“I thought you forgot.” I say it through sniffles.
He sighs, head hanging between. “I did, sort of. I don’t know how to explain it. I could never forget, not really. But I just…I don’t know. I’m sorry. I should have been there for you, today.”
I slide closer to him, lean against him; rest my head on his shoulder. “I miss him, Chris,” I say, gazing at the photograph. “I miss being a mom.”
“I know. Me too.” It’s all he says, but it encompasses a lot—his understanding of what I mean, and his own similar pain.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” I say. “Why did I come to a church? I don’t know. It just…it was the only place I could think of.”
“An unconscious instinct for comfort, maybe.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
He sighs. “I read your emails with Delta, because I couldn’t figure out where you were. And then, when I realized, I knew exactly where you’d be. I knew you’d be here.”
I fight tears. “I just…I miss him so damn bad, Chris. It hurts. It just…it still hurts.”
He wraps an arm around me. “I know, honey. I know.”
“And I just get angry,” I say. “I get angry at God for taking him.”
“Me too.”
A long silence, and then Chris reaches into his pocket again, and pulls out something else. A small black box. He opens it, revealing three rings nestled together on the black velvet.
He plucks up one of the rings, shows it to me. “I’ve had these for a few days, and was waiting for the right time to give them to you. This feels like it.”
The ring is simple, a princess cut diamond solitaire on a thin titanium band. Around the inside an inscription is engraved: Ava—you are my everything.
I sniffle with happiness and relief as I slide the ring onto my finger, admiring the way the dim lights reflect on the diamond, soaking up the joy of having a ring on my finger again.
“God, Chris. I don’t—I don’t know what to say, besides thank you.”
“New rings, for a new life, right?” He lifts out the other two rings, matching titanium wedding bands, simple and beautiful. Slides the smaller onto my finger to stack against the diamond.
“With this ring, I thee wed,” he whispers.
I take the larger band from him and slide it onto his ring finger. “With this ring, I thee wed,” I echo.
He touches his forehead to mine. “I love you, Ava.”
“I love you too, Chris.” I glance at our hands, at our fingers tangled together. “I have something for you, too, actually.”
I sit up, shifting away from him a little. Dig in the back pocket of my jeans and pull something out. Hold it in my hands. Stare down at it, marveling at the confused mix of emotions the object causes.
Christian glances at me, at the object in my hands. “What’s that?”
“The other reason I’m here,” I say. “I’m not sure what I believe, totally, but if there is a God, he sure has a strange sense of timing.”
I hand Christian the object. It is long and slender and white, with a blue cap. Christian takes it, and stares at it.
Then he glances at me, his expression carefully neutral. “Ava…”
There is a small rectangular box in the middle of the object, within which, in gray digital lettering, is a single word: PREGNANT.
“Are you…are you for real?” Christian’s eyes pierce mine, searching.
I see emotion begin to bleed through his careful wall of hesitancy.
I nod. “That’s the third test I’ve taken today.” I breathe out shakily. “I haven’t had a period since we were on the RV, which means I’m about four to six weeks along.”
He stands up, the test still in one hand, and paces away. Stops, facing the cross, and a hand passes through his hair—he cut it when he started at the college, but left the beard, albeit neatly trimmed; it’s a mature, handsome, rugged look on him, and I love it.
I watch him process what I’ve just revealed to him.
Abruptly, startling me, he spins, takes a lurching step, and falls to his knees in front of me. Puts his body between my thighs and takes my face in his hands.
“You’re…pregnant?” He whispers the word hesitantly, as if to speak it out loud might change it.
I nod, smiling through my tears. “I’m pregnant.”
Joy floods his features, and he takes me by the hands, pulls me to my feet. He takes me in his arms with sudden, fierce strength, and spins me around so my feet leave the ground. I squeal in surprised laughter, which severs the moment. Christian sets me back down, more carefully.
“Sorry, sorry. I just…” His eyes roam my body, as if he could see some sign already.
