Life Begins (10 page)

Chapter 10

              Žarko, now having the marriage license filed, decided that it was time to file the paperwork to become the legal father that both of her children needed. Then, because he had been honest with her, he paid off her lawyer fees from the divorce and immediately filed a lawsuit of his own to take care of making sure that Josie’s ex-husband paid them back.

              She hadn’t quite moved out of her apartment, but she didn’t feel comfortable making her husband pay for two places while they were searching for a house. She knew at the last meeting she had gone to that Elsa had been looking for a place and so worked out a sublease situation with her and the landlord, not that Mr. Jackass had wanted to be nice, but Žarko’s presence stopped him from making it too much of a problem.

              For the baby furniture they had in her apartment, she donated the beds, but kept the dressers because they would need them in the new house. She gave Elsa the living room furniture and her kitchen equipment so that she no longer had to worry about it. It had been hard explaining that she had married the man that no one in her group liked, but at the same time, it had taken a great weight off of her to know that she could help someone that was a single parent and had been a friend.

              Marisol, when she had found out about it, had had much to say about Josie being stupid to trust a man like Žarko. “He wants you barefoot and pregnant. A man like him is never going to allow you to get a job or do anything that will help you maintain a high level of independence. I’m telling you girl, something about him isn’t right.”

              Josie sighed as she continued putting up clothing in the dresser space he had given to her. “Marisol, you and I both know that I don’t have the job experience to advance anywhere worthwhile. Besides, I like being a housewife and don’t see it as being a downgrade or a dead end. I get to spend time with my children. I get plenty of time to make myself write, especially since his girls are older and have no problems watching the babies.” She stopped what she was doing to give the conversation her full attention. “He’s adopting my kids so that everybody has the same last name. Not many men would do that.”

              Sure, they hadn’t talked about whether or not they wanted more children, but she hadn’t tied her tubes, even though she’d thought about it after the divorce. In the end, she thought that it would have been selfish and probably would have limited the kind of man she might have been able to marry. Žarko treated her children so well that she had to wonder whether or not he actually wanted more, maybe a son that shared his DNA. She then groaned. How could she think about children when she already had an infant to worry about?

              “What does he do for a living since we’re singing his praising without consideration of the bad?”

              Josie nibbled on her thumbnail. That she didn’t know and felt a little stupid for it. In the meantime, “What are you trying to get at, Marisol? He’s not abusive and though I may not know exactly what he does at work, we both know that he works with Carl.”

              “How do you know that? You’ve known him for what, three weeks? Abusive assholes don’t show their asses immediately. They wait until they have you trapped and then they strike. Trust me, you have no idea what you are getting into with that man. You will regret the day you married him.”

              Josie took the phone away from her ear and perhaps her new husband had some sort of “Spidey sense” or something that let him know when someone talked about him, because he chose that exact moment to walk into the bedroom, watching her sit of the bed looking worried.

              “What is wrong?” he asked her.

              She put the phone on speaker. “You also don’t know anything about Žarko to make the sort of statements that you’ve been making about him. We all know that he can be difficult, but that’s more because he’s set in his ways, but that doesn’t make him abusive.” Could he be taking advantage of her situation, yes, she could probably concede that, but she also understood that because the feeling was mutual. They both knew that she used him just as much. “I will admit that it sounds insane to marry a man I basically just met, but I wouldn’t be the first woman to do it. I know how much of a risk I am taking, but I also know that he treats my children and me well. I was with an abusive man and he was selfish. Violence is not the only kind of abuse there is.” She honestly say that the emotional damage had a much deeper effect on her.

There was a long pause on the phone, then finally one last plead. “
Chica
, listen to me. If you marry this guy, you will regret it. Don’t let him take your independence away. You were doing so well in taking care of yourself and your children. Don’t let a man come in and ruin all that work that you did.”

              The plea was so heartfelt that for a moment, she found herself questioning if she were doing the right thing. But then, she looked at Žarko and she noticed no anger in his gaze. He didn’t even reach for the phone to try to defend himself. He just let her do her own thing, even leaving the room for her to finish the conversation. “I love you, Marisol, but I think that you need to respect my decision. Maybe this won’t work out, but then, maybe it will. In any case, it is my choice to make. I really would like for us to remain friends, but I really would appreciate it if you didn’t disrespect me. Please.”

              Marisol gave a deep sigh, but Josie wouldn’t let her frustrations get to her. “Fine. Call me later. I’ll be praying for you.” The other woman hung up.

              Josie tried to put it all out of mind as she concentrated on rearranging her life. Žarko returned to the room just as she finished. Naturally, he had Jane, or Juljiana as they were now calling her, tucked against his chest, facing outward so she could properly chew on her hands. “Somebody is awake from nap.”

              She glanced at her phone app. “And is probably getting hungry.” She made to grab for her daughter, kissing her adorable chubby cheeks and snuggling her against her breasts. “Come on baby girl, let’s get you fed. Where’s Jason?” she asked Žarko.

              “Taking his own nap,” was the answer. He sat beside her on the bed as she set about feeding her daughter. There was a peacefulness to their silence. Aside from the sounds of her daughter eating, she didn’t feel the need to converse. But, she wasn’t surprised when he brought up her phone conversation. “Your friend is upset.”

              She sighed. “She’s not pleased that we decided to marry.”

              “Because she is afraid of real man.”

