Epilogue
Mommy and Daddy
Colton
May, Day Following the Adoption
“Don’t move,” Milo orders, holding up a staying hand.
I barely breathe, even though it leaves me standing on one foot like a wobbly flamingo, arms shot out sideways for balance. It doesn’t help that the dock is scorching my skin, but I take it just to obey my son’s command.
“Can I talk?” I ask through tight lips.
“Yes!” he exclaims. Paint drips from his brush and he bounces on his toes on a threadbare beach towel. “I’m almost done!”
By almost done, he might mean thirty more seconds or thirty more minutes. He takes after Cheyenne when it comes to creativity. Something my wife fully supports—which is why we’re here. Milo, with a child-sized easel and canvas, and me, balancing on my better leg for what feels like forever.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You know that I was standing on both feet when you started,” I say. “Right?”
Milo doesn’t look up from the canvas, tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth in concentration. I resist shaking my head at his nonresponse and I startle when he squeals.
“You can move!” He carefully sets his brush on the tray and holds that same hand out again. “But don’t look!”
“Don’t look?” I repeat incredulously. “You mean I stood like that for forever but I don’t even get to see it?”
Grinning, he nods emphatically.
“Well, I guess I’ll just go, then.” Feigning sadness, I drop my chin to my chest and turn for the lake house, moving at sloth speed. Slower, if possible. “I’ll be okay, though. No, really, I will be.”
Milo laughs. I hear his bare feet patter across the dock before he jumps in front of me. He plants his hands on my stomach to try and stop me.
“Don’t go,” he says, laughing, my slow movement scooting him backwards. “Please don’t go!”
I lift my head, eyes droopy, and look at him blandly. “I have to. Otherwise,” I add, sniffling loudly, “I might cry. Can I use your shirt for a tissue?”
“No,” he exclaims. His cheeks are flushed from trying to push me, his lips parted with amusement. “Daddy, don’t go!”
I stop completely. The sudden movement—or lack thereof—sends Milo tumbling into me, and he laughs harder. I steady him and let him take me by the hand to show me his painting, but my thoughts are snagged on that one word.
Daddy.
The adoption has been finalized for over twenty-four hours. Cheyenne and I have discussed extensively how we want to navigate what Milo calls us now, but we haven’t talked to him yet. I’ve been Colt and Cheyenne has been Annie for the last year. It’s natural, and with all the changes in his life, we don’t want to confuse him.
Maybe it’s his use of the word daddy for the first time that brings tears to my eyes when I look at his canvas, or maybe it’s the painting itself. Milo has an attention to detail that Jolene didn’t have at age five. It’s still very much a child’s painting, and I wouldn’t replace his blobs of color for even lines and symmetrical shapes if I could. But the dots of blue for my eyes and the bright yellow stripe on my hand for my ring speak of his deeply observant nature.
One that Cheyenne and I will foster for the rest of our lives. One that also makes me realize that accomplishments aren’t what makes you proud of your child. I’m proud of his ability to create like this, yes, but it doesn’t make me love him more. If he didn’t have that artist’s eye, I wouldn’t love him less.
Milo gazes up at me expectantly, head tipped all the way back. “Do you like it?”
“Milo,” I say around the lump in my throat. “I love it.”
Happiness lights his features—wrinkles his nose, sparkles in his pale blue eyes, pulls the corners of his mouth upward. Dimples that strongly resemble my own crease his cheeks, and he twists his body while holding onto my hand.
In word form, he wants to swim.
And I want to swim with him, just like any other warm night. But not until I address the monumental occurrence from moments ago.
“Hey, Captain,” I say, lowering to my knee. I squeeze his hand and slouch just enough to be eye level with him. “Can I ask you a good question real quick?”
Specification of question type shouldn’t necessarily be needed, but after learning of how hotheaded Vincent Pierre asked all questions, it’s something we’ve incorporated. Even when he’s done something wrong or disobeyed, we don’t want him to feel anything less than safe with us.
Milo nods.
“You just…” I pause, trying to determine the best way to phrase the question. I need to keep it understandable for a five-year-old, but I don’t want to sound accusatory. “You called me Daddy a couple minutes ago. I’m just wondering if that is what you’d like to call me instead of Colt?”
“Oh.” Tucking his cheek into his shoulder, he shrugs. “Aren’t you my daddy now?”
Swallowing, I nod. “Yeah, buddy. I am.”
“Then I want to call you my daddy ‘cause I want you to be my daddy.”
I feel like releasing a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “Okay, then. You can call me Daddy.”
He tilts his head inquisitively. “Is Annie my mommy?”
As he asks the question, Indi and Cheyenne glide their paddleboards into view from around the point. I let my gaze linger on my wife for a moment. When she throws her head back, laughing, she nearly topples off the board, and I smile.
“Yeah,” I tell Milo, shifting my attention back to him. “Annie is your mommy now, too.”
“Can I call her that?”
Emotion lodges itself in my throat. I pull Milo into my arms and kiss his blond curls. “She would love to be called Mommy, sweetheart.”
More than he might ever know.
It’s been a year since we started folding towels on the sofa together, and we still fold them differently. We could easily fold them my way or hers, but I go through to refold mine to match hers, and it steals us a few more minutes together. My theory is that we can’t be interrupted if we’re doing a household chore.
