by Hazel Parker
“Hey there,” Chelsea said.
“Hi, Clara,” I said. “Welcome to your new life.”
The baby cooed, her eyes barely open. She was so small and fragile, and yet so...alive. I couldn’t even think straight right now. What could I say? Words failed to describe what this felt like. Even emotions couldn’t describe what it felt like. This was a profound spiritual experience that went beyond the realm of notions and concepts.
The three of us remained in our own little world like so until finally, the doctor gently interrupted us to ask if we wanted to let family come in. We said yes, and one by one, everyone came in. First, Chelsea’s dad came. I had never seen the man cry, not even at our wedding, but here, his eyes welled up. Alf, my parents, and even Leo, came next, and though they didn’t cry, the emotion was real. Alf held his great-granddaughter and danced with her a bit; Leo nodded, said congrats, and left; and my parents held their second grandchild with smiles bursting from their faces.
Finally, Nick, Izzy, and their daughter, Michelle, came in. Michelle had only been born about two weeks before, making for a rather hectic time in the Ferrari family.
My only regret was Grandma wasn’t there. But somehow, I think she was seeing it. And even if the afterlife wasn’t real, even if that was just a construct meant to make us feel better...I think she went to the end knowing this day would come. So maybe she couldn’t “see it,” but she had “seen” enough of it.
“Look at her!” Izzy gasped.
“Congratulations, buddy,” Nick said, giving me a hug. “Best day of your life, right?”
“Nothing else even comes close,” I said. “It’s just...I don’t even know, man.”
“You don’t need to tell me,” Nick said. “It’s something special.”
I just looked as Clara and Michelle sort of...I don’t know if “looked at each other” was the right phrasing. One was two weeks old, the other about ten minutes old. But if babies could sense each other’s presence and react in some fashion, they seemed to be doing so.
I had a feeling already that these cousins were going to wind up being best friends down the line. It just struck me as something that was all but destined to happen. I certainly wouldn’t have minded it.
“By the way, Layla will FaceTime you in a couple hours,” Nick said. “She’s out in France doing work right now, I think.”
“France, eh?”
Nick chuckled, but nervously, almost like he feared Layla would somehow overhear him from across the globe and smack us when she returned.
“What about France?” Chelsea said.
“She’s...got some stories from there,” I said. “We’ll tell you some other time when you haven’t gone through labor for hours on end.”
“Oh, how polite,” Chelsea said, but it was all in good jest.
Nick grabbed Izzy and Michelle, and it was just the three of us once more. Even this baby had arrived a couple of weeks early; it seemed like everything that this particular family did was faster than anyone could call “normal.”
But that was the thing.
What was normal?
Was it what statistics said the “average” was? Was it what society had just generally settled on as normal? Or was it some nebulous concept that we all knew in our guts when we saw it but didn’t know what it was specifically?
None of those questions, to me, mattered. What mattered most was asking, well, “what matters most?” Was it being normal? Or was it being in love with the ones closest to you?
As I cuddled my wife and my first child, I knew the answer.
What mattered most was love, no matter how it happened. Because even if it had happened in the most bizarre, unusual, abnormal circumstances possible…
We still all loved each other.
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Author Bio
Hazel Parker is known for her contemporary romance writing and loves her bad boys. From bikers, rugged mountain men, and all sorts of sexy alphas, Hazel will have you turning the pages for more.
She lives on Vancouver Island with her hubby and three kiddos. Most days you will find her in her office with a hot cup of coffee doing what she loves: Concocting ultra-sexy, juicy romances for her fans.
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