Chapter 14 #4
Then Hadley unwrapped herself from the pack and headed straight for Kyle. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she shook as she cried. “I was so scared something had happened to you!”
“It’s okay, honey. I’m fine. I’ve got a few stitches, but that’s it.” As he spoke, Briley sat down on the arm of the recliner and leaned in until he had an arm draped across Kyle’s shoulders. “You doing okay, bud?”
“Yeah. Just worried, but you look good.”
“I’m fine. And you guys are fine. That’s all that matters to me.”
“I see it’s a joyous reunion!” Twila called out as she plopped Myla’s backpack down on the sofa and strolled across the room. “These are some fabulous kiddos. They were perfect angels. Sierra could take some lessons from them.”
“Mom! I’m not a bad kid!” Casey and Twila’s eleven-year-old daughter whined from behind her. “I try to be good!”
“You guys staying for dinner?” Gina asked Twila, but the blond shook her head.
“Nah. We’ve gotta get going. We’re supposed to be having dinner with Casey’s parents.” Twila laughed. “I forgot to tell them your kids weren’t coming too. Oops! Guess I’ll have some leftovers for a few days, huh?”
“Hey, we’ll take some,” Kyle told her with a laugh.
“I’ll bring it! You can take some time to decompress.”
Gina smiled. “Hey, thanks. We really appreciate it.”
“Any time. And you,” Twila said and pointed at Kyle. “You take care of yourself.”
“I will. She’ll see to it. Tell Casey I said thanks.”
“Will do. Bye, y’all. Come on, Sierra. You’ve got homework.”
“Do I have to, Mom? I just …” They could hear the girl arguing with her mom all the way out the front door.
“So can we go get the stuff we left at your house?” Hadley asked as she rested her head on Kyle’s shoulder, his arm around her as she sat on the other chair arm.
“Your mom can take you there in a bit. I think Dad and Keith are still out there.”
Two hours later, they’d eaten dinner and Gina was taking her kids to retrieve stuff, as well as letting Myla get more things to bring there. Kyle’s phone rang and he smiled as he looked at the screen. “Hey.”
“Hi. You feeling okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
There was silence for a few seconds before Constance said, “Don’t you ever scare me like that again.”
“Oh, I have no intention of it. Didn’t mean to do it this time, so I’m sure not planning to do it a second time.”
“Good. Need anything?”
“Yeah. I need two witnesses next Friday.”
“Witnesses?”
“Yeah. At the courthouse. Before a judge.”
He could hear the fear in his sister’s voice. “Are they charging you with something?”
Kyle laughed. “Yeah. Being head over heels in love. So can you and Ray come down and meet us to sign off and let us make this legal?”
“Oh my god! Of course! You sure you want us?”
“Yeah. We’re going to have a party on Sunday after to make the announcement, but we don’t want anybody to know until it’s done.
No fanfare. No nonsense. Just us and two witnesses to make the relationship we already feel like we have official.
” He waited. How to say it? Finally, he said, “Connie, she was there with me.”
“Gina?”
“No. Becky. She was there with me. On the porch. I could feel her. I could practically smell her perfume. I knew she was there, and I wasn’t afraid because of her.”
“And now?”
“She’s gone. I think that was her way of letting me go.”
“I wish she’d picked an easier way,” his sister griped.
Kyle chuckled a little. “Yeah. But it’s over, and now we can have a good life together.”
“Becky would approve.”
He smiled. “I think she already has.”
Kyle fell to the mattress beside Gina, one arm behind his head and the other draped across his ribcage. “Good lord, woman, you’re gonna kill me!”
She rolled over and propped her chin on his ribs to look up into his eyes. “Yeah, but you’ll die happy, right?”
“Oh, yeah.” He unfurled the arm across his ribcage and held it out for her to shimmy into his embrace.
God, he loved her! The rough patch was over, and it had tested their relationship in ways nothing else could.
They’d survived it, and if they could survive that, they could survive anything. “Happy man.”
“You’re so cute.”
He chuckled and dragged a finger up and down her upper arm. “I’m cute?”
“Yeah. Even your O-face is cute.”
“My O-face is cute?”
“Yeah.”
“Like this?” He screwed his face up and stuck his tongue out.
“No. That’s not your O-face.”
“Oh. Okay. Like this?” He made another equally ridiculous face with his tongue sticking out one side of his mouth.
Gina laughed loudly. “No, not like that either!”
“Okay, so what does it look like?” She bit her lower lip, let her eyes roll up until only the whites showed, and groaned. “I do not look like that.”
