by Imani King
"So when is it?" Kayla asked excitedly. "The wedding, I mean?"
Dallas and I looked at each other. "I have no idea!" he replied. "I guess that depends on Miss Tia, here, and we haven't really had time to discuss the details."
"A winter wedding would be sooo romantic," Madison gushed. "You could do it on your ranch, outdoors in the snow!"
"No way," Amber said. "Everyone would freeze to death. Spring, though. Spring would be perfect. May, maybe? Or you could wait until next summer?"
I laughed out loud. "OK, you guys. We'll have to think about it. But winter or spring or summer – or fall – sounds good."
We were all in high spirits, but the girls knew I needed to be alone with my fiancé. Amber ostentatiously drew her scarf a little tighter around her neck about ten minutes later. "I'm getting cold. Maybe we should head back to my place for some hot chocolate and let these two lovebirds plan their wedding?"
"Yeah," Madison agreed, "but let's just get a few photos first, OK?"
That was actually a good idea – I was so surprised by the whole situation that it hadn't even occurred to me to take pictures. We had an impromptu photo-shoot on the spot, and only when everyone was satisfied that we'd captured everything for posterity, did the phones get put away.
After they left, when Dallas and I were alone with the airy silence of the woods once again surrounding us after the giddy chatter of my girlfriends, he reached down and touched my cheek. "We should get back, too, babe. You're cold."
"I don't know. It's so nice out here, with the lights and the trees and... everything. I think I want to stay out here all night, I don't want to break the spell."
He looked down at me, his blue eyes shining. "There is no spell, Tia. There's me and you. And it doesn't matter if we're out here in the forest or in a yurt in Mongolia, the spell is just us together. Isn't it?"
He held out his arm for me and led me back to the pick-up truck, which he'd parked some distance away. As we approached I heard the sound of what I thought was an engine running.
"What's that?"
"A generator – I had to figure out some way to get those lights to work, didn't I? You have no idea how many feet of extension cords that took. I'll come back out tomorrow and clear it all up."
He opened the passenger side door and I hopped in, followed by Beau. When Dallas joined me he handed me the photo of my parents.
"Your great-aunt Jenny gave me that, I went to see her a couple of days ago."
"Did you? Did you tell her why?"
"Of course I did. They were touched, even if both of them seemed a little doubtful you'd say yes. I didn't realize I was quite so notorious in this town – your great-uncle even tried to make me swear not to let you near Ranger again."
Dallas maneuvered the truck gingerly over the rough ground while Beau and I sat beside him, bouncing slightly every time we hit a bump. I felt safe. And loved. I glanced down at the photograph of my parents and then at my man.
"I'm so happy," I told him, as he turned off the dirt track and onto Old Ware Road. "Everything is so wonderful it's hard to even believe it's happening. I just wish they were here with me."
He took one hand off the wheel and squeezed my thigh. "I know, Tia. I know. I feel the same way. I'm actually looking forward to the future now, and I don't know if you understand what a huge thing that is for me – or how big of a part you've played in it – but there are people I always thought would be there with me, too. And they won't. Maybe all we can do is remember them?"
I ran my finger over the image of my mother's face in the photograph. They both looked so young in it, their hair darker and their waistlines trimmer than I remembered. Dallas was right. The people we'd lost were gone. All we could do was remember them, and honor their memories by trying to live the lives they would have wanted for us.
It was in this odd, half-melancholy, half-joyful mood that we arrived back at Corbett Ranch. When we got out, Dallas snaked his arm around my waist and pointed up the cabin. "I'm thinking modern ranch. Two floors, lots of glass and light. What do you think?"
"What?" I asked, confused. "Are you going to put an addition on the cabin?"
"An addition? No. A whole new home. And not here, either. There's an area of high ground out past the pastures, great view from the top. That's the spot I was thinking of."
I gazed up, checking his face for signs that he was joking, and saw none. "A whole new house? Is that a good idea?"
