I think of Lily. She doesn't have the same mother as Faith and me but she is my sister in every way that counts and I would never turn her away if she needed me. So how could I turn Sebastian's sister away?
He shakes his head. “This is a big responsibility, Grace. Another child. An eight-year-old. We’re strangers to her. She’s going to have questions. What if she doesn’t like us? And I just quit my job. How are we going to afford this? This is insane!”
“From the moment I got pregnant with Sebastian, all I’ve wanted was to grow our family. When I realized that I probably couldn’t get pregnant again, I didn’t see a way to make that dream a reality. But now, it turns out that you have a daughter. And she needs us. I am ready and willing and excited to open up my home and my heart to her.”
Even though he knows what we have to do, he genuinely seems terrified about taking up the role of this girl's father. I slide my fingers into his hair, letting them drag over his cheek to his chin. “We’ve been through the ‘for worse’ part, babe. Everything from here on out, is ‘for better’.”
He rises slowly and pulls me to my feet. His arms loop around my waist and his face tells me that he still can’t believe what’s happening. “I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he whispers, pressing his lips to my forehead.
"Because you didn't get trichomoniasis from Brittany?" I tease just to lighten the mood.
"You're an asshole." He chuckles, squeezing me tight.
“Just like you.” I grin.
Putting a soft kiss in my hair, he whispers, “No – you’re an angel. My angel.”
Chapter 40
Daniel
When I push open the front door, my mother is sitting on the couch with Sebastian in her lap as they read his favorite storybook. She looks in our direction with excitement shining in her eyes.
Grace lays her hand on Bella’s shoulder, gently coaxing her to step over the threshold.
“Hello…” my mother says softly as she lays the book aside. She’s obviously trying to restrain her excitement at meeting her granddaughter for the first time.
The little brown-haired girl gives Grace a tentative look then takes two small steps into the foyer.
I close the door gently behind them then give Bella my kindest smile. “This is your grandmother,” I say, introducing her to my mother. Something akin to fear flashes on her face and I give her a reassuring pat on the head. “You can call her Claire if you want. She won’t mind.”
My mother stands, with Sebastian on her hip. “It’s lovely to meet you, sweetheart.” Her nose grows red, the way it does right before she starts crying. Her voice gets choked up. “You have your daddy’s nose and his thick brown hair, don’t you?”
I chuckle and scoop my son out of her arms. “This is Sebastian," I tell my daughter. "Sebastian, say ‘hi’ to Bella.”
I watch in awe as my children meet each other for the first time. Sebastian examines his sister’s face for a long while. Then, he gives her the widest, toothiest grin.
Bella snickers and touches his little toes. She pulls back quickly and her grin fades as she throws Grace another furtive glance. My wife falls effortlessly into her new role as this little girl’s mother. “Pooh Bear, this is your big sister, Bella,” she tells our son. “Do you want to say ‘hi’?”
Giggling wildly, he waves at her. “Haa!”
“Hi!” Bella echoes. She already looks enamored with him and from the sparkle in his eyes, I see clearly that the feeling is mutual.
My heart nearly bursts at the sight of her smile and Sebastian's. I'm so relieved at their instant connection. It's been an emotional few days.
I was on edge this afternoon at Jim Thatcher's office where Grace and I met Brittany so that she could sign away her parental rights. I had been scared that she would change her mind at the last minute. But as I suspected, not a maternal bone in that bony body. Before the ink even dried on the papers, she was on a flight to Georgia to star as an extra in some reality TV show. Good riddance. If I never see her again, it’ll be too soon.
Anyway, since we were at Thatcher's office anyway, Grace and I decided to take care of some other unfinished business. I took great joy in informing that miserable piece-of-shit that Grace and I were calling off the divorce. I flung the petition at him and invited him to roll it up and shove it up his ass. Grace was mortified but that's what she gets for thinking that I'd ever let her go.
Mom takes Sebastian from my arms. “Come, let’s all go sit down,” she says, wiping her nose in a tissue, “Sebastian wants to show you the drawing he just made for you, Bella.”
The three of them make their way into the living room where mom proceeds to show Bella the colorful scribbles that she and Sebastian spent the afternoon working on in anticipation of the little girl’s arrival.
I stand at a distance, pulling Grace against my chest. The sweet scent of her shampoo fills my lungs and I kiss the top of her head. “Thank you,” I whisper into her hair. “Thank you for letting this all happen.”
She looks up at me with happy brown eyes. “I think we’re gonna be all right…” she says softly.
I nod and grin. “I think so, too.”
Chapter 41
Grace
Bending forward, I brace my knees. Breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, doesn’t help the queasiness in my belly. People dodge around me as they roll up their yoga mats and file out of the room.
Isla’s red-painted toenails appear in my peripheral vision and I squint up at her. “Hey – you okay?” she asks running a hand back and forth across my back.
