Epilogue #3
hen Piper is in Tobias’s arms, and he goes completely still, his eyes widening. “She’s warm. She isn't heavy.”
“Seven pounds, eight ounces.”
“That’s little.” He looks down at her again, and Piper moves one tiny fist, and he gasps. “She moved. Does she know me?”
“Not yet.”
He considers that. “She will.”
My throat closes. “She will.”
He touches one finger to her hand, and Piper’s tiny fingers curl around it, and his mouth opens.
“Oh.” Ryan’s hand finds mine. Tobias stares at her fingers wrapped around his. “I’ll teach you frogs. And fishing. And French.” I laugh softly. “She has to learn Russian too. Becca can help.”
Then something beyond her catches his attention, and his forehead wrinkles. I follow his eyes. The pelenashka, resting with Piper’s things beside the bassinet. “That’s Mommy’s,” he says. The room goes quiet.
“Yeah.”
“She wore that. At the lake.”
My eyes fill. “Yeah, buddy.”
He looks back at Piper, his little face going serious. “So Piper gets Mommy too.”
I can’t answer. Ryan does, his voice wrecked. “Yeah, dude.”
Tobias nods, like that’s settled. Then he looks down at his niece. “That’s our mommy. Her name was Jane.”
I break, my hand flying to my mouth, a sob tearing through me. Ryan’s arm comes around me. Behind Tobias, Cassandra starts crying and Walter turns his face away and Katya makes a tiny broken sound. Tobias doesn’t notice.
He’s looking at Piper. “She liked the lake.”
“And she knew how to make grilled cheese,” I manage, a laugh breaking through the sob.
“But Ally makes it better.” He looks up at me. “You do.” Then he looks back down at Piper. “Mommy loved Ally a lot. And me.”
“More than anything,” I whisper.
Piper’s tiny fingers are still wrapped around one of his. He watches them, then leans a little closer to her. “She would’ve loved you too.”
The sob that leaves me hurts, and I fold into Ryan, and he catches me.
Not because Tobias fixed it. He didn’t. Nobody can.
Mom should be here. She should know Piper is a girl.
She should have heard us say her name. She should be holding her.
She should be crying with Cassandra and Katya.
She should get to watch Tobias become an uncle.
She should get to be Piper’s grandmother. She should be here. And she isn’t.
I lift my head. Tobias is still holding her carefully, still letting her tiny hand hold his finger.
I reach for him. “I love you.”
His little face softens. “Ya tebya lyublyu.” Then he looks down at Piper. “You too.”
And he keeps holding her, beside the little pelenashka made from our mother’s things, while Piper Jane sleeps in her uncle’s arms.
Ryan
By the time Tobias finally gives me my daughter back, he’s been holding her for forty-three minutes. I know because I’ve checked the clock twice. Not because I want Piper back. Mostly.
He sits in the chair beside Ally’s bed with pillows stacked around him, one arm under Piper exactly where I showed him, staring down at her like the rest of us have stopped existing.
Piper’s asleep. Tobias isn’t. He has spent most of the last forty-three minutes telling her everything he thinks she needs to know about being alive — frogs, fishing, which ice cream is best, why Cat can’t be trusted to catch frogs because she screams when they jump toward her, three Russian words, four French words, and the fact that her grandmother’s name was Jane. That part wrecked all of us.
He’s quieter now, one finger brushing the edge of Piper’s blanket. “She has to eat soon?”
“Probably.”
“What does she eat?”
I glance at Ally, who laughs softly from the bed. “Milk.”
“Oh.” Tobias looks at Piper again. “Can I feed her?”
“Not yet, buddy.”
“Why?”
“Because this is something Ally has to do.”
He accepts that immediately. “Okay. But I can do bottles later?”
“If Ally wants to pump or we use bottles, yeah.”
“I can do one?”
Ally answers before I can. “You can do lots of them.”
His entire face lights up. “Even at night?”
I laugh. “Especially at night.”
Ally gives me a look. “You’re not outsourcing night feeds to the six-year-old.”
“He volunteered.”
“I’ll do it,” Tobias says.
“See?”
“Ryan.”
I smile — not because I’m trying to annoy her, but because she’s sitting in a hospital bed with our daughter in her brother’s arms, exhausted and sore and safe enough to argue with me about imaginary future bottle schedules.
Because Piper is here. Ally is here. Tobias is here.
I keep looking at all three of them like I need to make sure.
Tobias glances down at Piper. “Can she sleep in my room?”
“No,” Ally and I say together.
His forehead wrinkles. “Why?”
“She sleeps with us for a while,” Ally says.
“With you and Ryan?”
“Yeah.”
His eyes stay on her, and something changes — small enough most people probably wouldn’t notice. I do. “Where do I sleep?”
Ally’s face falls. I crouch in front of him. “Wherever you want.”
“My room?”
“Yep.”
“Or yours?”
“Yep.”
“Even with Piper?”
“Even with Piper.”
