Epilogue
FIRST CLASS
Lani
Eight months later.
I get up. Cross the room. She's in the crib with her fists curled and her eyes blinking open. My dark hair. My dark eyes. Ethan's nose. We've been arguing about whose mouth she has for three weeks.
“Good morning, Mia,” I say.
I pick her up. She settles against my shoulder.
In the kitchen, Lily is already on her stool at the counter, sparkly shoes on, Bun in her lap. Ethan is at the stove in a suit, with a dish towel over his shoulder. He looks like a man who runs a company and scrambles eggs at the same time because that's what his daughter expects.
“Lani!” Lily waves her fork. “Daddy made eggs but he put the cheese on wrong.”
“How do you put cheese on wrong?”
“It has to be on top. He mixed it in. That's a crime.”
“A crime,” Ethan says. “I'll do better tomorrow.”
I sit down next to Lily with Mia in my arms. Lily leans over and puts her finger in Mia's palm. Mia grips it.
“She's holding me,” Lily whispers.
“She does that,” I say.
“Because she knows I'm her sister.”
I look at Ethan. He's watching them with the dish towel over his shoulder and egg on his sleeve and the full smile. The full one.
On the fridge, held up by a magnet, is a card in a small white envelope.
Tessa's handwriting. She sent it for Lily's birthday last month.
Lily opened it at the kitchen table, with Ethan on one side and me on the other.
Inside was a drawing of a rabbit that looked nothing like Bun. Lily said it was perfect.
Tessa has been coming for supervised visits once a month. Lily calls her Tessa. Not Mommy. Not yet. That's her choice to make, and we're letting her make it.
“Lani,” Lily says, still holding Mia's hand. “Can Mia come to parent day when she's big enough?”
“She can.”
“Then we'll need three spots.”
“We'll figure it out.”
She nods and goes back to her eggs.
Maya comes over that afternoon.
She walks in and goes straight to Mia, lifting her out of my arms without asking.
“My niece,” she says. “My beautiful niece who I am going to spoil beyond reason.”
Mia stares at her with wide eyes. Maya stares back.
“She has your face,” Maya tells me.
“And his stubbornness.”
“God help us all.”
She sits on the couch with Mia in her arms. Looks at me.
“You're happy.”
It's not a question. But I answer it anyway.
“I am.”
“Good.” She looks down at Mia. “You deserve this. All of it.”
That night, after both girls are asleep, Ethan and I are on the couch.
“I was thinking,” he says.
“About what?”
“Maui.”
I look at him. “What about Maui?”
“First class is still a personality flaw.”
I laugh. He pulls me closer.
“I'm serious,” I say. “It's a flaw.”
“Then I have a flaw.”
“You have several.”
“Name them.”
“You put the cheese in the eggs instead of on top. You fold my dresses without asking. And you fell in love with a woman who argues with you about everything.”
“That last one isn't a flaw.”
“Depends on who you ask.”
He kisses me. Slow and warm.
“Lani.”
“Yeah.”
“I'm glad you didn't move when I told you that seat was taken.”
I put my head on his shoulder. His arm comes around me. Our daughter is asleep down the hall. Our baby is asleep in the next room. Tessa's card is on the fridge.
I think about a hotel bar in Maui. A stranger who said that seat's taken. A night I told myself was nothing.
It was never nothing.
“I'm glad too,” I say.
THE END
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