by Ella James
Turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong in my initial judgment of her. Zara is a few years younger than me. She’s lean and willowy, with long, curly brown hair. She’s wearing a flowing green dress and light brown leather sandals, and a small, tight smile as she sits on a beige suede couch. From the second my eyes lock with hers, I just know I’m going to like her.
Within the first few minutes, it’s clear she’s a funny, whip-smart woman who so happens to have bipolar type one. She was raised by her grandparents, who are Catholic, so she felt it was important to give birth to Edey when she got pregnant unintentionally.
“I think the birth itself threw me off course, like with my meds,” she tells us, and Sky nods. “I’ve heard that can happen.”
“It got really bad around the time she was two weeks old. I remember that, but not a lot of what came next. I guess that’s when my manic phase kicked in, and I got that wild idea about the two of you.”
She looks embarrassed. Mortified, actually.
“Don’t feel bad about it,” Luke tells her. “When I’m having mental health issues, I just lie in bed. You got your baby to a safe place.”
The lawyers told us before this moment that Zara doesn’t remember doing it.
“It’s amazing that you thought clearly enough to do that,” I agree. “Plus, the note you left? It totally worked.” I smile, shifting Eden on my lap, and tears start dripping down Zara’s cheeks.
“You want to hold her?” I ask. As much as I adore our Little Missy, I could never keep a baby from its birth mom or deny a woman access to her child. If this works out, it’s gotta be on everybody’s terms.
Zara nods once, quick, and holds her arms out. I stand from my wing-backed chair and pass Eden gently to her, trying to focus on how good it is for Eden to be held by her mother—rather than some of the other thoughts that could run through my head.
Luke snaps a picture of them with his phone. I swallow hard and try to just keep breathing.
“Do you want some time with her?” I manage to ask Zara. “We could step out if you wanted.”
She just smiles as tears drip from her eyes onto Eden’s pale pink footie outfit. “This is time. And this is what I wanted.”
She shifts so she’s got Miss Baby pressed against her chest. “I love you, peanut,” she says in a soft, tear-choked voice. “But Mama’s got to go to school and make a good life. I don’t want to drag you with me like a box of luggage.”
She cries more, and Luke brings out a pack of tissues from his pocket, leaning over the rug and glass-topped coffee table to pass it to her.
“I’m so sorry for the things I said. Like to the press.” She covers her mouth as a small sob slips out.
“We’ve had a lot worse,” I tell her. “At least with this, nobody got hurt.”
That makes her cry more.
“I’m just so sorry.” She dabs at her brown eyes. “If you want another baby, I would understand.”
“But we don’t,” Sky says, his voice firm. “We want this one.”
“From the moment I picked her up, she felt like someone I knew,” I tell Zara. “I know it sounds weird, but—”
“It doesn’t.” She wipes her eyes. “That’s how I felt when I saw that video of you two at the hospital.”
Luke and I look at each other.
“You saw that?” he asks her.
“I think that’s what got the idea in my head,” she says softly. “Without me knowing till I went inpatient and started to think about it. But yeah, I saw that. And you seemed so nice,” she tells me, “on that video. Like a real caretaker, you know?”
I nod, and Sky reaches out to hold my hand.
“I think that part of me, the one that’s all unconscious during those spells, it just wanted the best for the baby. My cousin is gay, so I don’t know… I don’t remember,” she says, looking down.
“We don’t blame you at all,” Luke says. “For any of it. That’s all in the past now.”
“Could I do another statement?” she asks. “Something that might help? I would be open to talking about my bipolar. To raise awareness.”
Sky picks up a folder from the table right beside us.
“We don’t need you to talk about anything unless you want to. We do have a few proposals for you. Approved by our lawyers.” I listen, watching Edey, as Sky tells Zara about the money we want to put toward her schooling. My throat aches and my eyes start welling when he asks if she would like to keep in touch with Edey.
“You could see her sometimes,” he says. “If you would like.”
Zara really starts to cry then. She passes Eden off to me and spends some time drying her face with tissues.
“We want Eden,” Sky says. “But we also want to do what we can to be sure you’re taken care of. As her mother, you’re important to us.”
“It’s a lot of money.” She looks to me, like she hopes I might back her up. “It’s too much.” She gives a soft, awkward laugh.
