Epilogue
“Dr. Booker, everyone is waiting in the conference room.”
I looked up and found Sheila waiting for a response to which I nodded, grabbed the notebook I used for weekly meetings, and headed out towards the conference room. When I stepped through the doorway into the room where I held weekly meetings, I realized how blessed I was to be doing what I do and what I love.
Dr. Patton approached me about three months ago and asked for me to take over the weekly meetings because she felt like the group had grown to trust my advice and methods of approaching conflicts within the team. She also told me it would help me in the case of wanting to run the clinic after she retired.
I didn’t know what to say to that or her trust in me, but I accepted the responsibility and found that my colleagues respected her choice.
The meeting was wrapped up in no time with few breakthroughs shared.
“Any other questions before we head out of here?”
Pete raised his hand. “Yeah, will it be an open bar at the reception, Dr. Booker?”
I saw him look at Tara who pretended to not be looking his way. I wish they would stop hiding. We all knew now.
Laughter filled the room. “My wife-to-be made sure there would be an open bar with multiple Uber drivers parked outside the hotel.”
More laughter.
“If that’s it, I’ll see you all this weekend.”
The clinic employed about thirty people in total and everyone, even Raheem who still gave Nala a side eye, had been invited to our wedding on Saturday.
I rushed to my office to grab my things and head out to the car to get home to her. Nala complained of feeling lightheaded this morning and I encouraged, more like ordered, her to stay home and have her sorority sister and friend, Kish, run her to the doctor. She listened to me only because I reminded her that Dr. Patton said she thought it was unhealthy for clinicians to not take the advice they give their overworked and stressed patients.
As soon as I walked inside the house that we shared now that I moved in with her, she had a funny expression on her pretty brown face. Her skin looked better than this morning. A glow was there that wasn’t when I kissed her and left this morning.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, tears in her eyes.
“What, Nala? Tell me.”
She took a deep breath before speaking.
“I just didn’t think there would be three of us getting married.”
“Huh?”
At first, I thought she was accusing me of some love triangle mess which would have been crazy because we were long past her insecurities, and I stayed the hell out of as many women’s faces as I could manage so what was she talking about? But then I looked at her more intently and what I saw were eyes that held a look of expectancy and not anger. It finally dawned on me.
“Wait… are you… are we?”
She nodded. “Yes, we are having a baby.”
I knew we weren’t technically using birth control but she was so meticulous about her cycle and keeping track of it and even though it took all my might not to cum inside of her when she was ovulating, I never disobeyed the directive. But somehow she got pregnant anyway. Love will come back to you…
I didn’t expect this to happen, especially since the last time I had, my mother died, but before I could stop it, tears filled my eyes with gratitude. Love had come back to me tenfold.
“I love you, baby. You are a wonderful gift. I can’t wait for you to become my wife.”
As her tears began to run down her cheeks, I could see the gratitude shining in her eyes. She was at peace and so was I.
“I love you, Zaire.”