by Serena Bell
“You’re a good dad,” she said.
Sam had stopped crying. “You are a good dad,” he said.
“Well,” Jake said. “It’s easy, because you’re a good kid.”
Then he reached over Sam and took her hand, and her body buzzed with the contact. “And you are a great mom.”
Her heart was warily listening. Responding with a tentative opening, a curious willingness to risk itself. She wasn’t sure, though, about what he was saying, whether it was enough. Because it was one thing for him to have made a picnic, one thing for him to fully accept the mantle of fatherhood, to praise her in her maternal role. Even if he had come with an apology and a kiss—those were good things, but until she heard what he had to say, they weren’t enough. Because she was done risking Sam, done risking herself, unless he could tell her that he would never again walk away from a moment of truth between them.
She knew what she wanted, and she wasn’t going to let any man take it away from her. She smiled, a secret, internal smile, and took her hand back. Gently.
“Can we still have the picnic?” Sam asked.
“Let’s see what the pediatrician says, okay?”
“If he says it’s okay?”
She looked over at Jake. “If the pediatrician says it’s okay, we can have the picnic. And the apology and the wine. I’m going to reserve judgment on the kissing, though.”
They stood side by side at the rail of the ferry to Bainbridge Island, Puget Sound rolling out beneath them, the Seattle skyline straight ahead. They were at the back of the boat, so there was no wind and no spray, only the sound of the engines and the wake fanning out behind. Sam was counting the holes in the grid under the rail, standing several yards away.
Jake felt flayed. There had been all the anxiety leading up to the picnic excursion, the shock of watching his son double over, the outright terror he’d felt when he heard Sam’s labored breathing, the relief of hearing the ambulance’s siren.
The tsunami of hope he’d felt when she’d called him a good dad, and the realization that it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t all he wanted to be, wasn’t all he needed.
What he needed was to be Mira’s family.
He had no idea if that was even a possibility she was still willing to entertain, but the fact that they were here, that she had agreed to this outing, was something. A big something. He had never been confident that he could win her with a picnic, that he could woo her back with promises. He had known, when he secretly enlisted Sam’s help with the plan while Mira was at work, as he made sandwiches and packed napkins, as he took the bus to Discovery Park, that he might get sent home with his tail between his legs. And he wouldn’t blame her for it, not at all. He’d had his chance—two chances, in fact, and both times he’d let fear, not love, rule his heart.
This time, though, was different. This time, one way or another, he’d make her see. That he wanted to live, not just partway, but all the way, and that he wanted to do it with her by his side.
But just as he was about to speak, she said, “Was that all true? What Sam said? That you were going to apologize and say you wanted to spend time with—us?”
This was it. His moment to grab the bull by the horns, or life by its balls, or whatever he had to grasp on to to commit himself full force to what he wanted most in the world. “He got the gist,” he said. “What he didn’t tell you was that it’s not just that I want to spend time with the two of you. I want to spend it with you. I want to be with you. The way we were, before I fu—screwed it up.”
Her eyes were wary.
“You have every right to be hurt. Mad. I should have—I should have, I don’t know, shoved Aaron around and beaten my chest and slung you over my shoulder.”
Her eyes got big, wide with surprise, and she smiled. “Well, yes, possibly. Why didn’t you do that?”
“Some wrong reasons. Some right reasons. I wanted to be the kind of guy you deserved. And I knew I wasn’t.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. “You were, you idiot. You are. You always have been.”
“No. Listen. I didn’t—I didn’t handle it well, Aaron’s proposal. I should have stepped in, and I should have said, ‘You can’t marry him. I want you to marry me, but you can’t marry me now—I have things to sort out.’ But I didn’t see all that yet. I was making the same mistake I always make, panicking because I felt—”
The words backed up against his throat.
“Felt too much,” he finished.
Her eyes were shiny with tears.
“I’ve never learned to trust the way I feel. I don’t know. Maybe because my role models were shitty, or maybe just because. I didn’t that night at the lake. I should have trusted the way I felt about you, talked to you about it. But I didn’t. I went against my gut, which was what I did with Mike, too. I should have—”
His voice splintered, and something in his chest, too.
“If I’d trusted my gut, I would have sent Mike home. But I would have talked to him first. Made sure there was a network in place at home, people for him to go home to, a plan in place for getting him back in action. But I didn’t trust it and I couldn’t talk. And it was the same with Aaron, and then—”
He had to stop to catch his breath and pull himself together, because he had more to say, and he was going to say it this time. All of it.
He drew a breath that rasped against his raw throat and hurt his chest, but the steadiness and warmth of her gaze gave him the strength to keep going. “But it was true, too. I didn’t deserve you.”
She started to protest, but he shook his head. “Maybe that’s the wrong way to put it. Maybe it’s more right to say I wasn’t ready for you.
“I came back from Afghanistan alive, but without really choosing to be alive, if that makes any sense. Just—I had no choice. Mike died, I lived; that was the way the chips had fallen.”
The sympathy in her eyes was killing him. And giving him the strength to keep going.