              Josie had to laugh at that one. “No. She’s concerned because we don’t know one another and she’s afraid that you are going to take advantage of me.”

              “And maybe do violence to you?” he ran his fingers along the baby’s hair. It kind of bothered her that the baby actually came off the breast to look at him. She even smiled.

              “Even you admit that you are not a kind man and you made me change my daughter’s name to Juljiana Zaire rather than name her what I wanted.”

              He grunted; even as he leaned down to kiss her daughter’s forehead. “We should name son Josif as well. Start both children over.”

              She brought her baby’s attention back to the task at hand. “Uh huh and I bet you asked him and he’s all for it.”

              “Desa chose it.”

              Of course, Desa, the devious eight year old who could somehow always get her way just by smiling at them. Josie had no problems seeing the little girl suggesting that they change the names of both babies so that their new last names would fit them. At this point, Josie didn’t see a need to fight against it. If Jason wanted to be Josif, she would let that happen.

              “It’s your future child support payments,” She said, even while trying to hide her sigh at the fact that both of her children now had
Serbian
names suited for a
Serbian
household.

              He shrugged. “That is fine. You will change name and we will change babies’ names. I will tell my lawyer.” Who, she was pretty sure had already put together the paperwork and probably had it already submitted. She thought back to their original conversation and knew that she should probably be either perturbed or even upset, but she couldn’t be.

              She had a feeling that if she really did put up a fight at some point, and he couldn’t convince her to change her mind, he would not force her to go against her will. She at least hoped that he wouldn’t do something without her agreement. At least her children would still have names that started with a “J”, even though it would be pronounced like the letter “y.”

              “Do you think I should have told her that we signed a prenuptial agreement?” she finally asked him.

              He took the baby from her. “No, because contract says no divorce.”

              She watched him as he burped the baby, her cute brown skin a nice counterpoint to his naturally tanned one. “No. The agreement says that I can’t divorce you because you will tear up the paperwork if I tried. And, you actually said that you would kill any man that I might even try to cheat with.”

              “You must have missed part where I say I cannot leave you,” he said. They were interrupted by a large burp. He pulled her back and began to make silly faces at the baby, who smiled and wiggled at him, especially when he made chomping noises on her round cheeks.

              Josie did hope that it all worked, because he definitely was the most perfect father that her kids could have. “I would think that should calm her down though, because it means that I’ll manage to stay married.” But, then again, “Why does she seem to dislike you so much? It’s almost personal.”

              “She hates real men,” he said, seemingly to the baby. He wiggled her above his head, letting her sweet baby coos serenade them. “She is looking for husband she can rule. So, she hates me.”

              “Are you sure that’s it? She behaves like you’re an ex-lover or something.” He actually appeared to be thinking about it. “You slept with her didn’t you?”

              “Doubt it. She is not my kind of woman.”

              She shifted on the bed to actually face him. “What sort of woman is your type?” She couldn’t imagine that she fit his usual type. He didn’t seem like one who would normally date outside of his race, let alone actually marry outside of it. “I know both of your girls are blonde, so I assume their mother was as well.”

              Baby Juljiana now sat on his lap, gnawing on the thumb he provided for her, her back propped against his chest. They both now stared at her, only one with real seriousness. “She was, but blonde is not necessary for attractiveness. She was kind in beginning. Supportive, sometimes, but then, she decided she did not want to be married mother and decided to party and not have time for children.”

              “But you divorced her before Desa came. Why have your second daughter if you are no longer with her mother?”

              He shrugged. “Desa is not biological daughter. Iva knew she would kill baby so I made her get healthy to have her.” That was surprising, even though it explained why he was okay with the idea of adopting her two. She leaned forward to kiss his lips.

              “You are kind of amazing. The kids are lucky to have you as their dad.” He grabbed her behind her head, pulling her deeper into a kiss. She had to prop herself against his shoulders because she remembered that they had the baby between them.

              “Let me put baby down, and you can then thank me for being a good dad.” She chuckled, even as she sat back.

              “Jason will probably wake up before then, but I’m willing to look at houses with you, since I know that we still need to find one.”

              He grunted. “
Josif
will sleep plenty, but we don’t need put baby up for looking at houses.” He stood bed, bringing the baby with him. “Come Juljiana. Let’s show
majka
what we found for houses. We think she will be very impressed.”

              Josie followed after him and the baby, for the moment, forgetting about her near argument with Marisol. She wasn’t going to ignore any possible red flags that came up, but she also knew that she had to put certain things in perspective as well. Žarko was never going to be perfect. She refused to expect that of him, even as she knew that she could never expect perfection of herself.

              “Is the house five bedrooms like we’ve talked about?”

              “There is even basement and three bathrooms.”

              Wow. She liked the idea of that. “Please show me these houses then.”

              The girls were in the living room watching a movie, their father’s laptop on the coffee table in front of them. Desa scooted over when the adults joined them, but neither girl said a word as Josie and Žarko began looking at houses. Most of the nice houses were more in the suburbs around Chicago, which neither really wanted to do because it required leaving the city, and she certainly didn’t want to leave the city because of the much lower property taxes.

              She wouldn’t mind moving more south, as the houses tended to be cheaper and there was the Beverly neighborhood, which she used to love driving through. She could still drive the children to school in the morning and they could have a nice kind of smaller town feel. “I like that one,” she pointed to a listing near where she desired. “We can probably drive around the neighborhood and see the area. I think you’ll like it.”