Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 94436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Janet arrived the same day as my father, within only a few hours of him, which made no sense since I’d only texted her the night before to tell her that Ruby had entered the world safe and sound. I was sleep deprived and full of hormones, but I was pretty sure that math did not compute. Though I figured it out quickly when we were sharing a cup of tea while I was feeding Ruby.
“You moved here? To America?” I gaped.
Janet smiled, nodding with her hand lightly brushing Ruby’s head. “I did.”
I stared at her. “Why?”
She looked over to where my father and Jay were smoking cigars on the balcony. “Because, my girl, love makes you do some crazy shit.”
I blinked.
My heart bloomed. “My dad? You love him?”
She turned back to me with her brows raised. “Of course I fucking love the man. I’d be mad if I didn’t.”
Janet. And my father. How had I not seen it?
Oh, because I was busy being pregnant, kidnapped and helping my husband find his way back to me, that’s why.
But still.
I hadn’t seen the most wonderful thing in the world. Well, second to my daughter. And my husband.
My father finding love.
So yeah, Ruby’s birthday was pretty fucking eventful.
And me, just having given birth and all, found everyone being around a lot. Jay, being Jay, noticed that I was overwhelmed and kicked every single person out without apology. He was greedy for us to be alone, that much I knew. And I was too.
Leaning on Jay heavily, I watched Ruby sleep peacefully in her bassinet beside our bed. I’d never seen anything more beautiful in my life. There was a smattering of dark hair on her tiny head. I already knew that she was going to take after her father.
“If it was a boy, I’d know what to do better,” Jay commented, speaking low, being careful not to wake her.
Our daughter.
“I’d teach him how to be strong, how to defend himself, his mother, how to be the man I wasn’t.” He looked down at the little scrunched up, chubby, perfect face of our daughter. My heart cracked with the love and fear injected in his gaze.
I moved my hand to cradle his jaw, the one that seemed so strong, like granite, but was as fragile as an eggshell in my hands.
“You will teach her how she deserves to be loved,” I whispered. “You will teach her that there will be never a person on this earth who loves her as much as her father. You will teach her how to throw a punch. How to make a mean fettucine. To appreciate classical music. To love poetry. You will teach her a thousand and one things.”
Jay looked up at me. “Just like her mother taught me. A thousand and one things.”
My eyes filled as the sea breeze filtered in the windows.
Epilogue
Eighteen Months Later
My father got married in New Zealand.
To Janet.
Obviously.
Though she was quite happy to live in Missouri with my father, she was intent on getting married on the beach in New Zealand. Since my father utterly adored her—he worshipped her—he, of course, agreed.
They got married on the beach, the one I’d once considered as mine, the one that turned out to be theirs. I was more than happy about that.
Ruby was their flower girl. She walked down the aisle with her father because she didn’t like to be far from him. And because she was unsteady on her little feet. He did not like to be far from her either.
Ruby was a daddy’s girl. Which I didn’t mind since she was also a mommy’s girl. Our beautiful, dark haired, emerald eyed girl had more than enough love for the both of us. For everyone. She was a happy baby. Peaceful. Barely even cried.
At the beginning, I was on the phone to the doctor constantly, freaking out that there was something wrong with her. There had to be something wrong with her.
But she was perfect.
Jay was perfect with her. Calm. Patient. Adoring. The same way he was with me. His hands were always on me, his lips, too, waiting for the day that the doctor gave us approval to have sex again. Although we didn’t do that well at waiting since I’d seemed to heal quickly, and the hunger for my husband was impossible to deny.
Though becoming parents was something that wholeheartedly changed the landscape of our world, it somehow did not change us. Did not change who we were. It didn’t fix us either. We still had our problems, Jay still had his demons.
But we battled. For each other.
For our daughter.
The one who flew across the world at just one year old without a fucking peep. She lounged happily in her father’s arms the entire trip. And then she never left the side of the grandfather she adored, the one who adored her right back.