Chapter 42 Tasha
forty-two
tasha
"I’m glad we chose the reveal cake," Paige said, consulting the checklist she'd made on her phone with scientific precision. "It's way more dramatic than balloons."
We were standing in the middle of my mother's backyard, which had been transformed into baby shower central.
Streamers in every shade of yellow and green hung from the trees, tables groaned under the weight of food, and enough presents to stock a small baby store were piled on a dedicated gift table.
"Dramatic is definitely what we're going for," I agreed, watching Nate arrange chairs with the same methodical care he brought to everything else. "Your dad might have a heart attack from the suspense."
"Dad loves suspense. Remember how he made me wait until Christmas morning to open that chemistry set?" Paige grinned. "Besides, he's been trying to guess for weeks. Yesterday I caught him googling 'early signs of baby gender' at breakfast."
The guest list was perfectly us—a mix of hospital family and actual family that showed just how intertwined our lives had become.
Maria had claimed the beverage station and was already holding court with my aunts, comparing stories about difficult doctors.
Sophia and Jack had arrived early with Madison in tow, who was currently teaching some of my younger cousins card tricks that probably counted as mild gambling.
"Oh, honey," my mother said, appearing at my elbow with a plate of her famous deviled eggs, "you need to eat something. You're eating for two now."
"Mom, I'm barely four months along. The baby is the size of an avocado."
"An avocado needs nutrients," she said firmly, then softened. "You look so beautiful, baby girl. Glowing."
And I did feel beautiful. The yellow sundress Nate had picked out hit just right, and my barely-there bump was perfectly framed by the empire waist. More importantly, I felt settled in a way I never had before.
Surrounded by people who loved me, carrying the child of the man I adored, watching my daughter—my daughter—orchestrate this entire event with the enthusiasm of a party planner.
"Tasha!" Mrs. Swanson approached, looking unusually fancy in a floral dress instead of her usual cardigan. "Where do you want me to put this?" She gestured to a beautifully wrapped box that was clearly a handmade something.
"The gift table is perfect, thank you so much for—"
"Nonsense. I've been knitting baby blankets since I retired. This one's special, though." Her eyes twinkled. "Gender neutral on the outside, but there might be a little surprise border that'll make more sense after the reveal."
Before I could ask what she meant, Paige appeared at my other side, practically vibrating with excitement. "It's time! Everyone's here! Dad's ready! The cake is perfect!"
I looked around the backyard and felt my heart do that swooping thing it had been doing a lot lately.
Everyone we cared about was here: Sophia and Jack, deep in conversation with my brother Marcus about something medical.
Madison, showing my grandmother photos of New Zealand on her phone.
Maria and my cousin Aisha, bonding over their shared opinion that all men were basically toddlers in disguise.
And Nate, standing near the cake table, looking nervous and excited and so handsome in his button-down shirt that I wanted to drag him inside and remind him exactly how we'd gotten into this situation in the first place.
"Okay everyone!" Paige called out, her voice carrying across the yard with surprising authority. "Time for the gender reveal! Mom and Dad, get over here!"
Mom and Dad. She'd been saying it so naturally lately that I barely noticed anymore, but today it hit me like a gentle wave. To everyone here, that's exactly what we were. Parents. Partners. A family.
Nate materialized beside me, his hand finding mine automatically. "You ready for this?" he asked softly.
"Are we ever ready for anything?" I smiled up at him. "But yeah. Let's find out if we're having a son or daughter."
The crowd gathered around as Paige presented us with a knife that was probably overkill for cake cutting but definitely added to the drama. "Everyone count down from three!" she instructed.
"THREE!" came the chorus of voices.
"TWO!"
Nate's hand covered mine on the knife handle, his thumb stroking gently across my knuckles.
"ONE!"
We sliced through the white fondant together, and the inside of the cake revealed itself in a burst of blue so vibrant it was almost electric.
"IT'S A BOY!" Paige shrieked, jumping up and down like she'd just won the lottery. "I'M GETTING A BABY brOTHER!"
The yard erupted in cheers and applause. My mother immediately started crying happy tears. Mrs. Swanson looked smugly satisfied in a way that suggested her surprise border definitely involved blue. Madison was already taking pictures, documenting everything for posterity.
But all I could focus on was Nate's face. The wonder and joy and slight terror of a man who was about to become a father again, eleven years after the first time.
"A son," he said softly, just for me.
"A son," I agreed. "Paige is going to be insufferable. In the best possible way."
"I'm going to teach him EVERYTHING!" Paige announced to anyone within hearing distance. "Baseball, science, how to make the perfect s'more, all the constellations—"
"How to avoid the friendship bracelet incident?" Sophia suggested with a grin.
"We are NEVER speaking of the friendship bracelet incident," Paige said with dignity, then immediately abandoned all pretense of sophistication. "But yes! I'm going to be the best big sister EVER!"
The afternoon dissolved into the kind of controlled chaos that only family gatherings could produce.
Presents were opened and exclaimed over.
Everyone had opinions about names (Paige was still lobbying hard for "Newton Crawford" as a middle name).
My aunts interrogated Nate about his intentions while simultaneously praising his obvious devotion.
Jack and Marcus discovered a shared love of obscure medical trivia and were deep in a debate about cardiac surgery techniques that was probably fascinating to them.
"Having fun?" I asked Madison, who was sitting slightly apart from the adults, scrolling through her photos.
