Epilogue—Part Two
Robby
Four years later
“Ember, I’m going to get you!” I say, laughing as our wild three-year-old runs away from me through a row of grapevines. She shrieks with laughter, running further down the row. I could catch her, but I don’t. Anything to wear her out is a win.
Our girl.
I laugh at myself now for thinking Appa was sassy. Ember has Appa’s fire times ten with a defiant flair when she chooses, and I’m not looking forward to her teenage years. She’s already three, and I swear it was last week I heard the ultrasound tech tell us Appa was having a girl.
We were buzzing the days leading up to Appa’s anatomy scan during her second trimester.
Appa was finally herself again after the first trimester symptoms subsided, and I was obsessed as soon as she started showing.
Nonna was convinced that we were expecting twins because of how early Appa bumped out, but it was just the combination of a petite mom and a tall dad.
Nonna still didn’t believe us, even after we showed her Appa’s ultrasounds.
“Did you want to find out the gender?” the ultrasound tech asked, smoothing cold gel over Appa’s stomach that made her wince.
Appa lit up and answered quickly. “Yes!”
We talked about whether we wanted to know or be surprised for weeks, weighing the pros and cons, but on the way to her appointment, Appa looked over at me while I drove and said she wanted to know. Either way was fine with me.
Let’s be real. With Appa, I never minded a damn thing.
“It’s a girl!”
Appa turned her head so fast from the screen to see my reaction. Her cheeks were lifted from smiling so hard.
“A girl,” she whispered to me.
Damn, Nonna was right about that. She said Appa was carrying too wide and high for the baby to be a boy, but we both thought she was losing it. Now I understand.
But a girl was a relief and meant a smaller baby, right? I was concerned about the baby’s size in relation to Appa’s frame, even though it seemed irrational. I knew she could handle anything, and her body was built for this.
Ember’s brown ringlets bounce as she keeps sprinting, loud with laughter, but she skids to a stop when Enzo appears at the end of the row.
“Uncle E! Uncle E!” She stretches her arms above her head, and he pulls her up into his arms. He’s technically Cousin Enzo to her, but since I didn’t have siblings, I let her think that.
It was cute. Especially because her actual uncles in Georgia had nothing to do with Ember or us, for that matter.
And Enzo was like the brother I never had.
“Lose this?” he teases me when I approach them.
I smirk. “No. It’s all part of the plan.” He passes her into my arms, and I run my hand over the back of her head. “When’s it going to be your turn, E?” I ask. We’re both thirty-two now, and he watched his younger brothers as they all became dads.
“Whenever I meet my Appa,” he says with wistfulness in his voice. His gaze drifts toward my mom’s house where Appa is.
To be clear, Enzo wasn’t the type to give your girl a second look, but I knew how much the past five years had gotten to him as we all grew into our families except him.
He and Appa have developed a solid friendship, and he’s amazing with his nieces and nephews.
I think he has a soft spot for Ember in particular.
“You will,” I reply. “Catch you later?” Enzo just nods and turns the other way. I shift my neck to look at the squirmy little girl in my arms. “Want to go see Mommy?”
“When will she be better?” Ember asks me with her big puppy eyes—another trait she picked up from Appa. Ember looked so much like Appa, but my dark features came through in her, making her blue eyes at birth change to brown by her first birthday.
“Soon.” I kiss the side of Ember’s hair to hide the fact I’m choked up thinking about everything Appa has endured over the past few years.
Ember’s birth was less than glamorous. Appa went into labor right on schedule and was cursing my name when I forgot where I was supposed to press on her back during the contractions for counterpressure.
“Robby, here,” Mom instructed, pressing on Appa’s lower back while she braced herself against the counter. I replaced my palms with hers, pressing harder than my mom.
“Is that helping?” I asked Appa.
“I don’t know…maybe,” she breathlessly replied.
Many hours, one failed epidural, and a threatened C-section later, Ember was born.
The doctor predicted she’d weigh around seven pounds, but she was closer to eight and a half.
Almost more than Appa could take. It was a blur, but I’ll never forget whispering to Appa that she did it when they put Ember on her chest for the first time.
Appa couldn’t hold Ember for hours at first, weak because of her anemia and exhaustion, but they both made it. That’s what mattered.
