EPILOGUE
She brought a child into this world.
It wasn’t easy. She was in labor for twelve hours straight.
But when it was all said and done and she’d cried every cry and squeezed the blood out of Vince’s hand, it happened.
With the aid of her OB/GYN on the scene and her doula for support on the scene and Vince just in the way, she delivered a bouncing baby boy.
It was exactly four months after they returned from their honeymoon in the Netherlands and was spending the week at the house in Connecticut.
But even with all of that support, Ricki was ready to murder somebody, most likely Vince, if that baby didn’t finally get out of her.
At eleven-fifty-nine on a Thursday night, he came.
And all of that agony she was feeling, and all of that resentment Vince was harboring for the way she was cussing him out, disappeared as soon as their son showed his beautiful biracial face.
It was the most joyous moment of their entire lives.
Even their wedding, which was magnificent, couldn’t compare.
Once the nurse cleaned the baby up and handed him to his mother as she sat up in bed, Vince got in bed beside them and held his son too. He never thought he wanted children until he fell in love with Ricki. Now he was already ready for more. “One down,” he said. “Four more to go.”
Ricki looked at him like she was going to cuss him out again, but then she smiled. “The day you go through twelve long hours of labor pains is the day we’ll have five kids. But until that day comes, I’m sticking with two. One down. One to go.”
Vince laughed. He’d take two any day of the week. He’d be happy with just this one just as long as he came from Rasheda.
“Now we need to name him,” he said. They were of the opinion that it was bad luck to name a child before his birth.
Vince didn’t really believe that, but he went along with Ricki.
“His name is Vincent Eric David Fontaine,” she said.
“Eric in honor of my sister Erica. And David in honor of my brother Davey.”
Vince was touched. “Excellent choice,” he said.
“You don’t mind he’s not a Junior?”
“No way. I never liked Junior.”
“Me either,” said Ricki. “Junior is like less than. But our son is going to be more than we could ever be. He’s the second in a long line of great Fontaine men. That’s what I was hoping for.”
“And that’s what we got,” he said. Because it was anything for Rasheda as far as he was concerned.
Especially after the year they’d had. Althea and that head guard and those thugs she had paid to take out her own cousin all were arrested and were awaiting trial.
Davey was doing great and was working for Vince as an executive.
And he was good at it. He was no longer an outcast who was stuck in that Godforsaken house with their parents. He had changed so much.
But nobody had changed more than Ricki. Which had Vince smiling. “Remember when you declared up and down that you’d never bring a child into this crazy world?”
Ricki owned it. “I remember it well.”
“What changed?” he asked her.
That was an easy call too. “My life changed,” she said and looked at him.
“You changed my life, Vince. That’s why I don’t need to go to those trials to justice served and that’s why Davey is excited about the future too.
I’m done with that old life of mine.” She looked at Vincent Eric David Fontaine. “I’m too blessed to be stressed.”
Vince was looking at the baby too as he held him. “Out with the old,” he said. “In with the new.”
Ricki smiled. “That’s it,” she said. “In with the new. That’s it right there. That’s all we need is a fresh start. That’s all we need to get by. That’s it.”
But Vince had a different take on what that meant. “You’re it for me,” he said. “You and this little man right here. You two are all I need to get by.”
“Ah,” Ricki said as she leaned against her husband. And they couldn’t stop staring at and admiring that little human being they had on their hands. That sweet, innocent, adorable little boy they were more than thrilled to be completely and unabashedly responsible for.