"It's cool," she said with teenage nonchalance, then grinned. "Actually, it is really cool. Paige is going to be such a good big sister. And your family is..." She paused, looking for the right words. "They're loud. But like, good loud. Like they actually care about each other."
"They do. Sometimes to an annoying degree."
"Yeah, but..." Madison's expression grew thoughtful. "My dad's family was never like this. All quiet and polite and weird. This feels real."
Before I could respond, a commotion near the gift table caught our attention. Dr. Cameron Lee—somehow Sophia had convinced him to show up—was examining the baby monitor we'd received like it was alien technology.
"This has video capability," he was saying to Jack with the same intensity he probably brought to surgical consultations. "And smartphone connectivity. And temperature monitoring. Do babies really need this level of technological surveillance?"
"Wait until you have kids, mate," Jack laughed. "You'll want satellites tracking their every movement."
"I can't imagine," Cameron said, then caught sight of us and waved. "Congratulations on the future quarterback!"
"He could be a scientist," Paige called out defensively. "Or a doctor! Or an engineer!"
"All noble professions," Cameron agreed diplomatically, though I caught him exchanging an amused look with Jack.
"The cardiovascular monitoring features are actually quite sophisticated," came a crisp voice from behind him. "Though I'd argue the real innovation would be integrating early warning algorithms for respiratory distress patterns."
We all turned to see Dr. Delaney Ward approaching, looking perfectly put-together despite the casual outdoor setting. She wore dark jeans and a white blouse that somehow managed to look both relaxed and professional—a trick I'd never mastered.
Cameron's expression shifted, surprise flickering across his face. "Ward. I didn't expect to see you here."
"Sophia invited the ER staff," she replied smoothly, though I caught a slight tension in her voice. "I thought it would be... educational to observe normal family dynamics."
"Educational?" Cameron raised an eyebrow, and something in his tone made me think there was history there I didn't know about.
"Some of us didn't grow up in environments like this," Ward said, gesturing toward the controlled chaos of my family reunion. Her voice was neutral, but there was something almost wistful in her expression as she watched my cousins' kids chase each other around the yard.
"Right," Cameron said, and was it my imagination or did his voice soften slightly? "Well, if you're studying family dynamics, you picked a good one. The Williams clan could power their own anthropological research study."
Ward's lips curved in what might have been the beginning of a smile. "The intergenerational bonding patterns are quite remarkable. And the way they've integrated Mr. Crawford and Paige so seamlessly..." She trailed off, seeming to catch herself being too analytical.
"Sometimes the best families are the ones we choose," Cameron said quietly, and I definitely didn't imagine the way Ward's eyes sharpened on his face.
"Yes," she agreed, her voice equally quiet. "I suppose they are."
As the afternoon wound down and people started trickling out, I found myself in the kitchen helping my mother wrap up leftover food. Through the window, I could see Nate and Paige in the backyard, cleaning up streamers and collecting the mountain of gifts we'd somehow accumulated.
"He's a good man," my mother said quietly, following my gaze.
"The best."
"And Paige adores you."
"The feeling's mutual."
"You're happy." It wasn't a question.
I watched Nate laugh at something Paige said, watched him ruffle her hair with the absent affection of a father who'd been doing it for eleven years. Watched them work together to fold up chairs, their easy partnership the result of years of just the two of them against the world.
Soon it would be the three of us. And then four.
"I'm terrified and overwhelmed and completely out of my depth," I said honestly. "But yes. I'm happy. Happier than I ever thought I could be."
My mother squeezed my shoulder. "That's what love is supposed to feel like."
An hour later, we were finally home, the car loaded with enough baby gear to supply a small daycare. Paige had claimed the passenger seat and was reading aloud from a baby name book, providing running commentary on her favorites.
"Okay, what about Oliver? That's nice and normal, but not boring. Oliver Crawford." She tried it out thoughtfully. "Oliver Newton Crawford, if we go with my middle name suggestion."
"We'll consider it," Nate said diplomatically.
"Or James? That's your middle name, Dad. James Newton Crawford?"
"Paige," I said gently, "maybe we should wait to see what he looks like before we decide?"
"But I want to start calling him something! I can't just say 'the baby' for five more months!"
"How about 'little brother' for now?" Nate suggested.
Paige considered this. "Little Brother Crawford. I can work with that."
Back home, as we carried presents and leftover cake inside, I felt that same sense of contentment that had been growing stronger every day. This house, these people, this chaotic, beautiful life we were building together—it was everything I'd never known I wanted.
"Best shower ever?" Paige asked, flopping dramatically onto the couch.
"Best shower ever," I agreed, settling beside her. "Though I think Mrs. Swanson might have spiked the punch."
"Grandma Rose definitely did," Nate said, joining us with three glasses of water. "I saw her adding something from a flask."
"Family tradition," I said with a grin. "No Williams celebration is complete without Grandma Rose's 'special ingredients.'"
Paige curled up against my side, her hand resting gently on my small bump. "Hi, Little Brother," she said softly. "Today was your first party. You're going to love being part of this family."
And as Nate settled on my other side, his arm coming around both of us, I realized that Paige was absolutely right. Our son was going to love being part of this family.
Because it was the kind of family worth fighting for, worth building, worth believing in.
The kind of family that turned a scared single father, a guarded nurse, and an abandoned little girl into something bigger and stronger and more beautiful than any of us had ever imagined possible.
The kind of family that would never, ever let him go.