“Why is she sick?” Ember asks.
I set her down and take her little hand in mine, so she can’t run off again.
“She’s not sick, just had surgery. She’ll be better in the long run,” I say to Ember as we walk back toward my parents’ house.
Mom and Appa are sitting on the front porch, Appa lounging on the outdoor couch with a blanket over her.
It’s early spring and getting chilly as the sun sets past the mountains in the distance.
“Promise, Daddy?” Ember asks, looking up at me.
I shudder when I make eye contact with Appa from a distance. “Yeah, I promise,” I say and give her hand a gentle squeeze.
After Ember’s birth, Appa swore off getting pregnant again following the traumatic birth, and I nearly got snipped. But on Ember’s second birthday, she watched Ember play with her little second cousins at the vineyard, and I knew the look on Appa’s face. It was yearning after the trauma subsided.
Once two-year-old Ember was in bed for the night, I gently asked Appa if she wanted to try again, only because I had a feeling about the answer.
We both agreed to quietly try for six months, and if she didn’t conceive during that time, she would get the hysterectomy she wanted.
We didn’t watch the calendar and had sex whenever we felt like it, not changing anything.
Appa was pregnant again before the six months were up.
I thank God for letting Luca come into our lives.
Appa’s doctor wanted to be safe and scheduled a C-section this time around.
Appa, at seven months pregnant, asked if they could do a hysterectomy while she was open in the operating room.
The doctor hesitated, not loving the idea of the back-to-back procedures, but ultimately agreed after warning her about complications and recovery time.
She didn’t flinch. It’s truly what she wished for—she’d never have to worry about missing anything because of being bedridden once a month, and Ember would get a little sibling.
We have our boy and girl now, and I couldn’t ask for anything else.
“Hey, Em, come here.” I kneel to her height and pull her into my arms. “I love you, Evie.” Another nickname stems from her initials. She was named Ember Beatrice after my mom, and we named him Luca Robert. But because his initials are LV, the nickname Vegas stuck quickly thanks to Enzo.
“I love you, Daddy.”
“Hey, my big girl!” Appa greets Ember. I sit at the end of the couch, resting my arm on Appa’s covered calves as Ember climbs in between us.
“Be careful,” I warn.
For a small child, she was a bowling ball of clumsiness and energy, and we had to remind her that Appa and Luca were fragile for now. She still has a few weeks of recovery left, but this is the best day she’s had since the operation.
Mom stands from her chair and hands Luca off to me. “Ember, let’s go see your nonno,” Mom says, picking up Ember and taking her into the house.
I hold Luca up Lion King style, being mindful of his head, and the evening sun catches the wisps of hair on top.
“He’s losing the newborn scrunch,” I tell Appa, looking up at him.
I move him to my chest, my hand covering nearly his whole back as she passes his blanket.
I loved when Ember took naps on my shoulder as a baby, and it was one thing I was most excited about with the new one.
“Aw, I’ll miss that.”
“Me too.”
Luca was smaller than Ember at birth but still a perfectly healthy weight.
She probably could have delivered naturally fine and gotten a hysterectomy later, but I know she’s relieved to have it over with.
The only downside to his birth was that I met him first while Appa was still under general anesthesia.
Minutes old, he looked identical to Ember, but days later, his facial features were starting to resemble mine.
The door opened, and a bassinet rolled in. “Ready to meet your boy? He’s seven pounds, ten ounces, and twenty inches long,” the nurse announced.
I immediately stood and approached the hospital bassinet, and in between the clear plastic walls was our Luca wrapped in a hospital baby blanket with a little hat fitted onto his head. My breath caught the moment I saw him.
My chest warmed just as it had when Ember was born. “Hi, buddy,” I said to him, lifting him into my arms for the first time. He felt light as a feather after wrangling his three-year-old big sister. “How’s Appa?”
It hadn’t been an hour since they wheeled her into the operating room. I held her hand while the general anesthesia took effect, counting back with her, but she hadn’t made it far when her eyes closed. I had to leave then and wait in the solitude of her recovery room.
“Hanging in there. It’ll be another couple of hours,” the nurse answered.
“Okay, thank you.” As soon as we were alone, I redirected my attention back to Luca. “Your mom is so brave, and after this, she won’t have any more pain.”