"Why wouldn't it be a good idea? This cabin is barely big enough for me. I don't want our child growing up in a cramped place like this, good though it's been to me – do you?"
"Well," I hesitated, "no, but – Dallas, isn't that going to be expensive?"
He shrugged. "So what if it is? I finally have something worthwhile to spend my money on, don't I? Here, come inside, I want to show you something."
I didn't think Dallas was poor. He owned Corbett Ranch, after all, and I had a vague recollection of him mentioning that his parents had money. But I didn't think he was rich, either. At least not rich enough to start building houses willy-nilly. When we got inside and out of our winter gear, though, he showed me a few photos on his phone. Architectural drawings and computer-generated pictures of houses like he'd been describing, involving a lot of glass and exposed wooden beams.
"What do you think?" he asked, as we cuddled up to each other on the sofa, looking at the images.
"What do I think? I – they look nice, Dallas. They look really nice. I just, uh, I just don't know if –"
"Don't know what? They're just ideas, Tia. If you don't like them, we can explore other styles, it's all open right now."
He wasn't understanding me."It's not that I don't like them," I told him."It's that they look really expensive. Do you have enough money for a house like that? Because I certainly don't, not with my wages from Parson's."
He went quiet for a minute before turning to me, a quizzical look on his face. "You don't know, do you?"
"Know what?! Why are you acting all mysterious? I just don't think it's a great idea to be getting into a lot of debt, is all. That's not how my parents raised me."
"You never Googled me?" he asked skeptically. "Never? Not once? Never Googled my family?"
I shook my head, exasperated. "No. Why would I do that? And I don't know your family, why would I be searching the internet for information on them?"
He sat back, trying to figure out if I was telling the truth or not, which I was. And when he finally seemed to accept it, he laughed.
"What?" I asked. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing's funny, Tia. I don't know, I guess I assumed you would have figured it out by now."
"Figured WHAT out?"
Dallas pulled me onto his lap and passed me the phone so I could flip through the various pictures we'd been looking at. "Here's the thing, Tia. I am rich, to put it bluntly. Not just can-afford-a-Mercedes-and-a-ski-condo rich, either. I mean absolutely, totally, filthy rich. It's family money, obviously, the military doesn't pay that well. But I've got a trust fund that's more than enough to cover a house like this," he pointed down at an animated picture of a dwelling that looked liked something I might see on the cover of one of those architectural magazines, "probably twenty-five times over."
I blinked. He was joking. He must be joking. He didn't look like he was joking, though.
"For real," he said, seeing the look on my face. "It doesn't have to be this house, or that one. I'll build you a castle, if that's what you want. With turrets and a moat. You can stand up on top of a turret and watch me come home in the evenings. I'd like that, to see you up there waiting for me."
"You're serious, aren't you?" I asked, bemused and not really quite comprehending what I was being told.
"Yes, I am. It's never really been a thing for me, Tia. That's easy for me to say, I know, but honestly, for most of my life it's been something I kept to myself. People make too many assumptions about rich people – especially about the children and grandchi
ldren of rich people. I wanted to make my own way, without using my family connections or money to make something of myself. And now, none of that matters anymore."
"It doesn't?"
Dallas slid his hand up under my shirt and cradled my little bump. "No, it doesn't. What matters now is you, and whoever this little person is in here. I got these photos from an architectural firm in Boulder, by the way – I've hired them to design the house. So you need to get to deciding, woman, because I don't want to be in this little cabin with a baby any more than you do."
I giggled disbelievingly. "So let me get this straight, Dallas. You just dropped a bomb on me, didn't you? An oh-yeah-I'm-super-rich bomb? I'm not saying it's bad, it's just funny. If it was something like, oh yeah I forgot to mention I'm allergic to peanuts, or oh yeah I don't really care for sci-fi movies, that's one thing. But oh yeah, I have more money than anyone you've ever met? I mean, damn. I don't even know what to think!"
