ONE YEAR LATER
“So when is Rachel leaving again?”
Will looks at Clare, his therapist, through the computer screen. He had brought up the idea of him starting therapy again—he’d gone for a year or so as a kid after his dad left but nothing since—on the drive home from Nashville, and Rachel had of course supported him. He’s been going to Clare for about 10 months now. They normally do appointments in person, but he knew today was going to be a little chaotic around the house, so the week before, he asked to do a virtual session.
“Tonight at eight o’clock,” he says. “My mom is getting here in an hour to help me with the baby while Rachel’s gone, so she and I are going to go out to an early dinner first, and then I’m going to drive her to the airport.”
“That’ll be nice for the two of you. When was the last time you did that?”
“Dinner, just the two of us? Wow. Sometime in March? I think? My in-laws watched him, but they texted with questions so many times it kind of felt like we never left.”
Clare smiles. “You’ve come a long way. When I first started seeing you, you were so nervous about becoming a dad you said you were scared you wouldn’t know how to hold a baby. Now you’re making jokes about Rachel’s parents asking you questions and about to take care of a seven-month-old while she’s on the other side of the country.”
“Well,” he says, looking off camera, “her parents were texting her, not me, and I’m not going to be on my own the next few days, so I’m not sure how much credit I should take.”
“Will,” Clare says. She doesn’t proceed until he’s looked back at her. “You’re doing great. And one of the things we’re going to keep working on is getting you to allow yourself to see that. Okay?”
“Okay,” he says. “Thank you.”
“Of course. See you next week.”
He hangs up the call, and before he’s even shut down his computer, the door to his and Rachel’s room is being nudged open from the bottom.
“I promise we weren’t eavesdropping,” Rachel says, pushing it all the way open now that she’s sure Will is done. “But someone is very excited to see his daddy. I think we set a new land-speed record for crawling from the kitchen to the bedroom.”
“Hey, buddy,” Will says, closing the laptop and walking over to pick the baby up off the ground. “How’s my guy?”
Taylor William Armas-Easterly was born in early November, three and a half weeks early and two weeks after Rachel had been put on full bed rest due to high blood pressure. She spent 30-plus hours in labor, Will next to her all the way through the delivery (but looking elsewhere during the epidural), and the baby spent a few days in the NICU. Nothing was ever dire, and everyone came through it healthy, but for all the joy, it was not an easy month. Will was grateful he had already started with Clare, and Rachel was grateful to no longer have a human being residing in her stomach.
They had chosen the name Taylor, his mom and Katie’s maiden name, in September, right around the time Will and Ali took that trip back to Ann Arbor that Rachel had suggested. Michigan beat Colorado State in football, they got drunk in a bar afterward, and Will asked Ali to be the baby’s godfather. They’d hugged and then toasted it outside Moonshine Manor.
In addition to the tribute aspect, Will and Rachel liked Taylor because they knew it would work equally well for a boy or a girl. Will did second-guess it briefly right after Rachel delivered and she was holding the baby in her arms, worrying that people might assume he’d been named after a certain famous musician.
“So, what’s your point?” Rachel cooed without taking her eyes off her newborn. “I just spent over a day pushing him out of me, and I’d be thrilled to have people make that connection.” Nuzzling her nose to his, she added, “Yes, I would.”
Will loves watching Rachel with Taylor, particularly when she’s bopping around the kitchen with him, listening to the music of his official unofficial name twin. Rachel is a natural, just as he knew she’d be.
She says the same thing about Will, who’s now closing his eyes while the baby plays with his nose. When it feels safe, Will opens them again, and Rachel is grinning lovingly at him.
“What?” he says.
“Nothing. Just you two. Like there was ever any doubt.” She takes a step closer and kisses them both on their foreheads. “Do you have him while I take a shower?”
“Yup, we’re good. We’re going to read.”
He carries Taylor to his room, and they settle into the blue glider chair where Will and Rachel take turns rocking him to sleep before naps and bedtime. In a typical week, Taylor goes to day care three days, with Rachel working from home with him on Thursdays and Will on Fridays. Today, though, they’re all home on a Tuesday as Rachel gets ready to go.
She’s heading to Los Angeles for an interview at Creative Vices.
The person they had hired for the associate creative director position the year before had recently accepted a job somewhere else, and Rochelle wanted to know if Rachel would be interested in interviewing to replace them.
“So, what do you think?” Rachel asked, burping Taylor after his bottle. This was less than two weeks ago, so coordinating everything with their jobs and the baby even just to get her out there for the interview would be a lot.
“What do you think?”
“I told Rochelle I was interested but that I needed to talk with you first.”
“And are you really? Like, not because you think I’d want you to do it, but because you want to?”
“I mean, it’s still intimidating. But, yeah, I really am.”
“Then you should go for it.”
Her eyes narrowed in on his. “That was fast.”
“It’s what I think. As a wise woman once told me, it’s not a job; it’s an interview for a job. We’d have all kinds of stuff to figure out if it goes further than that, not to mention how you’d feel being that far away from Isa right now.” She and Owen had been on a trial separation since the spring.
“But Rochelle clearly loves you,” he continued. “So since you are interested, I think you should at least check it out. If nothing else, it’s a free trip to LA and a couple nights of uninterrupted sleep.”
“I think that sleep thing was about you,” she whispered to Taylor as he spit up on the cloth on her shoulder. Then she looked back at Will. “We’ve come a long way from a year ago, haven’t we?”
“In some ways, yes. Then again, I think I still might be high from those Cannabis Queen edibles.”
She laughed. “I love you.”
“I know.”
That made Rachel smile, and Will smiles thinking back to it before opening Dogs Can’t Go to the Zoo and starting to read to his son.