“It was actually Sam who made me see. That day he showed up at my place. He made me see I was scared. Scared of how complicated things are. Not like in the army. Things in the army are—maybe not black and white, but at least shades of gray. Not Technicolor, like you and Sam. And I was scared of living halfway, too. So scared that it was easier not to live at all. I didn’t want to do something half-assed that wouldn’t feel like it meant something, so I wasn’t—I was along for the ride. And I wanted more than that for you and Sam. I wanted you to have a man in your life, someone who was here. Really here, not just getting up in the morning. So—I did a few things. I went to see Mike’s wife.”
“Oh, Jake,” she said, her voice warm, his name sweet on her tongue.
“I should have done it weeks ago. Months. But I did it. And she was great. I mean, she’s a mess. The kids are a total mess. But she hugged me and told me it wasn’t my fault.”
“It’s not,” Mira said, and she touched his cheek, a gesture that almost undid all his tightly held self-control, the governance that held both his tears and his sex drive in check. There was so much still to say, and Sam’s gap-counting was bringing him closer and closer to where they stood, so now was not the best possible time for either crying or kissing.
“I still think it was my fault,” Jake said. “I’ll probably always think it was. It’s something I’ll always carry with me. But talking to her helped a lot. I realized that part of what I was doing was refusing to live this life because Mike couldn’t. I think you kind of said that, that night at the beach, but maybe I wasn’t ready to hear it yet. Maybe I heard it as much as blame as an absolution at that point.”
“It’s not your fault,” she repeated. “I’ll say that as many times as you need to hear it.”
He had to stare out at the skyline for a moment to regain his composure.
“Anyway, I applied to the University of Washington and a few other schools. I’m going to get my bachelor’s degree, and then I’m going to apply to get a master’s, probably in prostheti
cs and orthotics, but maybe in physical therapy, depending. In the meantime, I’m going to organize and lead some workshops and support groups through my own prosthetist’s office.” He had a couple set up already, one focused on finding an outlet through competition and exercise, and the other on helping people decide whether to embrace and reclaim their old lives or strike out on a new path. The kitchen table in his apartment was strewn with notes—on his own discoveries, as well as bits and pieces of conversations he’d had with other vet amputees. Every time he saw the mess of papers, he felt a surge of fresh pride.
“But … I thought you wanted to go back to active duty. You told me, you told your mom—”
“I thought I did, too. But everything’s changed. You, Sam …”
“I don’t want to be the reason you’re not fighting.” She said it flatly, in that no-nonsense voice that he knew now from personal experience meant she’d dug in.
“You’re not,” he said, with heat. “God, it’s the opposite. You’re the reason that makes all the other reasons make sense.”
“But—”
“I’ve thought about this a lot,” he said, and the thing was, as deep as she could dig in, so could he, and that was one of the many things he loved about her, that at the most primitive level, they matched. “I’ve thought about my motives, what I want to do, where I want to be. And when I say it’s about you and Sam, I don’t mean I’m giving it up because I feel like you need me to or expect me to. I mean because of what I’ve learned since I’ve—re-met you. When I first was injured, I didn’t want anything. I was empty. Nothing.”
She nodded. She’d first seen him at a pretty low moment, and that hadn’t even been the worst of it, because the moment he’d seen her in that physical therapist’s office, she’d opened a chink in the dam and life had begun seeping back in. Slowly at first, then in a rush, until—
“And then you guys—being with you, getting to know you, falling for both of you—made me alive again, even if I didn’t realize it or even want it. Even if it wasn’t something I was ready to choose. That day, when Aaron proposed, all I could see was that he had so much more to give you than I did. That’s why I didn’t fight for you. And then when I’d lost you—when I thought I’d lost you—that’s when I saw it. What living means now. What I’m fighting for now. For you. To be the best man I can in the world, for you and Sam.”
She was crying. He reached out and brushed the tears away and then, because he could, and she let him, he put his fingers in her hair and loved the feel of it. Loved her damp eyelashes and slightly quivering lower lip—which he badly wanted to kiss—and the way she was staring at him like he was something she could commit forever to memory.
“And right now, for me, being the best man doesn’t mean going back to the war. It was the right fight for me, then. It was a fight that had to be fought, and I was good at it. I was the right man for it. But things are different now. When the phone rings and it’s you saying, ‘Can you get Sam?’ Or ‘Sam needs’—or ‘I need,’ I want to be there to answer it. Every time.”
“God. Jake.”
“Every. Time.”
Her hands were clenched together at her throat, but he reached for one and wrapped it in his, and she made a choking sound. She smiled at him as tears ran down her face, a smile that collapsed and re-formed, breaking through like a rainbow every time.
“Daddy,” Sam whispered, from under Jake’s elbow.
It was the first time Sam had called him that, and Jake had to catch his breath before he could answer. “Yes?”
“You made her cry.”
“No. No, he didn’t. He made me very, very happy.” Mira stroked Sam’s hair. “Sometimes grown-ups cry when we’re happy.”
Sam glared accusingly at Jake. “When are you going to say the ‘I’m sorry’ part?”
Despite their best efforts to keep serious, they both laughed a little, and Sam made a face of confusion and hurt.