He looks at me. “What if she takes my spot?”
“She doesn’t have a spot.”
“She’s little.”
“Exactly. She gets her own little bed beside ours.”
He thinks about that. “So I can still come?”
“Always.” Ally reaches for him. “Come here.”
Tobias looks down at Piper. “I have the baby.”
I take Piper carefully while Tobias climbs onto the edge of Ally’s bed, and she wraps both arms around him. “You still have your room. You still have us. You can still crawl into our bed whenever you need to. Piper doesn’t change any of that.”
Tobias’s face presses against her shoulder. “Okay.”
“You’re still my Toby.”
He lifts his head. “And she’s my Piper.”
Ally’s eyes fill. “Yeah, baby.”
He looks at me. “Our Piper?”
I can’t speak for a second. I look down at the seven-pound, eight-ounce person sleeping against my chest. “Our Piper.”
“Okay.” Apparently that’s enough. He kisses Ally’s cheek, climbs down, and comes over to inspect Piper again.
Cassandra has been watching from near the window, her face wrecked again. None of us have stopped crying long enough today for it to matter. She comes closer, and instead of opening the door and announcing anything, she just walks to the side of the bed and asks, “Do you want them to come in?”
Ally’s eyes lift to hers. “Now?”
“Only if you want them now.”
Ally looks down at herself — the hospital gown, the blankets — then at Piper in my arms. Cassandra waits. “What if I say no?”
“Then they keep waiting. If you want another hour, you get another hour. If you want the rest of today, you get the rest of today. If you want me to tell every person out there to go home and come back tomorrow, that’s what I’ll do.
” She smooths a piece of hair from Ally’s face.
“You don’t owe anybody access to you because they’re excited.
” She looks at Piper. “Or her. Nobody holds that baby unless you want them to.”
Ally looks at me, and I know what she’s about to ask before she does. “What do you want?”
“Whatever you want.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Yeah, it is.” I look down at Piper. “Of course I want them to meet her. But Piper’s not going anywhere.” I look back at Ally. “And neither are you.”
I watch it land. Her eyes close for a second. When they open, she looks at the door. “All of them came?”
Walter nods. “All of them.”
“I want them,” Ally says. “All of them. I want her to meet everybody.”
Tobias raises one finger. “But not all at once.”
Walter nods seriously. “Excellent point.”
Ally laughs. “Definitely not all at once. But can we go slow?”
Cassandra’s whole face softens. “As slow as you want.”
She reaches for the handle — and Tobias bolts through it before anyone can stop him. “YOU CAN COME MEET HER!”
Walter closes his eyes. “So much for crowd control.”
For the first time in hours, Ally laughs hard enough that she has to hold her stomach.
Cat comes through first. Kaid is right behind her, which probably means she shoved everyone else out of the way.
She makes it three steps and stops, both hands over her mouth. “Oh my God.”
Penny appears behind them with X and immediately starts crying, and X puts his hand on the back of her neck. Nobody says anything for a second. I look down at my daughter — still asleep, already destroying people.
Cat finally looks at Ally. “You did it.”
“I did.”
“You fucking did it.”
From the hallway: “One dollar!”
Cat closes her eyes, digs a dollar from her pocket, and holds it behind her without looking. Tobias runs in, takes it, and disappears again.
Then Cat comes to Ally — not Piper, Ally — and bends carefully to hug her. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m so proud of you.” Only then does she look at Piper, her hand pressing to her chest. “Holy shit. Can I?”
Ally nods. I sit Cat down and put Piper into her arms, and every trace of humor disappears.
“Oh.” Her voice breaks. “Hi, Piper.” Kaid stands behind her, his hand settling on her shoulder. She touches Piper’s fist with one finger. “You are so loved already.” Then she tips her head back at Kaid. “Your turn.”
“No.”
“She isn’t going to break.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Sit down,” I tell him.
He looks at me. “I know how to hold a baby.”
I just look back. He sits, and I lower Piper into his arms, and he goes rigid. “Relax.”
“I am relaxed.”
“You look like you’re defusing a bomb.”
“Shut up.” Then Piper yawns, and Kaid stops, his whole face changing. “Hey,” he whispers. He looks down at her for a long time, then at me. “She’s perfect.”
I glance at Ally, who’s crying again. “Yeah,” I say. “She is.”
Penny gets her next — already crying before I put Piper into her arms, X behind her with a hand on her shoulder. “Oh, sweetheart.” She looks down. “She looks like Ally.”
“Thank God,” I say, and Ally turns her head slowly.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re beautiful.”
She stares at me, then melts. “Oh.”
I lean over and kiss her. “Yeah. Oh.”
X looks down at Piper. “She does have Ryan’s eyebrows.”
“Don’t ruin this for me.” Penny laughs.
Piper’s hand opens, and X reaches down, and her fingers close around one of his. He goes quiet. “Hey, little girl,” he says, softer than I’ve heard him in a long time.