“Yes you do!” she argued back, giggling. He dug his fingers into her ribcage and she squealed. “Stop! Kyle, stop it!”
His lips trapped hers and he kissed her deeply. When he pulled back, he grinned. “Well, I suppose my O-face isn’t as bad as I thought.”
“What does mine look like?”
He snorted. “I’m not going there. I don’t have lashes like yours, and that’s required to mimic your O-face.”
“Oh good lord.” She threw an arm across his belly and let her cheek rest on his pec. “Kyle?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“I don’t want you to take the pictures of Becky down off the walls. I think they’re important for Myla.”
“But I kinda feel like they’re disrespectful of you. And every time I look at one, I relive those last few months. They’re still bittersweet for me. She died because of Myla, and I struggled with that for a long time.”
“Struggled? How?”
Kyle stared at the ceiling, trying to collect his thoughts. “Because she died trying to have and save Myla, and it felt like she didn’t give a shit about me, about us. It took me a while to finally realize what that was about.”
“And?”
“I think she knew if she beat cancer that time, it was probably going to come back for her in the end, especially since she wouldn’t have any treatment while she was pregnant.
All she was thinking about was Myla. But I realized a few years ago that Myla was her legacy.
She knew if she died, Myla was the only legacy she’d ever have.
Without her, Becky felt like her life had been pointless, but with Myla, there would be generations later who’d tell the story of Becky’s sacrifice. Or, maybe I should say, her love.”
“I think you’re probably right.”
Kyle sighed. It was hard to talk about, but he was lying there with the woman he intended to spend the rest of his life with, and he owed her a conversation about it, about where his feelings for Becky stood and how he’d come to that point.
“I finally made peace with the idea that our relationship didn’t really matter.
It was about Myla, about finally having her, about keeping her healthy, about leaving a legacy.
Myla is the only legacy she’d ever have. ”
“That’s not true.” He felt her shift her face upward, so he craned his neck to look down at her. “She left you.”
“I’m not her legacy.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Gina sat up in bed and took his hand.
“The love she gave you? The lessons she taught you? Those are the things that made you the husband and father—the man—that you are. They were priceless. She left you as a legacy, Kyle. You’re the husband I always dreamed of.
You’re the father my kids never had. Her love for you, the love she gave you and showed you how to give to others through her sacrifice for Myla, is her real legacy.
And you’re living it out for the whole world to see, acting as an example for other young men coming up, like Briley.
Her pictures on the walls? I’m thankful for her in ways you’ll never understand, because she gave me the you that you are, which I’m pretty sure is even better than the you that you were before, and I’m pretty sure that was already awesome.
Your dad is an amazing man, so I know where you got it. ”
Kyle couldn’t say anything. If he did, he’d break down.
Or maybe she needed to see that side of him.
Holding back something that personal from her felt wrong.
His eyes filled with tears as he sighed.
“I never thought of it that way, so thank you. I guess in a lot of ways she prepared me to find you. I don’t know what would’ve happened to me if I hadn’t. ”
“Oh, you would’ve found somebody else,” she said and laughed as she wiped a tear from his cheek.
“Oh, yeah? Like that one woman I met?”
“What woman?”
Kyle propped himself up with a pillow against the headboard. “Haven’t I told you about the women I met on the dating site before you?”
Gina’s eyes went wide. “Some. There were others?”
“Oh, gawd, you just can’t … Okay, so there was this one woman, and her name was …” Kyle started telling her about first one and then another, and she laughed every time until he got to the farming woman who was so condescending.
“Wow, what a bitch.”
“Yeah. But see? You and me meeting? That was not a coincidence. That was more than not a coincidence. That was … divine intervention. Had to be. Because, I’ve gotta tell you, I was really, really striking out.”
“No. It was Sabrina. So my sister did us a favor.”
“I don’t know about you, baby, but she did me a huge favor!”
She snuggled up to him and pressed her cheek to his belly. “I love you, Emmett Kyle Miller.”
“And I love you, Regina Lorene Miller. Forever and ever, or until you forget to put more soft drinks in the refrigerator. Then I’ll still love you, but I won’t like you very much.”
“I’ll remember that. And if I find your dirty underwear behind the door in the bathroom one more time, I’m going to have to find a way to love you less. Of course, I’m not sure how to do that, but I’ll figure it out.”
Kyle grinned. “I’ll remember that too. So drinks in the fridge and no dirty underwear behind the door. Simple enough. Happy wife, happy life, right?”
Gina smiled and stroked a finger down his nose. “I want you to be happy too.”
He tightened his grip around her. “I am, baby. Trust me, I really, really am.”