by Hart, Staci
“Hello, baby,” I said to the tiny thing in my arms.
When I looked up at Theo, it was through a sheet of tears.
He smiled and pressed a kiss to my forehead.
And just like that, we were a family.
❖
The hospital room was quiet and still—as silent as hospitals could get at least. Nurses came in every couple of hours to check on Hope or me or the wind direction for all I knew or cared.
I was blissed out and exhausted and fascinated by the baby in my arms.
She slept soundly, swaddled in a scratchy blanket that didn’t seem to bother her but smelled to me like bleach and nightmares. I untucked the corner of the swaddle, lifting it so I could see her tiny little hand again. I slipped my finger into her fist, and she squeezed it with strength that surprised and awed me.
She was smaller than average—surprising, given Theo’s genetics—five pounds, twelve ounces, the result of being three weeks early, Dr. Stout had assured me. She was perfectly healthy, late enough that her lungs had fully developed, which had been the real concern.
But she’d scored perfectly on her APGAR test, which Theo stayed next to her for.
Didn’t at all surprise me she’d already gotten her first A-plus.
I smiled over at Theo. He was all arms and legs, barely contained by the chair that was supposed to convert to a bed but really looked less useful than an old camping cot would have been. His face was slack with sleep, but he didn’t look boyish or soft. His features were too strong, his jaw too square, his nose too Roman, his lips too luscious to be anything but a man. A man who was mine just as much as I was his.
The door opened, and my mother popped her head in, smiling. I waved her in.
She made her way over, sitting on the edge of the bed to peer into the bundle. “Katie, she’s just so pretty,” she whispered. “All that hair! I ordered her some bows. I hope you don’t mind.”
I chuckled. “I don’t mind,” I whispered back.
Mom glanced at Theo. “That looks comfortable.”
A snicker. “That chair makes him look like a giant.”
“Well, he kinda is.”
“Yes, he kinda is,” I echoed with a smile. “How’s Sarah?”
“Still sleeping. I’m glad her surgery went well and that she’s gonna be all right. Tommy and Amelia are in her room, the two of them somehow piled on one of those tiny chairs like Theo, sound asleep.”
I laughed at the thought. “I’m sorry I kicked you out of the delivery room, Mom.”
But she waved her hand, beaming down at the baby. “Oh, I don’t care, honey. I just want you to be safe and happy. I know I don’t go about it like you need, and I’m sorry. I feel like I always do the wrong thing.” She met my eyes, hers sad. “I want to understand you, but I’ve never known how.”
“To be fair, I’ve never given you much to go on but flak.”
“Well, I can be a real wrecking ball. I don’t blame you for getting upset. I just wish I knew what to do.”
“If I start telling you, will you listen?”
“I can promise to try,” she said.
“Then I will, too,” I promised in return.
“I’m sorry for pushing you about Theo today, too. I just…I hate to see you sad, Katie. And he made you so happy. I want you to have that again.”
“You weren’t wrong.”
She blinked her confusion. “Did you just say I was right?”
“No, I said you weren’t wrong.”
She laughed. “I’ll take what I can get.” She cast another look in Theo’s direction when he shifted in sleep, unable to get comfortable in that godforsaken chair.
“So, are you and Dad getting back together?”
Her face was lined with exhaustion and bright with relief. “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but yes. Sometimes, all you need is for the person you love to say the words you need to hear. I needed him to come here. I needed him to fight for me, for us. And he did. I know we’re crazy.” She shook her head, looking down at the baby to avoid my eyes. “This is just how it works for us. Our rules…well, they’re not everyone else’s rules. But that’s the beauty of love. It can be whatever you need it to be. You can make your own rules.”
A shock of understanding flashed through me. “We can make our own rules,” I whispered. “It doesn’t have to be defined by anyone but me. But us.”
She met my eyes. “Of course you can, honey.”
“Theo only has one.”
A chuckle. “Well, good thing. You have so many.” She nudged me with her elbow playfully, but I was still in a blinking state of realization. “What are you gonna do?”
There was only one answer. “Tell him how much I love him,” I answered simply. “And hope he’ll take me back.”
At that, she smiled. “Oh, he will. I promise, he will.”
The door cracked open again, and this time, it was my dad’s head that popped in. We waved him in too, and he moved to stand behind my mother, his hand on her shoulder as he peered into the baby’s face.
“She looks just like you did on the day you were born, Katie-Bug. Best day of my life,” he said quietly.
Unexpected tears nipped at the corners of my eyes and the tip of my nose. “Thanks, Dad.”
“No, thank you. One of these days, we’ll be able to show you what you mean to us. Just gotta learn your language. You’d think we’d have gotten the hang of it by now,” he said on a chuckle.
“I think maybe it was me who didn’t know how to speak. But I think I might finally understand how.”
“Oh?” he asked.
I nodded. “With love.”
He smiled. “With love, Katie. Sounds like a goodbye.”
“No, it’s a hello.”
He pressed a kiss to my hair. “Come on, Sparrow. The cafeteria’s about to open, and there’s a cream cheese scone in the window I want for mine.”
