The Naz and Roz Chronicles - Chapter Twenty-One (The End)
LOVES!
Okay, so don’t be too sad, but this chapter is the final chapter of this blog series. This was kind of the natural end I saw happening in my mind, because obviously, the main plot thread in this tale was the pregnancy, and upcoming birth of the baby, with a bit of Penny on the side. A natural end for me is either when I finish out a plot thread, or the couple decides they no longer have anything to tell me. Which is kind of where I am at right now here, on both ends.
And let’s be honest, Penny’s story is better told from her perspective. I highly suspect, when I get some damn time to do so, I will sit down and sketch out a book for her.
I did not expect this series to go on for as long as it did, but here we are … I hope you enjoyed it.
Thank you again for reading. All my love and appreciation to Sasha Elle for coming up with a beautiful cover for this series.
Some other details to know:
I am going to take a month off from writing a blog series to focus on getting the next one read - I am thinking something for Cece and Juan because that was the overwhelming vote in my reader's group about this. And second, this series (The Naz & Roz Chronicles) will be complied into a free ebook that I will post here and on the website for anyone to sideload onto their e-reading device. I will also be compiling it for PAPERBACK, that will be for sale on Amazon at around 7.99-8.99 a copy, just depending on what the cost comes out to) depends on the page length after it is edited a bit to clean it up and formatted. That will likely go on sale next month.
Okay, so enjoy this final chapter.
As for who is next … guess we’ll see.
Want to catch up?
Naz and Roz Blog Series
*
Roz POV
The thing people warned about newborns, but couldn’t truly be appreciated until one actually experienced it?
The exhaustion.
No lie, Roz was dead on her feet.
Two days of having her baby home, four days of little Cross being on this earth, and she wished more often than not that she had appreciated her ability to sleep for more than a spread of two hours at a time before he was born.
Oh, she loved her boy.
With every fiber of her being.
The truth was still the truth at the end of the day, and the truth was that she was tired. Breastfeeding every hour on the hour for the first two days hadn’t seemed that bad when she was in the hospital with nurses, and a lactation consultant at her beck and call. There were people willing to take the baby out of the room for a bit of time, if she needed to shower or whatever else the case may be.
They had help.
At home?
Not so much.
Well, that wasn’t entirely the truth. Her parents came over in the daytime to help, and so did Naz’s mother and father. They had enough frozen casseroles to last them six months, at least, from people dropping off food as a just in case. She understood why now, because they were either too tired to cook for themselves, and would just order in, or they didn’t have time between finishing one feeding just to start another.
Worth it, though.
God, it was all worth it.
And then Roz blinked up at the white ceiling of her bedroom, seeing the beginnings of sunlight dancing across the space, and realized … the last time she opened her eyes, it was dark. Panic saturated her insides as she rolled over in the bed, wondering how long she had been asleep, and where in the hell was her son?
She breathed slightly easier when she found the clock on her nightstand blinked six. In the morning, that was. So, only two hours from the last feeding.
That was good, right?
It meant little Cross was spacing out his feedings more.
They said that might happen.
But where was he?
Because he wasn’t in the bassinet next to her bed where he should be. Roz didn’t even bother to worry about her full bladder, or the fact she should probably use that quiet time to roll over, and get a little more sleep.
No, instead she crawled out of bed, found her robe hanging off the end, and wrapped it around her shoulders before padding out of the room. As soon as she came out into the hallway of their upstairs, she could hear familiar tinkling.
A tune she didn’t recognize, but the notes rang loudly in her heart and mind. She appreciated the sound of the piano echoing through the house for a moment—likely Penny practicing, as she was considering an attempt at an audition for a ballet company in New York that wanted a pianist for a spread of shows they had coming up over the year. A risky move, but they wanted something different, if Roz understood it right.
Penny thought it might be cool—a break from finishing high school before she went into college, although she still hadn’t picked what she wanted to do. And it allowed her to get back into music without … well, the stress of something like Roz had chosen to do.
