Epilogue
Labor is nothing like the books describe it.
Twenty-seven hours. That’s how long it takes for our daughter to decide she’s ready to meet us. I spend most of it convinced I’m dying, then convinced I’m not dying but wishing I were, then too exhausted to care either way.
My husband never leaves. Not once. He holds my hand through every contraction, feeds me ice chips, and tells me I’m strong when I feel anything but. At hour nineteen, I call him a bastard in Portuguese, and he just laughs and kisses my sweaty forehead.
“You’re doing so well, querida.”
“I hate you,” I tell him. “This is your fault.”
“I know.” Antonio kisses my sweaty forehead. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re not sorry enough.”
He doesn’t argue.
At hour twenty-three, I tell him I’ve changed my mind about the whole thing. Motherhood isn’t for me. Someone else can do this. He brushes the hair from my face and says, “Too late. She’s almost here.”
At hour twenty-seven, she arrives.
The cry is the first thing I register. It is reedy and impossibly loud for something so small. Then the weight of her on my chest, slippery and warm, and I forget how to breathe.
“Oh,” I whisper. It’s the only word I can manage.
Antonio leans over us, one hand cupping our daughter’s head. His eyes are wet. I’ve never seen him cry before.
“She’s perfect,” he says.
I look down at her scrunched face, her tiny fists, the dark hair plastered to her scalp. She looks like him. The shape of her nose, the set of her brow. Already so much her father’s daughter.
“Hi baby girl,” I say.
She stops crying. Her eyes are open now, unfocused and dark, staring up at nothing and everything.
I wonder what she sees. If she recognizes my voice from all those months of reading to her. If she knows she’s safe.
We’d argued about names for months. He wanted something Portuguese and I wanted something that wouldn’t get her bullied in a classroom.
Then one night in bed, he’d laughed and said, “We should name her Elvis. Since Vegas started all of this.”
I’d rolled my eyes. “We’re not naming our daughter Elvis.”
“What about Presley?”
I’d gone quiet. Presley. It was unusual, but not strange. Strong. A bit country, a little rock and roll. And every time we said it, we’d remember that night in Vegas.
“Presley Carmen,” I’d said slowly. “After the King and after your mother.”
His eyes had gone soft. “You’d name her after M?e?”
“She’s the reason you’re the man you are.” I’d traced his jaw with my fingertip. “Seems right that our daughter should carry a piece of her.”
“Presley Carmen Da Rocha,” he’d kissed me then. “It’s perfect, querida.”
Now I look at our daughter and the name fits her.
“Hi, Presley.” I touch her cheek. “I’m your mom. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m going to figure it out. I promise.”
Antonio’s hand covers mine where it rests on her back.
“We’re going to figure it out,” he says. “Together.”
Three hours later, I’m cleaned up, stitched up, and propped against a mountain of pillows with my daughter asleep on my chest.
The exhaustion is bone-deep. I should be sleeping too. But I can’t stop looking at her. Can’t stop cataloging the way her lips purse in her sleep, the flutter of her eyelashes, and the small sounds she makes that aren’t quite snores.
Antonio is sprawled in the chair beside my bed, passed out cold. Apparently, emotional labor is just as exhausting as actual labor. I’ll give him grief about it later.
There’s a soft knock at the door.
“Come in,” I say.
The door opens and suddenly my room is full of people.
Meesha is vibrating with excitement, and Jessa is right behind her, holding a pink balloon that says IT’S A GIRL in glittery letters. Behind them come Jaxon, Connor, Kamal, and finally Carmen.
She pushes past everyone else, her eyes locked on the bundle in my arms.
“Minha neta.” Her voice trembles. “My granddaughter.”
She reaches the bed and stops, her hand hovering over Presley as if she’s afraid to touch her.
“Would you like to hold her?”
Carmen’s eyes snap to mine. They’re bright with tears. “May I?”
“She’s named after you.” I ease Presley off my chest, cradling her carefully. “You should be the first.”
Carmen takes her and settles into the chair on my other side, and I watch her face transform. She stares at Presley as if she’s witnessing a miracle.
“She looks like Antonio did,” she says. “When he was born. The same hair. The same little chin.”
Meesha appears at the foot of the bed. “She’s so tiny. Was she always this tiny?”
“She was bigger on the inside,” I say.
Jessa laughs and swats my arm. “You just gave birth and you’re making jokes?”
“Coping mechanism.”
“Fair.” She leans in to look at Presley, who is still sleeping peacefully in Carmen’s arms. “God, Jas. She’s gorgeous. You made a gorgeous baby.”
“Antonio helped.”
“Barely,” Meesha says. “You did all the work.”
“I’m going to remind him of that for the rest of our lives.”
Connor, Kamal and Jaxon hang back, doing that thing men do around newborns where they’re clearly terrified of breaking something. Jaxon gives me a nod and a quiet “Congratulations.” Connor and Kamal smile.
The room fills with quiet chatter. Meesha fusses with the flowers she brought. Jessa dodges Jaxon’s questions about when it will be their turn. Carmen refuses to let go of the baby, and no one has the heart to make her.
Antonio wakes up somewhere in the middle of it, blinking in confusion at the crowd. When his eyes find mine, he smiles.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“Like I pushed a watermelon through a keyhole.”
He winces. “She’s really here.”
“She’s really here.”
We watch our daughter together with our friends’ voices serving as a soft chorus around us. Carmen is crying again, happy tears that drip onto Presley’s blanket.
Antonio’s traces circles on my palm, and I glance down at the rings on my finger. We married three weeks ago in his mother’s backyard, with strings of lights woven through the trees and our closest friends watching. When he slid his wedding band on my finger, he whispered, “Minha esposa.” My wife.
The thought still catches me off guard. I’ve spent so long being alone, being careful, being ready to leave before I could be left.
And now I have a husband who worships me, a house with both our names on the deed and a daughter sleeping in her grandmother’s arms.
I think about the road that led here. The accident. The lies I told myself about not needing this, about being fine alone forever. The walls I built so high.
Antonio climbed them until he was standing beside me, asking to stay. And I let him.
Meesha catches my eye from across the room and smiles. Jessa is showing Jaxon something on her phone. Kamal and Connor argue about a hockey game. Carmen hasn’t looked up from Presley once.
This is my family. Not the one I was born into, but the one I chose. The one that chose me back.
“Querida,” Antonio says. “You should sleep.”
“Not yet.” I squeeze his hand. “I don’t want to miss this.”
“Miss what?”
“All of it.”
For the first time in my life, I’m not waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m just here. Present. Whole.
And that’s enough.
That’s everything.
~ * ~
Books of Characters Mentioned in this Story…
What Happens in Vegas: Jessa & Jaxon
A surprise Vegas wedding. A snowstorm that traps them together. Jessa wants an annulment. Jaxon wants forever. When frenemies become lovers, sparks fly. But can Jessa trust her heart with the one man she’s spent years trying to avoid?
What Happens in Vegas: Meesha & Connor
Meesha, torn by doubts before her wedding makes a reckless mistake that spirals into a nightmare. As secrets unravel and danger follows her home, they must face heartbreak, truth, and a love that may not survive the fallout.