131 - Box

*We may not share the same religious beliefs, but we can share the same values. I won’t take a life, and I’ll mourn any life that is lost. But there are some people that I’m not going to go out of my way to save if their life is in danger. And there’s others that I will lay down my own life to protect. - Pagan*

Prom was coming up. Vin was taking a cute little girl from down the block that was a year behind him. Darkness had taken him to the men’s clothing store and had a suit tailored to him. When they came home from picking it out and it being fitted, Vin came downstairs carrying the box that Camille had left on his bed.

“What the hell is this?”

Nicki looked away from the show that they were steaming and gave a small giggle. Camille glanced up briefly before giving a small shrug.

“It looks like a box of condoms.”

Nicki and Mitch looked at each other and started giggling.

“I know it’s a box of condoms,” Vin growled as Darkness leaned over the back of the blue couch to give his wife a kiss. “Why are they on my bed.”

“To make sure that you have them,” she said as leaned her head back and looked up at an amused Darkness. “I got the fixings for burgers and hot dogs for dinner. I also got some boudin and mom wants to try some when they come down.”

“They don’t have it up there?” Darkness asked.

“I had not even heard of *boudin before I moved down here. If you had told me that I would be eating a pork and rice sausage, I would not have believed you.”

“What the hell?” Vin asked with confusion lacing his voice. It was obvious that he could not believe that the box of condoms in his hand was not a major concern to his adoptive parents. “Why do I have condoms?”

“To make sure that you have them,” Camille replied, and the other two kids continued to giggle.

“But why?”

“Because I don’t want to become a grandmother myself before I can drink.”

“Mezcal,” Darkness grinned down at her.

Tipping her head back, she grinned back at him. “Fine, before I’m old enough to drink legally.”

“But if he gets Mandy pregnant now,” Nicki pointed out as she laughed, “you’ll be over twenty-one when the baby is born.”

“Okay, damn it, I want to be out of school before I am being called Oma.”

“That’s fair,” Darkness agreed. “Did you get French fries?”

“No, just a box of the little bags of chips.”

“What. The. Hell?” Vin demanded as he shook the box of condoms in front of Camille’s face.

“Zoon, I’m not an idiot,” she pushed the box towards the teen. “I’m not going to sit here and try to convince myself that you haven’t thought about being balls deep in Mandy.”

A blush crept up his dark skin and he looked away. Nicki laughed as Mitch declared, “That’s disgusting.”

“Okay, well,” Vin pointed at his sister with the box, “what are you going to do if she gets invited to prom?”

“I have more,” Camille replied, and Darkness chuckled.

Sid still sent her weekly care packages with even more boxes of condoms now. Camille dropped off three to four boxes of condoms at the clubhouse every week. And still kept a box or two for herself and Darkness.

“I’ve been on birth control since November,” Nicki told her brother.

Vin’s eyes went wide, and his mouth fell open in shock. He shook his head as if he was trying to clear his mind, “Why didn’t I know this?”

“Because it’s none of your business?” Camille offered nonchalantly. “Just like the box of condoms that I left on your bed without your siblings knowing was none of their business. Look,” she sighed, “I’m not stupid enough to think that you haven’t thought about it. Despite what has been drilled into your head, it’s natural. Without sex, the human race stops, it reaches the finish line and is over.”

“I’m not ready to be a dad!”

Camille smirked, “Then wrap it, because I’m telling you, sex is fun.”

“But it’s a sin…” Vin muttered.

She closed her eyes, and she took a deep breath before letting it out slowly. Opening her eyes again, she looked at her oldest adopted child but gripped the hands of the two children on either side of her.

“Depending on your beliefs, yes, sex can be a sin. But depending on your religion, life itself is a sin. We are imperfect creatures holding ourselves to unattainable goals and standards. The only thing that you can do is find your own peace.”

“Moeder,” Mitch said quietly, using the Dutch word for mother. His voice trembled as he made his confession, “I don’t like going to church any more. I always feel like I’m wrong.”

Keeping his hand in hers, she wrapped her arm around his shoulders, tucking his smaller frame against her side and kissing the top of his head. “If you don’t want to go any more, you don’t have to.”

“But mom and dad would want us to go,” Nicki said with the same uncertainty in her own voice.

“What your mom and dad would want even more, is for you to be happy and healthy. And living your best life.”

“Even if it’s not what we were taught? I mean… how we feel? What we think?” Nicki asked.

Darkness walked around the couch and sat down on the coffee table, motioning for Vin to join him. “Your parents had a very difficult decision to make when they knew that there was a chance that Covid might kill them both. They had to decide what to do with you kids, and if they died who would take you and how you would be raised.”

He looked at each of them to ensure that they understood what he was saying.

“It would have been very easy for them to let your mother’s parents take you. But there was a reason that they did not go that route.” He looked at his wife who nodded in encouragement, “Keisha always felt as though she could never live up to their standards. That she was always falling short. She did not want that for you.”

Camille looked at Darkness and he nodded.

“When your parents called us, we gave very few demands on our part. One of which was a compromise. My family is not very religious, like at all. So much so that my dad got ordained so that he could do my older sister’s wedding just so that she did not have to go into a church.” She gave a small chuckle, “Charlotte had been with Werewolf for about fifteen years, they had four kids together, she’d been using his name since before she had graduated high school.”

“So why did she want to get married?” Vin asked, “Why did it suddenly become important?”

Camille grinned, “Because Werewolf had asked back before they graduated. He finally asked her, ‘Just when are we getting married?’”