Mom frowned. “Is it organic?”
“Sure,” he lied.
She sighed, smiling as she slid off my bed and into his arms. And with a wave and a quiet goodbye, they were gone.
And I held my baby, watching Theo sleep, waiting for the moment he woke so I could tell him what he meant to me.
❖
Theo
The hospital room was mostly dark when I woke not knowing what time it was, my neck stiff and back aching from the too-small convertible bed. Katherine smiled at me from her bed, gently bouncing the baby in her arms.
I checked my watch. Four thirty.
“When did she wake?” I asked, blinking the sleep from my eyes.
“Just a little bit ago. I changed her diaper, but I think she just wanted to be held.”
I smiled, hauling myself out of the makeshift bed to stride over to her. She shifted, making room for me to stretch out next to her. I slipped my arm around her as we looked down at our baby.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“I think I’m high on oxytocin.”
I chuckled. “It’s intense, isn’t it?”
“I can only compare it to one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Falling in love with you.”
Everything stilled. My heart. My lungs. Time. I looked down at her, my Kate, her face soft and open.
“I realized it yesterday,” she said quietly, “something I’d known all along. But I was caught up in the word and what I thought it meant. I never thought how I felt about you could be the thing itself, that I’d felt it all along. I think I might have loved you the first moment I met you. Is that crazy?”
“No.” A single syllable, tight with emotion.
“I’ve put you through so much, Theo. And you’ve endured it all with patience and grace and understanding. I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve you. And I understand if I’ve hurt you too bad to get you back, but—”
I stopped her—answered her—with a kiss.
I’d waited for months for that kiss.
&nb
sp; I’d waited my whole life for that kiss.
It was laden with relief, deep with emotion, whispering promises and gratitude and absolute adoration.
When I broke the kiss, it was to look into her eyes. “Kate, I’m yours. I’ve been yours since the first. And I’ll love you until I die.”
“Good,” she said with a smile. “You’ll have to if we’re going to get married. I don’t want to end up like my mother.”
I blinked at her. “Married?” I said stupidly.
She nodded. “Married. Unless you’ve changed your mind.” She watched me for a moment. “Will you marry me, Theo? Because I don’t want anyone else but you.”
“That’s my line.”
She chuckled.
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait to decide? You’re all pumped full of happy hormones right now. Are you sure you’re being rational? What happens later if you change your mind?”
“I won’t because I can’t. And love, I’ve realized, isn’t rational in any form.” She paused, searching for the words to explain. “Plato said that humans originally had four arms and four legs and were so powerful that Zeus worried for his safety. So he cleaved the humans in half, split them in two. And the only way they could be strong again was to find their other half. It was the only way they could find peace and strength—to become whole again. And love was the only thing that could bind the wound.”
She looked down at our baby for a long moment. I didn’t dare speak for fear I’d break the spell.
“I knew there was power in whatever was between us from that first night—it’s why I stayed away—but I thought that power was destructive. Depleting. I thought that power would take. But Theo, I was wrong. Your love bound the wound in my heart I hadn’t known I had. I’m sorry I didn’t know. I’m so sorry for putting you through this. I’m so sorry for resisting when all you’ve done is love me. I’ve been trying to find a way to repay you, a way to show you my love the way you show me every day, in every little thing you do. And I’ve finally found it. Let me love you forever. Marry me.”
The answer lodged in my throat, the words waiting unspoken. Because I couldn’t speak.
So I kissed her instead, kissed her until my throat eased and my heart ached. Felt her life and mine click into place, felt our hearts thread together, healed by love like Plato had said.
When I broke away, I gazed on the face I’d love my whole life.
“Was that a yes?” she said with a husky voice and a sideways smile.
“That was a hell yes.”
And I kissed her laughing lips again, the first of millions I’d collect.
Epilogue(s)
Katherine
Hope: 2 days old
I blinked through a trail of sage smoke.
My mother led the train down the hall, first her, then Theo carrying the car seat with Hope nestled inside. I followed behind, smiling at the tiny, sleeping baby’s face, and my father brought up the rear, hands in his pockets and smile on his face.
Mom circled the room, sage in the air like the Olympic torch, and I sighed, too happy to be bothered.
I had a sneaking suspicion this would be my new state of mind, and I didn’t hate it one bit.
Theo set down the car seat as Mom finished cleansing the room, handing me her blanket so he could reach her seatbelt.
Hope’s eyes blinked open, and she sneezed the tiniest sneeze I had ever heard.
A collective aww sighed through the room.
“All right,” Dad said, reaching for my mother. “I think that’s enough sage.”
“Oh!” she gasped, rolling her eyes. “Silly me. Come on, Dave. Let’s go do the rest of the house.”
“Sure thing, baby.” He ushered her out, winking at me along the way. “You did good, Katie.”
My smile widened. “Thanks, Dad.”
By the time they were gone, Theo was lifting Hope out of her car seat like he’d done it a thousand times, the picture of confidence. She was so small in his big, square hands, I found myself absorbed in the sight. He cradled her for a moment as he stepped to the crib and laid her inside.
