Kate
The scent of coffee and something sweet—probably the blueberry muffins Beryl made earlier—fills the air.
Jackson softly closes the front door of Austin and Cecily’s house shut behind us, and we kick off our shoes in the entryway.
Jackson sets down the box of freshly laundered baby clothes I pulled out of the attic as soon as we heard they were being admitted to the hospital.
As we walk into the living room, my voice becomes so much softer and quieter than normal. “Hey, guys.”
Austin’s sitting on the couch, a yellow burp cloth draped over his shoulder. He looks half asleep, with a dopey smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Fatherhood suits him in a way I never expected. If Cecily softened him, this baby has fully melted my grumpy brother-in-law.
Giving him a smile, I move straight on to Cecily. “How are you doing? You look so good.”
Peaceful, radiant, tired. She’s glowing in that post-birth haze of joy and sleep deprivation you usually only see in movies, and my heart tugs in a way I wasn’t prepared for.
Since letting out all my big feelings and sharing the miscarriage secret with Jackson, I honestly haven’t really thought about how I should be pregnant right now.
Maybe because my brain knows my body’s not equipped for more pain anytime soon.
But this hurts a little.
“I feel good,” she replies softly. “Exhausted, though. We both are.”
I smooth a hand over Cecily’s soft blond hair, pushing a few loose strands away from her eyes. “We won’t stay for long—just wanted to come drop off those clothes and say hello to sweet baby Lucy.”
“No, no.” Cecily shakes her head. “You guys can stay as long as you want. Honestly, please, stay forever. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Oh, I remember that feeling all too well. Beryl was the only other woman around here when I had Odessa, and she spent many sleepless nights with me.
I laugh under my breath. “I’m literally right next door. You text me, or shine a flashlight at my windows, or anything, and I’ll be right over.”
“Careful what kind of promises you make. I’ll do it.” She gives me a look that devolves into tired giggles. “Do you want to hold her?”
“Do I?” I scoff. “Of course I want to hold my perfect little niece.”
She’s so small, yet chubbier than my own babies were. Her little mouth puckers in her sleep as I settle her against my chest, and I swear the world goes still. Her head’s covered in dark fuzzy hair, and her tiny, wrinkled fingers curl instinctively around my finger.
“She smells like heaven,” I whisper, completely taken.
“She is heaven,” Cecily responds, smiling up at me through wet eyes.
I step back and sink into the empty spot next to Jackson on the couch.
His arm falls around my shoulders, and I glance at him in my periphery, noticing the way he’s watching with keen interest. The fingers on his free hand come up to delicately brush her smooth cheek, and I can’t help but hope he remembers all the time he spent squishing Rhett’s chubby, rosy cheeks when he was a baby.
I don’t wait on him remembering things anymore, but when it comes to the kids, I wish he knew the joy of holding them for the first time as babies.
“Do you want to hold her?” I ask him quietly.
Jackson swallows hard. “I don’t remember how.”
“It’s muscle memory.” Getting one last good inhale of her baby scent, I pass her to him before he can say no.
He melts into the couch cushions, relearning the weight of a baby in his arms. And the look of wonder in his eyes is the exact reason why, once upon a time, I was willing to give this man as many babies as he wanted.
He stares down at her, quiet and reverent. His breath slows to match hers, and when she makes a small infant squawk, a cooing attempt to shush her comes naturally. I’m not sure I’ve ever loved my husband as much as I do here, now.
After we’ve accidentally overstayed our welcome—neither of us wanted to stop staring at her tiny button nose, big blue eyes, and long fingers—we say our goodbyes and promise to deliver dinner in a few hours.
I grip Jackson’s hand for the short traipse across the lawn to our house, my flip-flops clacking with each step through thick grass.
“They looked good together,” Jackson says, following with a long pause as he blinks up at an airborne robin. A muscle in his jaw ticks, and he opens his mouth for a long beat before words tumble out. “Would you want to do that again?”
The question catches me off guard. Not because I hadn’t thought about it, but because I wasn’t sure he had. After everything. After the hospital, the therapy, the slow crawl back to himself. After all the ways we’ve rebuilt the life we almost lost.
Sure, we agreed not to use birth control. And maybe to some people that would mean we’d agreed to have another baby, since we haven’t exactly been trying not to. But this is different.
“Do…do what again?” I ask to be sure I’m not jumping to conclusions.
“Have another baby. I’d want that if…well, if you’d want to.”
Jackson exhales like he’s been holding back from asking for another baby for a long time, and a crooked smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. I glance over, and he’s already looking at me without a hint of hesitation or fear or a need to fix things.
“I would,” I say, my voice catching a little in my throat. “Yeah. I think I really would.”
He squeezes my hand, then draws me into his arms.
I murmur against the fabric of his shirt, which smells faintly like a fresh newborn, “We’ve already done the impossible and started over from scratch. Who’s to say we can’t do it again?”
“This isn’t starting over, it’s growing.” He kisses the top of my head, then lingers there.
He might not remember the beginning, but when his heart beats in time with mine, I know we’re nowhere near the end.