Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 56603 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56603 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Epilogue
Tyler
“Mommy, can I listen to your hawtbeat?” Bridget, who’d turned four a few months ago, asked as she toddled over to the couch. Mia was curled up in the corner, watching her play.
“Sure, baby girl.” Leaning over to lift the toy stethoscope off Bridget's neck, Mia showed her how to use it. “You pop these into your ears, and then you take this end and put it right here over Mommy's heart.”
Our daughter listened intently to my wife, just as she always did. She was a miniature version of Mia but with my blue eyes. She’d wrapped me around her finger the moment she was born, just like I expected her baby brother to do in about a month.
Noticing that Mia’s bottle of water was empty, I grabbed another one from the fridge and poured a sippy cup of juice for Bridget. Then I carried them over to my girls and dropped onto the couch next to my beautiful wife. “Do you want to listen to Daddy's heartbeat, too?”
“Yes!” Bridget scrambled onto my lap and pressed the stethoscope to the middle of my chest.
“Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump,” I mimicked the sound of my heart beating.
Mia giggled when Bridget pressed her tiny hand against my mouth and shushed me. “Quiet, Daddy. I can’t hear your hawt when you make all dat noise.”
I licked her hand, making her squeal and yank it away. “Sorry, sweetie. Daddy will try to do better.”
Mia shook her head sadly and reached over to tickle Bridget’s side, making her giggle. “Silly Daddy. He doesn't understand how your toy works.”
“Hey!” I complained. “I use the stethoscope at work every day.”
Bridget shook her head. “No, Daddy. You drive the ambuwance, and Mommy uses the sketcherskype.”
“I do a whole lot more than drive the ambulance, sweetie,” I corrected my baby girl.
“Daddy knows how to use a real stethoscope, but he wasn’t home when we got your special one. He didn’t get the chance to read the instructions, so he doesn’t know how it works yet,” Mia explained.
“Okay.” Bridget beamed a smile at us before dropping her stethoscope on the couch. Then she climbed down from my lap to run over to her pink princess tent in the corner of the room.
I chuckled, remembering how I’d complained about those pink pillows when Mia moved in with me. Times had definitely changed. Bridget’s bedroom was painted pale pink, and there were pink and purple toys and clothes scattered throughout the house.
Mia picked up Bridget’s toy and handed it to me. “Go ahead. Give it a try.”
I popped the eartips into my ears and bent low to press the bell end against Mia’s chest, but she stopped me. “It isn’t strong enough to hear my heart through these”—she pointed at her tits, which had gone up another cup size during her pregnancy—“but it’ll probably work on you. I was surprised when I was able to hear Bridget’s heartbeat with it.”
I placed the diaphragm over my heart and listened for a moment. “Wow. You’re right. It really does work.”
“Toys today are so different than when we were kids,” she sighed, rubbing her hand over her rounded belly. “There are only a little more than four years separating these two, and so many things have already changed. Just the other day, Vi was telling me about this new formula milk maker that’s even better than the one we used with Bridget. You’ll be able to make a bottle in seconds in the middle of the night, without having to worry about the formula clumping up in the machine.”
That explained the mystery of the blue-wrapped present my cousin dropped off at the station today. When I’d asked what was inside, she told me to wait and open it with Mia because she’d be excited. That was all I needed to curb my curiosity until I got home. Anything that made my wife happy was a priority for me. “It sounds like you’d like to get a new one.”
“Yeah,” she sighed after taking a sip of her water. “You know how often I got frustrated with the clump of formula where the water dispensed with the machine we used for Bridget.”
I laid my hand over her belly, waiting for my baby boy to kick it. “Remind me to grab the present out of my truck later because I’m pretty sure Vi already got us one.”
“Yay!” Mia clapped her hands together. “I’m such a lucky woman.”
“I know what you mean, sweetheart.” I brushed my lips over hers. “The best thing anyone has ever done for me was to fix me up with you.”