Leslie

This is a chapter out of my book Jamie's Bride.

Leslie sighed, as she snuggled into Jamie’s arms. He reached up and brushed her curls from her eyes and kissed her tenderly. “I love you Leslie Ann Jamison!” he murmured into her neck pulling her closer to him as if he couldn’t get her close enough.
Leslie stirred, and slowly the dream faded away, and reality intruded on her consciousness once more. She was alone. She stretched slowly trying to ease her aching muscles, her hand unconsciously rubbing her expanding stomach. They were at it again, the little ones inside her were tumbling and playing together. Once again she wished that Jamie were there to share it with her and tears rolled down her cheeks as she remembered the accident that had claimed Jamie’s life. She shook her head, she couldn’t let herself think of her loss, she would never quit crying if she did that. “Think of the good times” she reminded herself sternly. Fortunately for her, one, or both, of the twins chose that moment to kick her bladder. She quickly sat up, well as quickly as she could for being eight and a half months pregnant, and waddled to the bathroom thinking “Maybe it’s a good thing Jamie can’t see me now. I feel like a huge whale! He’d probably say I was fat or something and then we’d have a huge fight!”
Leslie turned on the radio more to drowned out her own thoughts than anything, even thoughts of having a fight with her husband threatened to drowned her in sadness. If it hadn’t been for the babies she probably would have let herself drowned in her grief, but as it was she forced herself to go through her daily routine. A shower, some breakfast, usually orange juice and some scrambled eggs, then off to her job at the embassy, where she worked as a secretary.
She turned on the small fan sitting on her kitchen table, it was only 6:30 and yet the apartment was already as hot as a sauna, Barcelona in June was very hot, and it felt ten times hotter to Leslie in her advanced stage of pregnancy, once again she wished that she could afford an apartment with an air conditioner. But with the doctor bills and all the baby things she had to buy, and saving up for maternity leave she just couldn’t do it, maybe after the babies were born. She glanced at the clock and saw she must hurry if she was going to catch the tram that would take her to the American Embassy, she needed to be there early today, because she had a doctor’s appointment this afternoon and would have to leave the office a little early. Major Applegate was very understanding about her situation, she didn’t know of anyone else who would have hired her, without experience and 4 ½ months pregnant, with twins, but he did and she did not want to take advantage of his kindness. She worked harder than any other secretary in the Embassy trying to prove that she was worth the risk he had taken in hiring her. The Major and his wife were very kind people and looked after Leslie as if she were their own daughter, always trying to help wherever they could, but Leslie was fiercely independent and determined to make it on her own. No one at the Embassy knew much about Leslie’s past just that she was a widow of a soldier, there were many rumors as to how he died. Popular belief had it that he had been killed in the fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. Leslie didn’t dispute it, she was happy to let them believe what they wanted as long as they left her alone and didn’t dig to deep into her past.
Leslie’s walk to the trolley stop was pleasant she smiled and waved to the neighborhood grocer and baker, that was the great thing about living away from the American community, she was able to experience the culture first hand. Of course, last week when she ended up buying a bag of corn meal instead of the bag of tortilla chips she wanted it was less than amusing, but most of the time she enjoyed the experience.
The trolley stopped one block away from the Embassy so Leslie walked the rest of the way to the guard shack and handed the guard her passport who looked at it and said “Hello Analiese, how are you doing today?”