linked with the doctor's office as Odette laid on the patient bed by readjusting her lying pose, when Dr. Samuels gripped in his colossal, calloused hand the ultrasound, whilst his grass green orbs were darted to the monitor by supervising the ultrasound of Odette's baby. 

"Everything is going to be fine, baby girl! All ya need is to relax, okay?" In the interval, the singer nodded her head, clearing her throat without peeling a single word. Soothing smiles cradled the married couple's lips. "Just think about what a miracle is awaiting not only me, but also you. It's not only about us, my angel!"

"As I can tell, Miss, your child's gender is a girl." All of a sudden, content, hysterically mirthful smiles cracked upon their faces especially Odette as she has always wanted to have her own daughter as the idea of having a daughter is whether possessing her mother's radiant, beauteous smile or her hazelish-brown eyes, reckoning her strong, perservering character. 

"A girl? Oh my god, it's a miracle!"

"Congratulations, Miss Martin Howard! You're expecting a baby girl in a matter of almost 3 months only even less."

A handful minutes later after the ultrasound test was tested on the former asylum patient's belly as the results were monitored directly, thereafter it was high time the former sister of the church lay on the patient's bed where her love child used to lay as Doctor Samuels was observing the results of the ultrasound, besides dosens of violent kicks dumbfound the elder woman by causing her franticness, invading her as her hazel eyes widened right away as if somebody swiftly hurled a honed dagger into her ribs. 

"I-Is it a boy, Dr. Samuels?" The native Bostonian asked as she struggled to utter the syllables, speaking volumes about her overwhelmed condition by wondering if she's either expecting a baby girl or otherwise a baby boy. "O-Or a," The bald man cut her off in her mid-sentence as soon as the results were readily obvious in the corner of his eye.

"Twins, Mrs. Martin Howard!" Seconds before beginning with his monologue, the doctor sighed a sigh of relief from the top of his lungs as a beaming smile danced on his lips before announcing the wonderful news for the parents, who were awaiting more than one child. 

"Twins?" The 3 adults evoked plainly in unison as they were in awe, whereas Odette and Jude's mouths were as agape as their jawlines didn't contract enough to shadow the unconcealed incredulity, oozing of their painted faces of astonishment and their velvety, joyous voices as its felicity danced by following the ode of joy's rhythm. "Is that even a dream?"

"Fortunately, no, Mrs.Howard! I assure ya, they are twins as they're both boys."

To be continued...

Author's Note: Every feedback is appreciated. Additionally, what were your predictions of Jude and Odette's unborn children's genders? Whether if they're correct or not, don't be shy to express your opinion! 

More interesting chapters are coming soon as the first ones were slightly bland as retrospection to Odette's world. Thank you for the support! :))

Alex xoxo❤✝