Nat is fighting a losing battle. One your tent is most definitely winning. At least, that’s what it looks like from where you’re kneeling in the sand, watching her swear under her breath as she tugs on the zipper for what must be the third time.

The flap catches halfway up, refusing to budge even as she yanks harder. “Stop laughing at me,” Nat grumbles, shooting you a glare over her shoulder before turning back to more pressing matters at hand.

“I’m not,” you manage between giggles. “But I did warn you when he asked for this. We’re not exactly built for camping.”

“Yeah, well, next time I’m booking a motel,” she mutters. Finally, the zipper gives and slides up into place. “See? Got it. Everything’s under control.”

From down the shore, a small voice cuts through your conversation, stopping you from making another comment about the general lack of control here: “Mom! Come look at this crab!”

Your son doesn’t differentiate anymore. He can no longer recall a life without Nat in it, and has been calling you both mom. Occasionally it’s mama or mommy, but no name is reserved for just one of you.

Before you, Natalie never saw herself as a mom. In fact, did everything to avoid having children.

She insisted on protection, always, whether it was some one night stand or the closest thing she ever got to a long-term relationship, because she could not afford a little mini her running around the house, both financially and emotionally. She knew she wasn't cut out to raise a kid, barely keeping herself alive most days.

The only thing she hadn't accounted for was you.

You were perfect from the first date on, so much so it honestly freaked her out: You said the right things, asked the right questions, laughed in the right places. Everything lined up perfectly, until the night you finally invited her home.

She’d noticed how you dodged the subject before, but Nat figured maybe you had a messy roommate or maybe you were embarrassed about your place. What she didn’t expect was him.

What once was her worst nightmare came into Nat’s life with such tenderness, it was unlike anything she had envisioned whenever she pictured herself becoming a mom.

Well.

It’s not like Nat became a mom right then and there, when you revealed you had a son, nor did she become one when, in her shock, she clumsily asked if she could hold him (which she should’ve regretted when the boy, who looked so much like you, started tugging on her hair on the couch but, instead, her heart swelled when he wrapped his little fist around her finger).

Not even in the months that followed, when she started coming around more often, when he’d light up at the sound of her boots in the hallway and refuse to fall asleep unless Nat held him.

No, Nat would only officially become a mother years later.

When she signed the papers that would bind her to a role she never imagined for herself, Nat cried happy tears she’d deny forever. By then, she was already your son’s mom and he couldn’t a remember a life without her.

Now, as your son calls, she immediately drops everything and straightens, squinting toward the surf. There he is, pants rolled to his knees, hands waving wildly as a tiny crab scuttles along the wet sand by his bare feet.

“Guess that’s our cue,” Nat murmurs, brushing sand off her knees as she stands. You join her, jogging down the shore to him. He doesn’t look up when you reach him, only points, completely absorbed: “Look! He’s so tiny! He was hiding under a shell!”

Nat crouches beside him, balancing easily on her toes. “Are you gonna pick it up?” she teases.

“No way!” he says and wrinkles his nose. “It’s pinchy, Mama, look!”