20. Layla
— ? —
Layla
The backyard of our new house was a riot of pink and purple.
Streamers twisted from every tree branch, catching the breeze and dancing like ribbons.
Purple balloons clustered in bunches along the fence, bobbing gently, their strings trailing down to weights shaped like butterflies.
A bouncy castle took up half the lawn, its inflated turrets swaying slightly, already full of shrieking children who had abandoned their shoes in a pile by the entrance.
And in the center of it all, my daughter.
Cece stood at the cupcake table, surveying her kingdom with the satisfied expression of a tiny empress. Frosting was everywhere. On her fingers. On her dress. In her hair, where a streak of pink buttercream had somehow ended up tangled with the sprinkles she’d insisted on adding herself.
“More sprinkles,” she announced, reaching for the container.
“Baby, I think you’ve used enough sprinkles.” I tried to intercept her hand but she was faster, dumping another handful onto a cupcake that was already more decoration than cake.
“There’s no such thing as enough sprinkles, Mommy.” She said it with absolute certainty. “Sprinkles are happiness. You can’t have too much happiness.”
I couldn’t argue with that logic.
“Where did you learn that?” I asked, watching her move on to the next cupcake.
“Daddy told me.” She added a precise line of purple sprinkles along the edge. “He said sprinkles are tiny pieces of joy and you should always add more joy to everything.”
I looked across the yard to where Stefan was helping my father set up the pi?ata. He must have felt my gaze because he looked up and grinned, that same grin I saw every day on our daughter’s face.
“Your daddy is very wise,” I said.
“I know.” Cece nodded solemnly. “He’s the wisest daddy in the whole world.”
“What about me? Am I wise?”
She considered this for a moment, her face scrunching in thought.
“You’re smart,” she decided. “Daddy is wise. It’s different.”
“How is it different?”
“Smart is knowing stuff.” She waved her sprinkle-covered hand dismissively. “Wise is knowing the important stuff. Like sprinkles.”
I laughed so hard I had to sit down.
“Mommy, you’re being silly.” Cece patted my knee with a sticky hand. “It’s my birthday. You’re supposed to be serious about birthdays.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I composed my face into an expression of mock solemnity. “Birthdays are very serious business.”
“The most serious.” She turned back to her cupcakes. “Now help me. This one needs more chocolate.”
We worked together for a few more minutes, adding chocolate chips and sprinkles and little candy flowers to the already overloaded cupcakes. By the time we were done, the table looked like a unicorn had exploded on it. Cece surveyed our work with deep satisfaction.
“Perfect,” she declared. “Now I need to show Daddy my face.”
“Your face?”
“My butterfly face.” She pointed at her cheeks, where the face painter had spent twenty minutes creating an elaborate butterfly design in shades of pink and purple. “He hasn’t seen it yet.”
“Then you’d better go show him.”
She took off running across the lawn, her party dress streaming behind her, her voice carrying over the noise of the party.
“Daddy! Daddy, look!”
Stefan turned just in time to catch her as she launched herself at him. He scooped her up in one smooth motion, settling her on his hip like he’d been doing it her whole life instead of less than a year.
“What am I looking at, princess?”
“My face!” She pointed at her painted cheeks. “I’m a butterfly!”
“I can see that.” He examined her face with exaggerated seriousness, tilting her chin one way and then the other. “The most beautiful butterfly I’ve ever seen.”
“Really?” Her whole face lit up.
“Really. You’re so beautiful you’re making all the other butterflies jealous.”
“There aren’t any other butterflies, Daddy.” She giggled. “Just me.”
“That’s because they all flew away in shame.” He pressed his nose to hers. “They couldn’t compete with you.”
“You’re silly.”
“I’m honest.”
“Mommy!” Cece twisted in his arms to look at me. “Mommy, take a picture!”
I raised my phone, framing them in the screen. The image made my throat tight.
I snapped the photo.
“Let me see!” Cece demanded. “Let me see let me see!”
I crossed the lawn and showed her the screen. She studied it with intense concentration.
“We’re so pretty, Daddy!” She bounced in his arms. “Look how pretty we are!”
“We are pretty.” Stefan caught my eye over her head. “We get it from your mom.”
I rolled my eyes, but I was smiling. I couldn’t stop smiling. My face had been stuck like this all day, muscles aching from joy I didn’t know how to contain.
“Mommy’s pretty too,” Cece agreed. “But I’m the prettiest because it’s my birthday.”
“That’s how it works,” Stefan said solemnly. “The birthday girl is always the prettiest.”
“I know.” She patted his cheek. “You’re learning, Daddy.”
“I try.”
I looked around the backyard, taking it all in.
My parents were by the grill, my father flipping burgers while my mother fussed with condiments.
Pippa was in the bouncy castle with a group of kids, her hair flying, her laughter carrying across the lawn.
Nessa had come straight from the studio that morning, and she was currently deep in conversation with Stefan’s friend Jaden, their heads bent close together in a way that made me wonder.
Everyone I loved, gathered in one place, celebrating the little girl who had changed everything.
“Grandma!” Cece spotted my mother and began squirming. “I want to show Grandma my face!”
Stefan set her down and she ran off, her butterfly wings fluttering behind her. He watched her go with an expression that still made my chest ache every time I saw it. Disbelief that she was real, that she was his, that he got to be her father.
“She’s amazing,” he said softly.
“She gets it from her father.”
“She gets it from both of us.” He pulled me against his side, his arm settling around my waist. “We made something perfect, Lay.”
“We did.”
“Confession.” He kept his eyes on Cece across the lawn. “Four years of lying nearly killed us, so - full disclosure. My father’s people never picked your firm. I called them at midnight after the coffee shop and made sure the shortlist had exactly one name on it.”
“I know.” I patted his chest. “There was no research file, Stefan. Nessa checked in week one. We billed you accordingly.”
His laugh carried across the whole backyard.
We stood there for a moment, watching our daughter throw herself at my mother with the same enthusiasm she’d thrown herself at Stefan. My mother caught her easily, laughing, pressing kisses to her painted cheeks.
“I missed this,” Stefan said. “I know I keep saying it, but I did. I missed all of this.”
“You have it now.”
“I know.” His arm tightened around me. “And I’m never letting it go.”
I watched him cross the lawn to where Cece was waiting, her hand outstretched, ready to drag him into whatever adventure she had planned next. He let her lead him toward the bouncy castle, his large hand engulfing her tiny one.
Pippa appeared at my side, slightly out of breath and covered in what looked like grass stains.
“Your daughter is a menace,” she said cheerfully.
“Any word from Stella?” The question was casual, but her eyes weren’t.
“The lawyers wanted to hand it all to the DA. Forgery, fraud, the works.” I watched Cece drag Stefan toward the bouncy castle.
“Stefan said no. A trial means Cece in the middle of it. Depositions. Cameras.” I shrugged.
“Living alone in that house with everyone knowing what she did? That’s the longer sentence. ”
Pippa grabbed a cup of lemonade from the drink table. “So. You’re disgustingly happy.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“You haven’t stopped glowing all day.” She took a long sip. “It’s kind of nauseating, honestly.”
“You love it.”
“I do.” She leaned against the table beside me. “I really do. You deserve this, Lay. After everything. You deserve to be this happy.”
“I know.” The words felt strange in my mouth. For so long I’d believed I deserved the opposite. That I deserved to be alone, to struggle, to pay for some sin I couldn’t even name. “I’m still getting used to it.”
“Get used to it faster.” Pippa bumped my shoulder with hers. “This is your life now. Gorgeous husband, adorable kid, family that loves you. Own it.”
“I’m trying.”