He rested his chin on my shoulder, gazing down at my belly alongside me. "Well I had to make sure you weren't a gold-digger, Tia. You seemed like one, when I first met you."
"What?!" I exclaimed, turning around and catching the wide grin on his face. "You ass! Stop teasing me!"
"OK, I'll stop. But you really do need to look at the pictures. How long do we have? Six months, at best? And we still need to decide when we're actually going to get married, and how big it's going to –"
"Shhh," I said, kissing Dallas's mouth and wrapping my arms around his neck. "It doesn't matter. It does matter, obviously, but the truth is I don't care as long as I'm with you. If you want a castle, build a castle. If you want a – what did you call it? a modern ranch? – build a modern ranch. If you want to get married here in January, we'll do that. If you want to get married in Antarctica in June, we'll do that. As long as I'm with you."
Eighteen
Dallas
As Tia's belly grew, so did my sense of purpose. I became more and more focused on overseeing the construction of the new house, on making sure everything was in place. Even as she sat out on the porch in the evenings, as serene and self-contained as one of those Renaissance paintings in a museum in Paris, I knuckled down. I was determined to, for once in my life, get it right. She tried to calm me down at first, reassuring me that the world wasn't going to end if the house wasn't ready in time or the baby decided to come a week early, but in the end she just let me get to it, probably sensing that it was what I had to do.
Early in the new year the results of the paternity test on Bentley came through – negative. Larissa called a few times in the week leading up the truth being known, trying to wheedle money and attention and all the other things she thought she needed in her life out of me, but after the test came back negative I didn't hear from her again. I instructed my lawyer to set fifty thousand dollars aside in an interest-accruing account for the kid, untouchable by anyone but him, and not until he was eighteen (if he used it for education) or twenty-five (if he didn't). When I told Tia about it over dinner one night, she raised her eyebrows.
"You what? Fifty thousand dollars, Dallas? And he can't access it –"
"I can afford it," I cut in defensively. "You know that by now – and it's not his fault his mother is crazy. You have to remember I thought he was mine for a little while. It –"
"Dallas!"
"What?"
"I'm not scolding you," she said gently. "I think that's a lovely gesture. More than lovely, actually. I'm glad you did it."
I lifted a forkful of Thai chicken stir-fry – one of the many dishes Tia taught me – to my mouth and shook my head. "Yeah, sorry, I thought you might be upset. But now that you aren't, I don't know why I ever thought you would be."
"He's an innocent baby," she replied. "That kind of money could make or break someone's life, especially when they're young."
"And it'll be a lot more than fifty thousand when he's eighteen, believe me."
That's how Tia's pregnancy mostly went. She was the calm one. I was the frantic one, constantly stressing about this or that little thing that didn't really matter. She was due in late May, and by April I was in a state of near-constant watchfulness, waking up every time she got up in the night to pee, jerking my head up to stare at her and enquire as to her wellbeing whenever she made the slightest sound. I think I drove her a little nuts. I also think I made her feel loved.
It was a Friday, halfway through May, when she looked up at me from the passenger seat on the way back from dinner at John and Jenny's and said a single word:
"Ow."
"Ow?" I asked, momentarily distracted by keeping an eye out for deer on the road.
"Ow."
The gears in my brain finally kicked in. "What? Tia?! Ow? Are you in pain? What's –"
"Dallas," she said sweetly, reaching up and putting one hand on my wrist. "Please don't drive off the road, OK? But yes, I feel something. I thought I felt something at dinner, but I wasn't sure."
"At dinner?!" I bellowed, dismayed. "Why didn't you say anything? Fuck. Really? You feel something? What? Like, pain? Do you think –"
She laughed. "I don't know what I think, babe. I've never had a baby before! But, yes, I feel something. Like period cramps. Not all the time, just every now and again. And I – ow!"
Adrenaline surged into my bloodstream and I felt suddenly, completely alert. Strange visions flooded my mind's eye – Tia in pain, Tia giving birth in my truck, far away from the hospital, me not knowing what to do.