Roz fully expected to find Naz downstairs with the baby in the kitchen, or napping on the couch, and Penny at the piano. She was partly right, and a little bit wrong. She found Naz leaning in the entryway of the back sunroom which doubled as a music room, the baby grand piano resting proudly in the middle, sparkling white.
Penny was, in fact, at the piano.
But so was their son.
Swaddled, tucked in her lap on the bench, with blinking eyes staring up at the girl as she played the piano for him, the baby seemed happy and content. Penny, either unknowing of her audience, or not caring, continued to play the piano.
Little Cross loved his bear with the song that Penny had recorded to put in the stuffy. In fact, it was the only way he would sleep in his bassinet. They had to turn it on, and sometimes let the music play through twice, and then he was happy to fall asleep.
She wasn’t shocked he enjoyed listening to Penny play like this, too.
“Didn’t want to wake me up?” she asked.
Naz gave her a smile as she came to stand with him in the doorway. “Well, you needed to sleep … and he does okay with those big nipple bottles you bought.”
Yeah, lucky them.
The baby didn’t get confused.
It meant Roz could express milk, if she wanted, and have Naz feed the baby using the bottles that were meant for breastfed infants. That way, she could get an extra hour of sleep here and there, but she still preferred to feed her son herself. The lactation consultant warned not to use the bottles too often, lest the baby find he preferred them, so Roz was willing to use them on occasion.
“Anyway, she was practicing,” Naz said, “and he kept turning his head like he was trying to find the sound, so I brought him to her.”
“Oh?”
“He helps her, too.”
“How so?”
“She thinks less when she’s holding him.”
“How do you know?”
Naz shrugged. “I just do.”
Roz didn’t question him on it.
Naz was who he was.
Leaning against his side, he pulled her closer, and rested his chin on the top of her head while they watched the two across the room. She was still tired, sure … but that was okay. This was the best way she had spent a morning in a while.
***
“Penny Dunsworth!”
Roz and Naz—and well, the whole row of people sitting beside them—were on their feet to clap for Penny as she crossed the stage in her green and gold graduation gown and cap to accept her diploma. Well, she tried to clap, but it was difficult when she had to hold the sleeping newborn in her arms at the same time.
That was okay.
Their family clapped loud enough for all of them.
This whole day …
That girl …
Eight months ago, this seemed impossible. Like Penny would never make it to this point, because a lot of the time, they weren’t even sure if she was going to make it to the next day. That was her struggle—they never diminished it because it wasn’t their battle to fight, and just because they didn’t understand it didn’t mean it wasn’t real.
But God.
Roz was so proud of her.
“Forty-five,” Naz murmured beside her.
Roz glanced up at him. “Forty-five what?”
“Arrests.”
“What?”
Naz smiled, his gaze meeting hers as Penny took the diploma from her male principal without shaking the man’s hand, or accepting the hug he tried to offer. She turned a bit on the stage, waving a hand to their row who was only three back from the stage.
Roz smiled back.
“Forty-five arrests in two months since I made a program to crawl the dark web because of what happened to her,” Naz explained, “and those are just the arrests that came from my program. Another ten came from names she gave me directly. It seems like a lot, but in the grand scheme, it’s only a small portion. But in those forty-five arrests, over three-hundred children have been identified across the world from their activities, and are now safe, and getting help.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? That’s amazing.”
And dangerous, she was sure.
Not that it mattered.
“Because it’s not about me. That wasn’t ever about me.”
“Does she know?”
Naz nodded. “Keeps track, actually.”
Huh.
Roz glanced back at the stage just in time to see Penny walk off, and rejoin the rest of her graduating class where she would stay until the end of the ceremony. “So, what happens now?”
“That’s the best part.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah, babe, because it’s anything. Anything can happen now.”
Well, then …
Roz held her son tighter.
She couldn’t wait.
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