Epilogue
Cole
“Well,” Gabby shakes her head apologetically at Lydia, “I did try and save it, but you know everything happened so fast.” She holds up the tattered remains of Lydia’s wedding dress. “This is the first time I’ve ever had to deliver a bride’s b abies.”
Lydia laughs. Her eyes are tired, but she’s still glowing with happiness, our daughter tucked into her arms.
“Don’t worry, she wasn’t planning on ever wearing it again,” I tell Gabby with a grin, looking down at my own charge, a little boy with a full head of brown hair.
“Oh, someone’s awfully cocky,” Lydia teases, and Gabby laughs.
“Congratulations you two. On both the wedding and the birth.”
“Thank you,” we both say in unison. The second Gabby leaves, Josie and Saul poke their heads in.
“Well, that was the most exciting wedding I’ve ever been to,” Josie says by way of greeting .
“That’s what we get for throwing a wedding when the bride was 35 weeks pregnant,” I say with no real regret.
“Thank you for all your help,” Lydia tells her, referencing the fact that it was Josie who found Gabby, also a wedding guest, and rushed her over to where Lydia lay on the basement couch, her labor having come on fast and unexpectedly. The first baby, our son, was delivered right there in our basement before the ambulance even arrived. Our daughter was born en route to the hospital. And now here we are, tucked away in a recovery room. Not exactly the honeymoon we planned, but then again, nothing about our relationship has ever been to plan.
“Now I hope you’re planning on taking the four weeks of paternity leave I offered you when I hired you,” Saul says sternly. “And if you give me one of those babies to hold, I may even make it five.”
Lydia and I both laugh, but she looks at me expectantly. “I’m the mother,” she informs me primly. “You give up your baby.”
I shake my head with a chuckle, but do as she says. “Meet Abraham, Bram for short.”
“Abraham, a fine strong name,” Saul declares. “I take it you named him after the biblical figure.”
“We did,” Lydia confirms, and our eyes meet as we remember that day in our kitchen so many months ago when we first discussed Abraham’s story.
“Here’s hoping he always remembers how much he needs God.” I reach over and tuck a piece of his swaddle blanket back into place, marveling as I do just how much has changed for me in recent months. When Lydia and I finally left that sand dune to return to reality, I had about ten voicemails from my old boss offering me my job back and one far more exciting voicemail from Saul offering me a job working as his company’s full-time lawyer. After what happened with Benton Hotels, he’d decided to move towards acquiring and investing in bed and breakfasts like the Robin’s Nest instead and hoped I would join his team to help with all of the subsequent legal work he’d be requiring. I had happily accepted and also happily withdrawn my name from the mayoral race, much to my dad’s dismay. Here’s to hoping meeting his grandkids softens him up a little.
“Amen to that,” Josie agrees, peeking over Saul’s shoulder. “Now I get to hold the other one, right?” She holds out her hands to Lydia who gives a mock dramatic sigh before laughing and passing our daughter over to Josie’s waiting arms.
“Oh my, what a little beauty,” Josie breaths. “And what’s her name?”
“Her name is Grace,” Lydia says softly, this time her eyes finding Josie’s. Lydia told me how Josie came to her rescue at church that first Sunday after my diagnosis, pointing her heart back to God’s grace when she’d felt so undeserving of it. We decided to name our daughter Grace as a reminder of just how much we need His grace every day and just how freely He gives it.
“How lovely.” Josie’s eyes shine with moisture. The four of us exist there silently for a few minutes, all just staring at Bram and Grace. Our two unexpected and yet perfect wedding gifts.
“Op!” Saul chuckles. “I think Bram might’ve just made a mess in his diaper.”
“Oh, here give him to me,” Lydia says before I can make a move to help. She stands gingerly, waving away my offer of help. “Don’t try and steal the baby, Cole,” she chides with a grin, then looks down at Bram cooing gently at him. Her feet are clad in my favorite otter slippers, and she pads her way over to the room’s built-in changing table, adjusting the collar of her fluffy white robe as she goes.
She’s just finished wiping him when she shrieks in surprise. “Eech! He peed on me!” She rotates slightly and we all see it, a yellow stain spreading across the front of her white robe. I’m reminded violently of that day at the airport when I squirted mustard on her shirt.
“Hey now.” I walk over to them. “Bram, my little man, are you stealing my moves with your mom? Don’t you know that’s how I met your mother?”
“You peed on her?” Josie says in confusion.
Lydia laughs. “No, he squirted mustard on me. Anyway, Cole, that’s not how we met, that’s how we became reacquainted.”
“Good point,” I agree amiably, reaching past Lydia and fastening the diaper. “I would never want your mommy to know that after all those years I didn’t recognize her at first,” I tell Bram.
“Oh please.” Lydia shoves me gently with her shoulder. “You’d totally forgotten that I even existed.”
I look down at her. “You think I’d forgotten you existed?”
She cocks her head at me. “Hadn’t you?”
I put my hand on the small of her back and pull her against me, our bodies barricading Bram on the changing table. “Forgotten you, Mrs. Jacobson? Yeah…no.”
***