Chapter 274: Madeline
Three weeks later and I swear Reid’s mission in life is to turn my dinner plate into a topographical map. Veggies, salad, roasted potatoes, two kinds of meat, three cheeses, a tower of pickles, a cloud of rice, and—why not—both lemonade and water because “electrolytes,” he says, dead serious, as if I’m about to run a marathon instead of sit on a stool and chew.
“Reid,” I laugh, catching his wrist before he adds a second scoop of mac and cheese. “It’s enough.”
He frowns like I’ve offended him personally. “You need to feed my baby,” he says, and the possessive still makes my heart cartwheel. “That Italian woman wasn’t lying. It’s probably going to be giant. Giants need fuel.”
I roll my eyes, but my mouth is already watering, so I take a bite just to make him smile, and there it is—the way his whole face softens like I’ve just solved some equation he’s been stuck on all day. He sets a glass of lemonade on my left, water on my right, then leans in to kiss the top of my head, his palm wide and warm over the small swell that is absolutely not a swell yet, but in his mind is already a moon.
Off the boat, they treat me like I’m made of spun sugar and sacred glass. On the boat, they hand me the binoculars and the clipboard and stand back like proud bodyguards while I work. We found the porpoise nursery last week—a scatter of slick backs and shy eyes and that quicksilver joy they bring with them—and I cried into my windbreaker, right there on the bow, while the twins watched me like they were watching a prayer answered. And two days ago, the Esperanza called to say they caught footage of the birth—our girl, the humpback who made me believe in luck, easing a small, perfect calf into the world while the ocean held its breath. I think about that a lot when I can’t sleep: life happening anyway, even after storms.
The back door creaks, and Jake walks in with that after-harbor look—salt at his temples, forearms dusted with dried spray, a smear of something black on his cheek that makes him look even more indecently handsome. “Vigil’s buttoned up,” he reports, leaning down to kiss me, then dropping a second kiss to my belly like he’s already greeting someone, before he steals a green bean off my mountain of food and pops it into his mouth. “Mmm,” he says around it, eyes twinkling as he dodges Reid’s mock glare. “Quality control.”
“Make your own plate,” I scold, but I’m grinning so hard my cheeks hurt.
He does, finally, and the three of us end up shoulder to shoulder at the island like some domestic dream I didn’t know I was allowed to have. Reid keeps sliding things off his plate onto mine when he thinks I’m not looking. Jake keeps refilling my water like I live in the Sahara. Every time I reach for something they both move at once—“I’ve got it,” “Let me,” “No lifting”—and I can’t even pretend to be annoyed because beneath the hovering is the same quiet refrain they’ve both been saying for days now: you’re the most precious thing carrying the second most precious thing.
After dinner, Jake stacks plates in the sink and Reid swats his hand away and tells him to go put on a clean shirt; there’s still a smudge of engine somewhere near his collarbone and Charlie will tease him mercilessly. My stomach flutters as I wipe my fingers and smooth the hem of my dress down over my thighs. Dessert at the other SWMRI house, we said. Pie and cards and maybe a movie. And then—news.
I’m excited. And a little nervous, the way you are before a cliff jump you’ve wanted to take forever. Finn will shriek and pick me up even if he’s not supposed to. Liam will go very quiet and then demand we name the baby Mozzarella. Charlie will cry first and swear second and then demand to be the cool aunt who sneaks the kid candy. I can see it all so clearly that the nerves flutter into something brighter.
Reid catches my hand before I can slide off the stool. “You good?”
I lace our fingers. “I’m good.”
He searches my face like he always does now—reading color and breath and whatever language my body’s speaking—and when he finds whatever he was looking for, he nods and squeezes once. Jake comes back, clean and unfairly pretty, and snags the car keys, and then they’re both shouldering bags and insisting they’ll carry everything because apparently forks are too heavy for me now.
“Boys,” I groan, but I let them, because I know what lives under the fussing. They couldn’t keep me from the deck when the calf surfaced beside us and breathed for the first time. They let me point and shout grid squares and write until my hand cramped. They let me be me on the water. So if, on land, they want to make sure I never open a door or lift a pie tin again—well. Maybe I like being precious to them. Maybe I always did.
Jake steals one last bean as we head for the door. Reid tucks a scarf around my neck I don’t need. Outside, the air smells like tide and pine and something sweet, and my heart does that silly, grateful thing it’s been doing every day lately.
Tonight we tell our family there’s going to be one more. And for the first time in a long time, the future doesn’t scare me at all.