“He did,” Mira told Sam. “He said a very nice ‘I’m sorry.’ ”
“Does that mean you’ll kiss and make up and he can live with us all the time?”
Jake dared to glance at Mira, and she was looking right back, an eyebrow raised. Not a yes, exactly, but definitely not a no. A bright Christmas-in-July gladness settled on him.
“That’s something your dad and I will talk about and it will take time to figure out,” Mira said. “You have to be patient with us. Grown-ups are slow about making decisions.”
“But in the meantime,” Jake said, “I would be happy to visit you whenever I can, as long as it’s okay with your mother. And no matter where I live, I’m your dad, and that’s never going to change.”
Sam nodded thoughtfully, then said, “There are two hundred and fifteen spaces between there”—he indicated—“and there.”
“Did you count those?” Mira asked, pointing at the most distant panel.
“No,” said Sam, and skipped off.
“You made a good kid,” Jake said.
“We made a good kid,” she corrected.
He grinned at her. “I was just the sperm donor.”
She slugged him in the arm, and he grabbed her fist and tugged her close, so close he could feel her warmth. Another inch or two …
But he had one more thing to say. The most important thing. “I love you, Mira. And I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you that.”
Her eyes got, if possible, brighter, and her lower lip trembled. “I’m glad it took you so long, because I had to get my head sorted out. I had to realize that I was trying too hard to be someone I already was. I wanted to be an adult, as if it were a test I had to pass. But in the end, I realized that growing up is a lot about deciding. Deciding to be who you want to be. Not letting anyone else dictate the terms, and not getting stuck in old ways of seeing yourself. And I owe you an apology, too.”
“Does it come with wine and kissing?”
“No,” she said. “Maybe chocolate and blow jobs?”
Jesus. All the blood in his entire body had just screamed into his dick. “Okay,” he said. “I’m good with that.”
“I didn’t fight hard enough for you. I was so busy trying to prove something—I don’t even know exactly what—to myself, about my independence and whatever, that I missed what was going on.”
“What was going on?”
“I was falling in love with you.”
“Oh,” Jake said, the words springing to life in his chest. Because maybe he’d known, but there was nothing, nothing, as good as hearing her say it. As seeing it there on her face, her eyes shiny with it, her cheeks glowing, as if the way she felt about him was beaming out from the inside.
“I love you, Jake. I kept not wanting to. Because it seemed like I went straight from being my father’s baby to being my baby’s mother, and the last thing I wanted was another role like that. Jake’s girl. Someone’s—someone’s wife.”
“I never thought you were anyone’s anything,” Jake said quietly.
“I know.”
“Except your own you.”
“I know.”
“Who I love. Because you are spectacular. Bold and bossy and beautiful and an amazing mother and completely, insanely sexy …”
A flush had risen in her cheeks, and he wished like mad they weren’t on a boat with Sam mere feet away, but later on, he was going to have the best time demonstrating vividly to her just how much he believed what he was saying. In the meantime, he would get a start on things …
He took her in his arms and lowered his mouth to hers, savoring the last moment before contact, when it felt like the world was going to catch fire and burn them up yet he didn’t care, because she was in his arms, heat and light and his Mira. A tiny whisper of a groan escaped her just before he slid his tongue into her mouth and his hands into her hair.
“Kissing!” said Sam, and he felt Mira’s laugh vibrate through his lips, in his heart, in every cell of his body.
Chapter 32
Sam fell a
sleep in the car on the way home and stayed asleep while Jake carried him up the stairs and tucked him in. She kissed his cheek, and he stirred and burrowed farther into the pillow. Jake stood at her shoulder, suspended, breathing. Foreign and familiar. As if he’d been there hundreds of other nights holding vigil like this.
She kissed Sam’s forehead and cheeks, nose and chin, then stepped back.
Jake slipped in front of her and stood over Sam. He looked so peaceful.
She guessed he hadn’t seen many kids sleeping. She’d seen a few besides Sam, friends’ kids, and they all looked like this, as if they’d thrown themselves into sleep’s arms, worries abandoned.
Jake was big in Sam’s room. The room was small to begin with, and Jake filled it, making the corners shrink in on her.
She was pretty sure he’d been clean-shaven this morning, but now there was five o’clock shadow clinging to his jaw and chin. It was an unnecessary reminder of how masculine he was. Overkill, to throw a stubbled jaw on top of the way his shoulders and his scent filled the room, crowding her and making all the invisible hairs on her body stand on end.
“Will I wake him up if I kiss him?”
“No.” But you might break my heart. In the best possible way.
He bent over the bed, and she heard him whisper something, but she couldn’t hear what it was. It didn’t matter. The fact of the whispering, the fact of his leaning in close, his cheek so close to Sam’s, was enough to make her want to cry.
He kissed Sam’s face. He kissed him three times, once on the forehead and once on each cheek.
“His cheeks are so soft.”
He lifted his head and showed her his reverence. She felt full, her heart swollen with her love for him and for Sam. Her eyes brimming with it. “I think I know how the book is going to end.”
“What book?”
“The one I’m writing. Do you want to see?”
She brought him into the living room and gave him a frosted glass full of beer and went to get her paintings. She came back and laid the pages in his lap.
