
A few months later.
"SHIAMAN RANA!"
Rara immediately gasped to hear Juwita's wrathful cry. The woman whose stomach was as big as a jumbo watermelon was scratching her cheeks, pretending to look the other way though free.
"HERE YOU ARE, BOY!"
Juwita comes, grabs Rara's ear until she grimaces.
"Oh, duh duh! Sick, Mom!"
"Racaine!" Juwita ruffled waist. "Udah Mom said many times to you, yes! Many times until foaming! You are pregnant again! The lift is still on the stairs!"
Rara pouted. "End of dizziness, ma'am, take the elevator. Don't know why."
"Don't care! Hold the cake a little!" Juwita looked annoyed, but then sighed worriedly. "You almost fell down the stairs, Rara. I don't want to ah anymore. Don't go up the stairs unless there's a Banyu or a Cetta megangin."
"Yes, Mom." Rara can only give up. Though in the past when almost fell it was not the fault of her pregnancy but the wrong Rara wear heels. That's a very early time, too.
Now Rara be careful. He took off his footwear, even sandals, as he went up and down the stairs. But every time Juwita found out, Rara must have been scolded.
"Shh." Rara suddenly grimaced, feeling a pretty strong kick from her stomach.
"Why? Kick your son?"
"Yes. I was angry."
"Huh, your fault too." Juwita pulled her hand. "Here, go up to your room. Banyu if told to sleep happy, you are told to sleep very hard really."
Rara was like a child being dragged home by her mother from the playground because she had to take a nap. Juwita drags her up to the elevator, presses on the floor of Rara's room and the elevator moves.
As it moved, Rara frowned dizzy.
"Bring your ham, son. Next time don't go down first. In the room."
Rara rubbed her stomach.
"Her father will come home, Mom, so I made something."
"Ohya? Abi's home yet?" Juwita is in the spirit. "His long time in Dubai. Almost a month, right? If that ration he'll be home long too dong?"
Rara unfortunately had to shake her head. "Say, five hours. That was the longest. You see, Rose has to go to the state palace tomorrow. Must be with Abi."
"That's yeah. How else." Juwita exhaled. "It will be later if Abi dateng, do not need to go down. You two just."
Rara only grimaced a little, but did not reject it.
Abhimanyu could not live in this house anymore or in the house next door, a place built specifically for Rara. He should always be by Rose's side, twenty-four hours. Therefore five hours was a very short time for Rara.
But it doesn't matter.
He always comes home every time he goes.
*
Rara was already half asleep when she faintly felt a familiar touch on her stomach, rubbing up and down from behind the sleeping dress.
Although sleepy, Rara smiled because she knew it was Abhimanyu.
"Plate," he murmured as he received a gentle peck on the cheek.
"Sorry." Abhimanyu kissed the whole corner of his face. "So sleep used to be perfect."
"Hmmmmm. Tired?"
"Lumayan." Abhimanyu tidied the children's hair around Rara's forehead. "You are sleepy just go to sleep. Not pa-pa."
She wanted to, but if Rara slept until morning, Abhimanyu would have been lost again by returning to Rose's place. Half the sleep was not a problem, as long as Rara felt its existence.
"So I was scolded by Mom," asked Rara for a conversation. "I got off the stairs and didn't take the elevator."
Rara was clearly pouting. "Yes abis since I was pregnant if I took the elevator immediately dizzy, Bi. If I vomit right in my stomach like this, baby will be okay."
"That's not much movement first. Later it's new lahiran go up and down the stairs again if you don't want to use the elevator."
"It will be in the room all day." Rara suddenly remembered the reason why she had come down to be scolded. "Ohiya, I made you a cake earlier. It's down below."
"Let me take it."
Rara shakes. "Same aja. Move to the house next door."
Without much to argue, Abhimanyu reached out, helping to hold Rara walking. Even the way Rara's path had been different since Abhimanyu last saw her.
"I'm a big one?" bargain Abhimanyu, out of him trouble.
But Rara shook her head. "Not good." He went down the stairs one by one while holding Abhimanyu's hand. "Udah is not comfortable in all positions. My back is pegel, my stomach is cramped, sometimes it's bad until it's hard for you."
"Juwita must have understood. She used to be a whimper when she got pregnant."
"But it's just a little bit."
Abhimanyu smiled a little. As soon as he reached the bottom floor, he embraced Rara's waist, rubbing her back. "Patience huh? I don't know, but I need nothing to say."
"You come home often. That's it."
Abhimanyu. One month less, Rara estimates she will give birth. In that period of time, Rose had made sure there was no work that would keep Abhimanyu restrained let alone miss the birth of his second child.
After getting the pudding Rara made for him, Abhimanyu took his wife to their own house. There was only one floor in the house, Rara requested, and it looked more like a casual house.
On the porch of the house there is a swing where Rara used to sit with her sisters-in-law. Abhimanyu helped Rara take a position there and chose to sit on the chair alone.
"Nh."
"illness?"
"Turn me." Rara closed comfortably as Abhimanyu rubbed her small painful back. "Why can there be so many kids? I just fucked him a lot."
Abhimanyu laughed at once. "Juwita is strong in front of you. He's mostly complaining."
"But I have many children. That means you feel good, right? If I had just felt one."
Abhimanyu laughed even more. "You know Juwita's first sentence every time you're out?"
"What?"
"No more to."
But she was pregnant again.
Abhimanyu and Banyu protested against Adji. Because they are afraid if Adji treats Juwita as a child machine whose work is only pregnant, giving birth, and then pregnant and giving birth. But Adji said it was Juwita's own will. Originally Adji had wanted to stop—because pity—after Juwita gave birth to Milo.
"Nobody will love him more than you." Abhimanyu kissed that distended stomach. "Juwita once said that he was never as happy as when he was hugging his son. You might not wait for me to come home again so busy taking care of him."
"No. I'll keep waiting for you to come home if you leave. I'll even wait if Baby is born."
Rara pulled Abhimanyu's head to lie on her chest and Rara could kiss her hair.
"You were born when Baby didn't love me anymore. He said he always loved his daughter more than his wife."
"Emang."
"Kok emang?!"
"Yes, though."
Elusan Rara turned into a hard shake. Even so Abhimanyu laughed, continued to tease the pregnant woman.
*