I shake my head, laughing. “Don’t be.” I stroke his beard, nuzzling against him. “I wasn’t sure if you’d…how you’d feel.” I’m hesitant, admitting it. In the face of his joy, now, the doubts I felt earlier now feel foolish.
He hugs me, intense but gentle, as if I’m fragile, rather than merely six weeks pregnant. “I’m glad. I’m happy. I’m excited. I’m—I don’t know. A million things I don’t know how to express, right now.”
“Me too.” I cling to him. “I’m a little scared, too, though.”
“I know,” he whispers. “I know. I am too. But it’s going to be okay. Okay?”
I nod, and I believe him.
I feel it.
I know it.
His palm covers my belly. “I love you.”
I laugh, gazing up at him. “Are you talking to me, or my uterus?”
He lets out a breath, a great, shuddering sigh. “Both, my love.”
Epilogue
Brighid St. Pierre was born on December 16, 2017.
Ava named her after the character in my short story, “The Selkie and the Sea”.
Brighid is, in every way, a joy. A blessing. A wonder. A miracle.
Today is Christmas Eve. It is midnight, and Brighid is asleep in my arms.
We are in church, the same church Ava came to eight months ago seeking peace. This time, the chapel is lit by a hundred candles held in a hundred hands. But for the glow of the candles, there is no other light. On stage, a young man with reddish-blond hair plays “Silent Night” on the piano, and a hundred voices are raised all around us, singing the words.
Brighid sleeps through it all, her tiny mouth open, a pink hat on her head, one little fist clenched around my finger. I rock her, bouncing side to side as I sing. Ava’s arm is wrapped around my waist; she insisted on coming, despite having just had a baby a week ago.
She is strong, and she is beautiful, and she is mine.
Brighid, and Ava—I mean both of them.
Ava is on my right; to my left is Jonny, and beside him is Delta, their hands tangled together, and on the far side of Delta is Alex, young and earnest and wide-eyed. The European leg of Delta’s tour ended a week ago, and she came home and announced that she was taking time off to record a new album after more than a year of nonstop touring.
Jonny and Delta are engaged, with a wedding scheduled for April…and, if the way Delta has been cooing at and coddling and hogging time with Brighid is any indication, I think there will be another addition to our family next year.
We finish “Silent Night” and after a brief silence, the young pianist begins playing “Away In a Manger”, and the congregation joins in, and Brighid wakes up, squalling briefly. Ava takes her, whispers to her, and then Brighid sees the light of the candles and her crying stops, and she looks around in wonder, babbling baby noises as if she too is singing.
This—this moment, candlelit, voices raised to sing a hymn, surrounded by family and friends, my wife beside me, my daughter in my arms…
It’s everything.
THE END
[A poem, written on a sheet of paper ripped out of a spiral notebook, in a masculine hand, and a feminine; it is undated, and the ink is smudged—black ink for the masculine hand, and blue for the feminine; the page is framed in a shadow box]
>
You rescued me, my love
It was the memory of me, not the truth of me
I drowned, I died, I lost myself in the salt of the sea
I died with you, I drowned with you, I lost myself, same as you
Sometimes I think the days spent wallowing in memory,
Seeking you—those days scraped away the old flesh of me,
Scooped hollow the last of who I was,
Carved out of me the selfish creature I used to be
Love, love, love—I was hollowed out, too, you know,
Left breathless, sightless, soulless
Who taught you to breathe again?
Who taught you to see again?
Who returned your soul to you?
Who filled you again? Was it me?
No, it wasn’t you, it couldn’t be you;
That was the lesson all along:
I needed to be me without you before I could be me with you
Me without you, you without me, us without him—
It’s a tangled web of need and sorrow
Not tangled, only interwoven; not a web, but a tapestry
If we are a tapestry, then you are my warp, and my weft
And you are the thread, and the image in the yarn,
and she is the frame of the loom, and the shuttle weaving it all together
I dreamed of you, my love, when I was a shell of a thing,
without memory or awareness or anything at inside me but fragments of you
I felt those dreams, I tasted them,
I followed them across the Sea;
I followed the skein of your dreams, the flavor of them
What did you see, what did you feel, what did you taste?
