A Pleasant Mistake by Allison Heather

Prologue
    As I sit here pregnant and content, in our
bustling huge kitchen, I look at the faces of my family members.
All are smiling making a relaxed but vocal start to the day. I
smiled at the familiar sight with happiness that is not easily
explicable. I cannot help but think about that fateful day six
years ago. The day that changed my life and veered it from the path
it might have carried on to a new path it eventually did. I shudder
to think what life would have I had and how much happiness I would
have missed, if not for a pleasant mistake.
    **************************
    Chapter 1
    Breakfast time in our house is full of
confusing activity. Family members pop in and out. My mother and
maid cook a huge amount of breakfast. Close employees of family
firm drop in like family members. All 'invaders' either sit down
and eat on the table or simply pick and graze as conversations fly
across various. Quite often it is very difficult to follow who is
contributing to which discussion. I wonder, how anyone can trace
who has responded to whom. My head moves like an umpire of a tennis
match ultimately I sigh and give up.
    My father and grandfather have created a
retail chain empire with production lines that is worth two billion
dollars. We are not Bill Gates. But we are comfortable. In fact, we
are more than comfortable. My family created and implemented a
novel concept of employee-employer partnership and that enabled the
company to rocket into stratosphere. We, of course, have the widest
product lines and back our products with exceptional warranties. My
father sat on the table with king sized breakfast hearing his key
helpers.
    The fateful day I have mentioned, I sat
through the tumult and noticed how easily my mum and dad shared
intimacy even in a crowded kitchen. Whenever my mother passed close
to my father she would put her hand on his shoulder or stroke his
hair. If my mother's hands were full or even when not, my father
would simply touch her thigh or back or bottom. These are not
sexual at all. These are almost platonic contacts but for the fact
that my parents exude suppressed sexuality all the time. I am not
sure if it is my heightened sensitivity towards two people I love
most. There are half-baked scientific papers that suggest that
couples who love each other very much and have lived together long
enough start to look alike. My parents could pass of as
siblings.
    Don't get me wrong I loved my brother and
grandpa as much but my father and mother could make me do anything.
I was just not obedient I was simply a voluntary putty in my
parents’ hands. Daddy got up to leave and looked at me beaming his
captivating heart stopping smile. My heart skipped a beat. My dad
seemed to reach the ceiling. Our house has exceptionally high
ceiling. We have to. All men in my family are very tall. Shortest
person in my family, in fact called 'Shorty' until I grew up and
the tag was transferred to me, was my uncle, my mother's brother,
who is six feet and four inches tall. My dad pulled himself to his
six feet and eight inches of height and I got up as I drove to work
with dad. I had finished my MBA and was an intern in our family
business. I had rejected many fancy campus interview-led
offers.
    My father took my mother in his arms as if
they were all alone, and kissed her. It was a very husbandly kiss
but to me it smoldered with restrained passion. My mother is a bit
taller (an inch to be precise) than me but no one ever thought of
calling her Shorty. Even at five feet eight inches her calm
motherly presence makes her as tall as her men in the family. My
mother never raises her voice in public. No one has ever heard her
shout or scream.
    Dad kissed my mother twice, and whispered,
"Get some rest, sweetie" (‘last night must have finished late' I
thought).
    I tried to keep up with my father. I had
loved my father with passion as long as I could remember, I still
do. He was the man I compared everyone against, until I settled
down with the