Waving off her concern, I straighten. “Yeah – I caught whatever it is Bella brought home from school last week. You know how these kids are – cuddly, little cesspits for disease and misery.” I laugh.
Isla scrunches up her nose at me. “Ah – don’t say that! I’ve just started toying with the idea of having a baby myself!” she confesses. “Seeing you with Sebastian and Sammie with Hannah, plus Lily on the verge of popping, got me feeling all motherly and nurturing.”
Both of my eyebrows dart up in surprise. “Oh my gosh! I’m so happy for you guys.” I pull her in for a hug. “You and Reuben would make awesome parents!”
She smiles widely. “Don’t get too excited,” she says as she runs her hand down her belly. “I haven’t even talked to him yet. I’m waiting for the right time. I don’t want to spring this on him, y’know?”
I quickly scoop up my yoga mat and then flash her a smile. I’ve been blessed with a son, a daughter and a husband who all love me. I’m grateful for that and I want my friend to have the same thing and more. “I’m sure it’ll happen,” I tell her. “Soon.”
“Yeah, it’ll happen.” Isla grins. “Walk with me. I wanna chat.” She drapes an arm around my shoulder and guides me to the staff break room.
I check the time on my watch. “I guess I have a few minutes. Daniel’s picking me up. Appointment with the specialist Lily keeps insisting that I see about my ‘fertility situation’.”
Now, that I’ve told my friends all the gory details about the night of Sebastian’s birth, we talk freely about it and I no longer feel like I’m carrying the weight of the world on my own. It’s liberating.
“That’s good,” my friend tells me. “So, you can get some closure. Some definitive answers.”
“You sound like Lily,” I laugh. She does, too.
“Tell me – how are things at home?” Her eyes are eager.
A little hop slides into my step when I think about the way life has been going over the past few weeks. “Things have been going so well, Isla. Daniel and me are finally on the same page and we’re communicating. We have sessions with Serenity every week. Plus, Sebastian is finally sleeping –”
“My gosh – I’m so happy for you,” she deadpans. “For a while there, you were drifting around like a Walking Dead character who happened to wander off set.”
“Isla!”
“Girl, I was worried about y
ou!” We both laugh as we step into the break room. “How’s Bella adapting?”
I slide onto a plastic chair and Isla hands me a granola bar and a bottle of water. “She’s doing really well…She does have nightmares every now and then, and sometimes she gets really, really shy, but I love her so much. She’s like the pint-sized, female version of Daniel.”
“She’s got his nose.” Isla giggles.
“I know, right?” I take a swig of my water and I weave a bit, feeling woozy. “Anyway, she’s an angel and I’m so happy to have her in our little family.”
Isla clasps her hands over her heart. “Aww…”
“And did I tell you that she loves to cook? She made blueberry pancakes the other day. I barely had to intervene.” I beam proudly. “I think I’m going to have her as my little assistant on one of my upcoming cooking videos.”
“Look at you, putting the girl to work already!” Isla laughs and bites on her granola bar.
“Child labor laws don’t apply in my house. Everyone has to earn their keep. Even Sebastian goes to work. His job is emptying the dryer when the laundry is done. He loves it.”
“Haha! I bet.” When her laughter dies down, her face goes serious. “Actually there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
“What’s that?” I ask, leaning back in my chair and tugging on the waistband of my pants. All my clothes are so snug these days. I really need to lay off the cookies or else Daniel’s going to have to roll me down the stairs like a beer keg soon.
Isla suddenly looks agitated as she spins her water bottle around on the table in front of her. “We just found out that the person who’s been supplying cookies to Herbivore doesn’t actually make them from scratch in her home like she claimed to. The bitch buys cookies in bulk at Costco, reheats them in her oven and sells them to us at ten times the cost.”
My eyes bulge. “What?!”
“Yup,” Isla says with a sigh. “I need a new supplier. Stat!”
“I’m really sorry to hear that. People can be such dipshits!”
“I know…But I was wondering if you could do it?” She watches me with a pleading gaze.
I narrow my eyes at her and my stomach riots. “What?”
“Hun, I love your cooking. And all the girls do, too. I think that your baked goods would be a real hit if we got them into Herbivore. What do you say?”
“Isla, I’m speechless.”
“You don’t have to give me an answer right this minute. And besides you have to get to your doctor’s appointment…”
“Yeah, yeah!” I push my chair back and stand on weak knees. “Thank you so much for thinking of me.”
“Of course,” she says with a big grin. “We’re going to discuss the terms later on. Maybe if you have time next week you can whip up a meal for me and Reuben.”
“Sure! It’ll be a double date.”
She gives me a quick hug. “I’m sending you positive vibes for your appointment!” she says, disappearing into her office.
“Thank you!”
As I walk out to my minivan, I kind of want to do a jig.