You, all that is you—the scent of you,
the scrape of your stubble across my skin,
the press of your lips on mine, your breath on my flesh
I dreamed of your eyes, the love in them, the shudder in your voice
I dreamed of moments in the sun,
Hours under the moon, and your whisper as you love me
It was never a whisper, my love, but a shout—
a barbaric yawp, in the words of Whitman
It was more than that, so much more
It was a song, sung in the shadows, in the silver of the moon,
in the instants between quavering breaths
We are a poem, my love
Then you are my stanza, and my refrain
The lyrics imprinted on my soul
The flavor of words as they sparkle on your tongue,
as they flow from your pen,
gyrating in your mind
they are like the high from a drug
The way a song or a poem or a photograph or a play or a film
tolls within you, somehow, the way it strikes a chord,
resounding familiar,
echoing in some secret portion of your soul
Are we speaking of Love, or of OUR love?
Of Love, with the capital L, and of OUR love,
And of the love that moves this world,
The seed of prose and the source of poetry and the structure of who we are,
At the core of us
I still dream of you, even when you slumber beside me
I don’t “slumber”—I sleep, gracefully, and delicately
Even so, I dream of you; and I wake,
And there you are, real and perfect,
With love glowing from within you as if you are lit inside by a sun
That glow, that love—it is the fire you light inside me,
When you look at me as you do,
hungry, wild, possessive, and tender
The memory of you, rather than the truth of you, you said?
My love, they are the same—the truth of you and the memory of you,
to me, then, it was all I had,
and all I needed to find you in this wide world
And you rescued me, as much as I did you,
the truth of you and the memory of you
Put the pen down, my love, and drown with me
Drown IN you
Be my breath
Be my sight
* * *
Always, my love
Always
Also by Jasinda Wilder
Visit me at my website: www.jasindawilder.com
Email me: [email protected]
* * *
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My other titles:
* * *
The Preacher's Son:
Unbound
Unleashed
Unbroken
* * *
Biker Billionaire:
Wild Ride
* * *
Big Girls Do It:
Better (#1), Wetter (#2), Wilder (#3), On Top (#4)
Married (#5)
On Christmas (#5.5)
Pregnant (#6)
Boxed Set
* * *
Rock Stars Do It:
Harder
Dirty
Forever
Boxed Set
* * *
From the world of Big Girls and Rock Stars:
Big Love Abroad
* * *
Delilah's Diary:
A Sexy Journey
La Vita Sexy
A Sexy Surrender
* * *
The Falling Series:
Falling Into You
Falling Into Us
Falling Under
Falling Away
Falling for Colton
* * *
The Ever Trilogy:
Forever & Always
After Forever
Saving Forever
* * *
The world of Alpha:
Alpha
Beta
Omega
Harris: Alpha One Security Book 1
Thresh: Alpha One Security Book 2
Duke: Alpha One Security Book 3
Puck: Alpha One Security Book 4
* * *
The world of Stripped:
Stripped
Trashed
* * *
The world of Wounded:
Wounded
Captured
* * *
The Houri Legends:
Jack and Djinn
Djinn and Tonic
* * *
The Madame X Series:
Madame X
Exposed
Exiled
* * *
Badd Brothers:
Badd Motherf*cker
Badd Ass
Badd to the Bone
Good Girl Gone Badd
Badd Luck
Badd Mojo
* * *
The Black Room
(With Jade London):
Door One
Door Two
Door Three
Door Four
Door Five
Door Six
Door Seven
Door Eight
Deleted Door
* * *
The One Series
The Long Way Home
Where the Heart Is
* * *
Standalone titles:
Yours
* * *
Non-Fiction titles:
You Can Do It
You Can Do It: Strength
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Jack Wilder Titles:
The Missionary
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JJ Wilder Titles:
Ark
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There's No Place Like Home (The One Series Book 3) Page 22