Tonight’s not any different. Except that, in some ways, it is. Milo is no longer my half-brother under my guardianship, and he’s not my son, he’s our son.
“You know,” Cheyenne says. The towels are long ago folded, and she leans back on the sofa. My head rests in her lap while lightning flashes across an onyx sky beyond the living room windows. “You haven’t said much about yesterday.”
“About the court hearing?”
Her fingers sift through my hair, and she shakes her head softly. “No. About the trip to Maine.”
I inhale a breath that fills my chest completely. “Not sure you can call it a trip.”
A trip to Maine would be longer than ten hours, travel time included. Tourists would eat freshly caught lobster at an Ogunquit hole-in-the-wall, go on lighthouse tours in Bar Harbor, and whale watch on the chilly, restless ocean. They would hike Acadia National Park and pick wild blueberries between stained fingers.
They wouldn’t visit their dead mom’s grave for the first, and possibly last, time.
Cheyenne lightly runs her fingertips across my forehead. “Colton. You know what I mean.”
I do. And that’s why I haven’t said much. This is supposed to be a happy week in our lives, not one where complicated emotion constricts me. But I know my wife, and I vowed on our wedding day to always be honest with her.
I blow out a long breath and stare up at the ceiling. “I don’t know how to describe it, Fini, but it feels like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders at the same time as it makes it real that she’s gone. I mean, I knew that. Obviously. But…” I shake my head. My hair rustles against her linen shorts and I rub my eyes. “I’m glad we did it. I am. I just kind of thought it would, I don’t know, make me miss her less or something. Which sounds ridiculous, but… I guess sometimes I miss her more now than I did before.”
“My love, that just means your heart is finally open to remembering her,” Cheyenne says gently. She brushes her thumb tenderly under my eye to catch a tear. “Don’t try to forget her, Collie. Try to forgive her.”
I inhale deeply, shifting to kiss the heart of her palm. “I know. I’m trying.” I look up at her. “Enough of that for now. Let’s talk about the Mommy and Daddy thing.”
Her smile becomes so dazzling it’s a good thing I’m not standing up. I meant it when I told Milo that Cheyenne would love nothing more than to be called his mother—as evidenced by the way she reacted when he did so the first time. She was rightly shocked, but as she hugged him tightly, she undoubtedly remembered the child she’d lost while she held the child who’d found her.
“Colton, when he said it…” Her teeth sink into her lower lip, and I barely suppress a groan. The smile she gives me says she knows exactly how she affects me. “I know we discussed it, but hearing him say it? I can’t even describe how it made me feel. I do think it’s good timing, though.”
My brow furrows. “Because?”
“Well, you know, since he’s going to have a sibling. I think it’ll be good for him to be accustomed to calling us Mommy and Daddy.”
Every muscle in my body stills. I sit up slowly, my gaze never leaving my wife as I try to comprehend her words. My eyes drop to her abdomen and lift to her face no less than twelve times before I manage to speak.
“Cheyenne…” My voice is hardly audible. Blood rushes in my ears and I stare at her incredulously. “Cheyenne, are you—are we…?”
“Yes, Collie,” she says, eyes shining. “You’re going to be a daddy again.”
Emotions I can’t fathom overwhelm me, but none of them are as strong as the love coursing through my veins with gale force wind strength. It locks off my throat and swells in my chest and hums through every nerve in my body.
“Fini, I…” I shake my head again. “Fini, I have never loved you more than I do right now.”
Tears run down our faces, and she leans forward to kiss me. I taste salt on her lips, and I pull her onto my lap. Twice folded bath towels topple onto the living room rug, thunder booms outside, and the dishwasher hums to life on its timer. I ignore everything that isn’t her weight against mine.
Long minutes slip by, rain falls and the lake house settles, but we remain still. The faded sofa ensconces us, her frame shaking with joyful sobs and my own tears landing on her warm skin. My fingertips hold her shoulders and her hair snags on my whiskered jaw.
I ease back only far enough to take her face in my hands and kiss her. I’m still shaking and so is she, our mouths dancing and moisture clinging to our lashes, but I need to touch her. I need her to know that she has never been more beautiful to me than she is tonight, pregnant with my child.
I ease her off my lap and I lower to my knees on the floor in front of her. I roll her camisole up over her stomach, and I place my palms on either side of her waist. I lean forward then, and I kiss the center of her abdomen. My thumbs brush the soft, tanned skin that will soon stretch to carry a child we created together.
I think about how beautiful my wife will look with a swollen belly under the glow of a summer sun, and about how Milo will react when he learns of a sibling. I wonder if the baby will have my dark hair or Cheyenne’s blonde, and how we’ll tell our families about the pregnancy. I feel immense gratitude that I retired from the rodeo circuit to be here, fully here.
And then I put every other thought out of my mind to dwell only on this very moment. Cheyenne’s skin is warm beneath my palms, her fingers tangle in my hair, and rain patters on the shingled roof. The flame of a Lake House candle flickers on white slatwall, perfuming the air with lake water and peony, and tree branches brush navy window shutters.
Long, long moments later, I lean back and hold my arm out horizontally. Cheyenne presses her quivering lips together and lines her forearm up beside mine.
“You and I,” I say, tracing my finger from her freckles to mine, “are infinity.”
“Infinity,” she repeats, whisper-soft.