Another tear slides down her cheek, but Margot smiles. Her lips stretch, her eyes shine, and her hands curl into my shirt.
I watch Margot’s throat bob as she swallows.
Finally, she speaks. “Okay.”
That one word saves me.
It’s not poetic. It’s not eternal prose. It’s not a lengthy profession of love…
…but it’s perfect.
Okay means yes. It means she’ll let me in. It means all this hasn’t been for nothing.
Okay means I love you, too.
My heart flips in my chest as a laugh bubbles up through me. “Okay?”
She nods, smiling through her tears. “Okay.”
Pulling me toward her by my shirt, Margot kisses me, and my world is complete. The instant her lips touch mine, I know I’m the luckiest man in the world.
Her kiss is magic. It’s healing, it’s hopeful, it’s her heart, and it’s all mine. Wrapping my arms around the woman of my dreams, I tangle my fingers into her short hair and kiss her harder. Our tongues dance, our breaths mix, and our hearts beat as one.
When I drop to my knees and press my lips to her belly, tears start sliding down my cheeks.
“Hi there,” I say to the baby, putting my hands on her stomach. “I’m your father.”
A tiny, strangled sob escapes Margot, and she places her hand on my head. I rest my cheek against her stomach, breathing in her scent, her aura, her love.
Then, the baby kicks me right in the jaw. I jump back, yelping, and Margot laughs. She lifts her shirt up, and I see tiny feet pushing out from inside her. My eyes widen as I stare, on my knees in front of her.
“He does that when he’s happy,” Margot explains. “He must like the idea of having you as a dad.”
“He?”
Margot shrugs, smiling. “I decided not to find out, but I think it’s a boy. He’s always kicking and moving around.”
I let out a long sigh, putting my hand against my son’s foot. He kicks against me a few more times before settling down, and another lump forms in my throat.
Vicky lets out a sigh, and we both turn to see her wiping her eyes with a tissue. I’d forgotten she was there. She shakes her head at us, turning away. “It’s too much. Too perfect. My poor heart can’t take this. I need to go call my kids.”
Blowing her nose into the tissue, she turns and shuffles down the hallway toward the office.
Margot laughs, her hands still tangled in my hair as I kneel in front of her.
I look up, my heart overflowing with happiness. I can’t stop smiling. There’s a tingling sensation through my whole body, and my chest feels light.
I hold the love of my life in my arms, knowing I’ll never let her go.
Epilogue
Margot
Turns out, I was wrong. We didn’t have a boy after all.
Our baby girl, Hope, was born at 2:36pm on the first of April, after a thirteen-hour labor. She weighed a whopping nine pounds, four ounces. I guess she was enjoying her existence inside me, and didn’t want to come out at all. She entered this world kicking and screaming, like the fighter she is.
When Dante held her for the first time, he melted into a puddle of fatherly goo on the hospital room floor. I cried, then. Really cried. Maybe it was the hormones of pregnancy and labor. Maybe it was the emotion of seeing my daughter for the first time.
Whatever it was, I let go of all the nasty feelings that held me back from believing Dante when he said he’d be by my side. I cried, cleansing myself of the past and readying myself for the future with my baby and my soon-to-be husband.
We were married a year later, when my body was mostly recovered and Dante and I had slipped into a happy life together. Our wedding was in Argyle, in the same place that Ivy married Luca. Ivy was my maid of honor, and she cried during the entire ceremony. Having my sister by my side at my wedding meant the world to me. If I’m completely honest, I cried most of the time, too.
Hope and Ivy’s twins, Coco and Hazel, acted as flower girls. The three of them were perfect, running down the aisle on clumsy, chubby, one-year-old legs. The three girls were best friends the instant they met when they were a few days old, and they giggled through the wedding, reminding us how much we loved them.