I moved to his side, my hand resting on the rail, watching him swaddle her with tender care. She was asleep again before he was finished.
For a still moment, we watched her without tangible thought, standing in her quiet room. When Theo moved, it was to slip an arm around my waist and tuck me into his side. With another sigh, I leaned into him, resting my head on his broad chest.
“So,” he started, the word rumbling through me, “when are we getting married?”
“Already trying to lock me down?”
“Since day one, Kate.”
I chuckled, my cheeks warm and heart fit to burst. “Well, we can go to the courthouse next week, if you want.”
When he didn’t speak, I shifted to look up at him. He was giving me a look, a sideways, amused, hopeful look.
“You want the whole white dress, centerpiece, first dance thing, don’t you?”
“I really do,” he answered.
With a laugh, I rolled my eyes. “Anything you want, Theo.”
“God, I love when you call me that.”
I turned in his arm, gazing up into his bottomless eyes. “Well, we’re even. I love when you call me Kate.”
“Who knew?” he said on a laugh.
“You did. You always do. It’s one of the many, many reasons I love you like I do.”
“That reminds me,” he said gently, letting me go.
In what seemed like one motion, he reached into his pocket and dropped to one knee, just like he had once before. Though instead of a garden in the moonlight, it was in our baby’s nursery, next to the occupied crib. And this time, instead of fear, I only felt a rush of emotions. They welled in me like a plume of smoke.
“I love you, Kate, and I’ll love you forever. Marry me.”
I smiled down at him, extending my left hand. “I already asked you to marry me.”
“I know, but I wanted to hear you say yes.”
With my free hand, I cupped his cheek. “Yes. You have all of my yeses, forever.”
“Forever,” he said, slipping the ring onto my third finger.
“Forever,” I echoed.
Before I could speak again, I was in his arms. And that promise was made into truth with a kiss.
* * *
Theo
Hope: 1 year, 2 months, 12 days old
Fireworks.
From the beginning, she was fireworks—a burst of light against the black of night. And here, in the end, our world was fireworks.
We ran down the paved path in what felt like slow motion. The golden glow and smoke of sparklers illuminated the smiling faces of everyone we loved. Those faces were soft with joy, some bright with tears. And those faces lit us up even more than the fireworks they held.
They lit Katherine up like a beacon. Her dark hair uncontained and brushing the pale skin of her back. Her cheeks high as she laughed. Her eyes shining with unshed tears. Her snowy dress cast in gold.
I saw my mother, waving and crying, tucked under my brother’s arm. Tommy, tall and dark and smiling with Amelia under his other arm. Amelia, small and delicate, her face flushed and happy and tearful. Their son was hooked on Amelia’s hip, dark as Tommy but with Amelia’s bright eyes, opening and closing his fist in his version of goodbye. Rin, elegant and beautiful, her arm around Court and swollen belly nestled into his side. Val and Sam, who had just gotten married the month before—our concession to everyone’s double wedding request.
And Katherine’s mother, waving with one hand and holding Hope on her hip with the other. My baby smiled at me, her little lips shaping the word daddy as she waved like her Nana had shown her, her tiny hand swiveling at the wrist and elbow. Her dress was white as snow, just like her mama’s, and she’d toddled down the aisle with a basket of rose petals she forgot beyond a cursory handful and a solid tumping of the basket at the foot of the vined arch where I made Katherine my wife
.
Forever and ever, amen.
The smoky tang in the air. The feel of her hand in mine. The sight of her, dress gathered in her other hand, the tips of her shoes darting out as we ran for the Mercedes waiting at the end of the path. In she went, and I paused, looking back at every face, at the path we’d been on, all things leading us right here, to this moment.
It was an end. And a beginning.
I waved goodbye, and their hands rose together to wave back.
Into the car I went. Into her arms I went.
I gathered her up, collected her delicately, and kissed the lips I loved so well.
“Mrs. Bane,” I said when I released her lips.
“Mr. Bane,” she said with a smile. “Was the wedding to your liking?”
My brow rose. “Was it to yours?”
With an exhale, she melted. “Oh, it was. I’m glad you insisted. A courthouse wouldn’t have been nearly this lovely.”
“No. And I would have missed you in this dress. I love you in this dress.” I pulled her into my lap. “I’d love you out of this dress.”
Her laughter filled the air, her arms winding around my neck. “You’d love me anyway.”
“You sound so sure of yourself.”
“Because I am. You love me in equal measure to my love for you. It’s why we’re so well suited.”
“And here I thought it was because I was so clever to have tricked you into marrying me.”
Another laugh, a tilt of her head. “Well, you are very clever. But I didn’t need tricking, only patience while I figured out that I’d loved you all along.”
“Maybe that was the trick.”
“Then you, husband, are a magician.”
“And you, wife, are mine.”
Her arms tightened, her lips angling for mine, but our gazes were locked. “I was always yours, and I always will be.”
The kiss was heavy with the promise, the depth of the truth, the weight of our love.
And forever was sealed with that kiss.
And it was fireworks.
Thank you