Chapter 42
Daniel
Grace talks a mile a minute, telling me all about her chat with Isla, as I steer the minivan along Centennial Boulevard. I have a hard time keeping up because she’s so excited, rambling all over the place about her new potential business partnership with her friend. Still, I squeeze her thigh and ask her questions, supporting her as best I can. I’m so proud of my girl.
We fall silent as we wait in the doctor’s waiting room, though. I can sense Grace’s nervousness. I hold her hand the whole time, silently reassuring her that whatever the outcome, we’re in this together for life.
When her name is called, we meet with Dr. Maddow, an older man with glasses and a head of bushy white hair. He examines her and then sends her for a battery of blood tests and other exams right away.
We follow Kim, the young ultrasound technician, to a room where Grace is instructed to drape herself in a robe and lie on the table. I hold my wife’s hand as Kim squeezes jelly onto her stomach and rubs a wand up and down with her gaze glued to the monitor. I squeeze Grace’s fingers tighter when a confused-looking Kim calls for the doctor to come and double-check her findings. When my nervous wife looks at me, I give her quiet reassurance.
Just as the door is opening, Grace charges at the doctor and shoves him out of the way like a raging footballer. She bends over the sink and hurls up her guts. Her nerves have obviously gotten the best of her.
Dr. Maddow looks at the screen and mumbles. “Well, that explains the vomiting.”
“Excuse me?” I say. I hold Grace’s hair out of her face while she continues to puke.
The old man turns his full attention to us his eyes twinkling with amusement under his huge spectacles. “Mrs. Trotten, I’m pleased to inform you that, not only is your reproductive apparatus entirely healthy and functional—” he tilts the monitor so that we can see it. “—it turns out that you’re pregnant.”
Grace looks up from the sink, her jaw hanging loose in disbelief. “I’m…what?”
A slow smile spills across the doctor’s face as he repeats himself. “You’re…pregnant! I’d say about five weeks.”
Finally, I manage to get a few words out of my mouth. “We’re having a baby?”
The doctor nods assuredly, folding his arms across his chest.
“But I thought I couldn’t…” Grace prattles sentence fragments together. “Because of my C-section…All the damage and the scar tissue…The woman punctured my bowels…”
I try and help her out. “She thought that she’d been too badly injured by her C-section. She convinced herself that she’d never get pregnant again.” I’m laughing now. Not to mock Grace but because I’m just shocked and thrilled.
My wife’s speaks again in a trembling voice. “I read all these anecdotes. On all these internet forums…”
Laughing happily, Kim pats Grace on the shoulder. “Well, your body proved the internet forums wrong, Mrs. Trotten. Congratulations!”
I take my wife home that night in a haze of gratitude and disbelief. Gracie is silent while I make the kids some canned ravioli and I take over bedtime duty just to give her some space to come to grips with the news.
By the time I crawl into bed, she’s under the covers with the blankets pulled all the way up to her chin. I lie next to her, staring into her big brown eyes and running my fingers down her cheek.
“You okay?” I ask quietly.
She nods, her irises shining in the darkness. “I’m okay.” She bites her lip. “I just can’t believe that we got this damn lucky. We have everything. Everything. I almost feel guilty.”
She’s right. We came this close to ending our marriage, this close to throwing our ‘forever’ down the drain. And now, our relationship is stronger than ever and our family is growing yet again.
“Don’t you dare feel guilty,” I whisper. “‘Cause we almost didn’t make it.”
“I love you so much, Daniel.” She scoots a little closer and I press my lips to the point of her nose.
“I love you, too, Angel.”
We lie side by side in a companionable silence for a long minute. I count my many, many blessings. After a while, she looks at me and says, “Daniel?”
“Yes?”
“Next time the jellyfish stings, will you be the one to pee on my leg?”
I have no idea what she’s talking about but she seems to need an affirmative answer from me, she seems to need confirmation that I’ve got her back no matter what. “Yes, Grace. Yes, I will. I’d do anything for you.”
She’s quiet and think she’s dozed off until she speaks again. “What if we keep bickering?”
“Of course we’ll keep bickering. We’ve been bickering since the day we met. We met in law school – land of people who like to bicker.” She giggles. “You just need to remember that nothing will ever make me stop loving you, nothing. As long as you’ll have me
, I’m yours forever, babe. Forever.”
Gathering her in my arms, I kiss her. She laces her arms around my neck and releases a big exhale, relaxing into my hold. The harder I kiss her, the looser her tense muscles become. She begins to purr as my hands travel along her skin, exploring her body.
She’s carrying my baby. My beautiful Angel is carrying my baby.
When my palms smooth over her chest, her nipples are hard little points, begging to be touched and kissed. I move my attention there, squeezing one tiny nub between my fingers while I suck the other into my mouth.
Dirty Forever (The Dirty Suburbs Book 8) Page 20