“What do you think, Sport? How’d we do?”
“She’s amazing. I’ve never felt like I feel now.”
“How’s that?”
“I don’t know. Full, I guess. Like my heart grew, or something. Happy.” She leaned down and kissed Gia’s petal-soft cheek. “I’m going to want more of these. We might need to add on to the house.”
He understood. Not even Gia’s penchant for screaming could dampen his joy in his family. But they couldn’t have more. “Lilli, the doctor said…”
“I know what she said. She didn’t say it would happen again. She said there was a greater risk.” She looked into his eyes. “We’ll talk. It’s not like I want to do it right this second. Right now, I just want to bask.”
He let it drop, but they would talk again. Because he was through risking her. But she was right—now was a time to bask in what they had. “We came through it didn’t we? We came through it all.”
She grinned. “We did. I love you so much, Isaac.”
Leaning over their sleeping newborn child, Isaac took his old lady’s face in his hand. “I love you, Sport. You are everything to me. You and Gia—all that matters.”
Gia woke then and began to fuss. Lilli, topless, shifted on the bed and offered her breast, and Gia latched on with a tiny whimper. Isaac pressed a kiss to the back of his little girl’s sweet-smelling head and relaxed on his pillow, his arm protectively over his wife and child.
He looked over Lilli’s shoulder out the window, into the dark sky of this summer night. The stars were a brilliant, glimmering multitude, filling the vast space. In the country, where the ambient light of civilization was low, a clear night was always ablaze with cold, bright light. Isaac had spent so much of the past year with his head down, focused on the filth around him, that he’d forgotten the beauty of his world. Lying here now, cocooned with his little family, that infinite expanse a background to his contentment, hard-earned, Isaac felt…significant.
He had fought for what mattered. The town had fought. Lilli had fought harder than anyone. They had sacrificed and bled, but they had not given up. Against seemingly infinite odds, they had persevered. And they had won.
THE END
COMING SOON:
INTO THE STORM
The Signal Bend Series, Book Three
Chapter One available for preview at www.tfcpress.wordpress.com
Behold the Stars Page 29