"Fuck," I said. "Your bag is back at home. We – should we go get it?"
"Of course we should go get it," she replied matter-of-factly. "That's why we packed it, right? It's not like I'm going to pop the baby out right now. Don't you remember what they said in the birth classes? It takes hours, maybe even days."
Is that what they'd said in the birth classes? I suddenly couldn't remember a single goddamned thing. My heart raced and my mind focused in on a single task – getting Tia to the hospital. That's what I had to do. I white-knuckled it back to the cabin and raced inside for the bag, throwing a cup of food into Beau's bowl before leaving and dialing Amber's number.
"Hello?"
"Amber! Hospital! You – you need to come over, right now! We're –"
I managed to hear an alarmed sounding 'what' before Tia grabbed the phone out of my hands and took over.
"Don't listen to him, he appears to be losing his mind. We're going to the hospital, but I don't know if this is actually it or not. I'll call you in a couple of hours, OK?
She hung up and gave me a look. "Could you not scare the hell out of my friends, please?"
But her telling-off was affectionate and she stroked the back of my neck as we drove, breaking off every now and again to wince and let out a few muffled whimpers.
I don't remember my daughter's birth the way you remember, say, your graduation. I don't remember it in a linear way – I put on my cap and gown, went to the school, walked across the stage, got my diploma etc. The birth isn't like that in my memory. Instead, it's a blurred series of images of the single most emotionally overwhelming day of my life. Early on, there was a cozy, almost convivial atmosphere in the hospital room. Tia's friends and her great-uncle and great-aunt dropped in, playing card games on the bed and making bets as to the exact moment our child would arrive. But as time went on, the atmosphere in the room changed and the people faded away, leaving Tia alone at the center of a hurricane we both knew I could do nothing to save her from.
There was nothing wrong, no crises, no emergencies, but it's hard to keep that fact centered in your mind when your wife-to-be is screaming and panicking and begging you to make it stop. I've never felt so helpless in my life. When the time to push came I was almost relieved to be able to do something, even something as small as mopping Tia's brow or allowing her to squeeze my hand until it went numb.
A few minutes before our daughter arrived, something happened to me. A massive and sudden feeling of perspective, almost an out-of-body experienc
e as it hit me, amidst all the chaos and screaming and nurses rushing around – our baby was almost here. Not just a baby – a life. A brand new life. It was surreal.
I watched in awe as the nurses handed a red, squirming, squalling bundle to Tia. I leaned in, knowing from the first second I saw her tiny little face that everything was different now. Forever. Everything that had come before Alice receded into the background as I looked down at the two of them, staring into each other's eyes like besotted lovers. Tia looked up at me, crying with joy, and the tectonic shift in my soul was complete. Nothing mattered now. Nothing except those two girls. My life was theirs, my purpose was to keep them happy and safe – and I wouldn't have had it any other way.
"Do you want to hold her?"
I looked up, only vaguely aware I was being spoken to. "What?"
"Your daughter," the nurse said quietly. "Do you want to hold her?"
I sat down, thinking that somehow it might be safer, that I might be less likely to drop that infinitely precious little bundle, if I did. And then the nurse placed her in my arms – so impossibly light – and I looked down at my baby's face.
"She looks like you," I whispered, choking up unselfconsciously as Tia watched us together. "Look, babe. Look at her. Oh my God, she's beautiful. She's beautiful!"
She was beautiful. I know, I know, that's what they all say. But she was. Her little mouth curled up at the corners, like her mom's, and her hair was jet-black, like her mom's. There was something of me there, I think. An echo of my nose, a certain expression as she gazed up at me.
We brought her – Alice Rose Corbett – home the next day, back to the cabin because the house wasn't quite finished, and spent the next few weeks in a hazy little cocoon of new parenthood. So taken were we with our child that none of the sleep deprivation or diaper changes or Alice's marked tendency to scream until she turned a striking shade of purple when she was hungry seemed to matter at all.