“Not that much.” Luke waggles his brows, and I let out a little hoot by accident, and she laughs.
“Listen, it’s inherited,” he tells her. “It’s not mine, and it’s not yours. Let’s both take some. Does that seem good?”
She dabs her eyes again. “If you’re sure.”
“The only thing we need,” Sky tells her, “is to know you’re sure—that Eden can be ours, through adoption. We’re willing to give some time if that’s what you need. Limbo isn’t fun, but we’ll do it. To ensure the best outcome for all of us.”
She shakes her head, tearing up again as she says, “No, I’m sure. I just want to get myself together. Getting pregnant threw my body and my mind for a loop. I love my own child, but I’m not ready to be a full-time mother. Not now, and maybe never. I would like to see her, though.” She wipes her eyes again, and sniffles. “If you think that would be okay.”
“It would be perfect,” Sky says. “We would love that. You could be more like a family friend we see every year, or every other year. Or you could be more like an aunt.”
“Like a birth mom,” I correct him gently. “You will be her mom. And she can know that if you want her to.”
We’ve been hammering these details out since yesterday, so I already know all this is okay with Luke.
Zara nods, wiping at her eyes again. “Whatever you want,” she says softly.
“No. Not just what we want. We want you to feel okay,” Luke says. “When Eden’s older, she’ll want her mom happy. That’s what we want as well.”
“Someday, we’ll have to have that talk, and she’ll find out she didn’t come from Daddy and Papa.” I wink, hoping to keep things light.
“I can be her mother,” Zara says. “As long as she can live at your house.” She laughs. “I love children, but a baby…I don’t know.”
“They are loud,” Sky says.
“And they almost never sleep.” I smile.
It ends on a really happy note with Zara. I think she feels good about our plans. We all sign a few things, and Sky and I go to the courthouse to finalize the paperwork as much as we can the day of.
No one stares. No one asks questions. No one notices Ollie with his camera in the corner.
As we head home for dinner, Ollie talks to Zara, first for the Netflix documentary and then to introduce Zara to a San Francisco Chronicle reporter. The reporter is going to interview Zara for an in-depth piece about parenthood and mental illness; it won’t be published for maybe a month, and it won’t feature Zara’s real name. But it will allude to the connection between Zara and us, so at some point Luke will look more like a respectable gay pastor again and less like a baby-swiping swinger.
The church has already put out a few statements mitigating Zara’s original story, and after dinner tonight, we’ll write out the wording for another press release, announcing our Big Gay Vegas Marriage, and also Eden as our daughter.
First, I have an early evening pre-op call. Sky whips up zucchini pasta, wearing Eden in the little pouch thing, while I a
nswer hospital questions on the phone beside the fireplace. Turns out Sky was right—he’s got the hook up with some good doctors. I don’t know what strings he pulled, but he told me this morning in bed that a surgeon friend of his family can ‘do’ my shoulder the first week of September.
“Do it,” I laughed. “That sounds awfully fucking casual.”
He trailed his hand over it. “I already spoke with him, and he said that it will be. It’s an outpatient procedure. So you’ll get to come home with me.”
I’m surprised, but the nurse on the pre-op call tells me the same thing.
“One and done. Then, just some checkups.”
I’m feeling pretty fucking buoyant as we eat our pasta. Eden’s sitting in this little tabletop chair thing, just blinking at us.
“You realize how lucky we are?” Sky asks as he clears the table. “Lots of people wait a lifetime and they still don’t get what we have.”
His voice goes ragged on the last few words, which makes me have to put my head down in my palm because if I don’t, I’m going to fucking happy cry at dinner.
“Hey…” His hand is on my shoulder. “It’s a good thing. That’s what I’m saying. I feel happy. Instead of feeling…heavy…I feel light. Like maybe everything will work out in the end. No, like it will. Like it’s already worked out.”
I lift my head, wiping my eyes but also laughing at how damn emotional I am.
Sky is grinning like the Papa he is as he wipes my tears. “Rayne, I’m going to tell you something, okay?”
“Oh boy,” I tease.
He swallows, and I hold my breath as he holds my face between his hands. “It’s not a wedding this time.” He smiles sadly. “But it’s something that I wish I would have said before. Like months ago. And it’s just this…” He moves his hands down to my shoulders, looking so solemn my heart flips. He takes a deep breath, and I take one, too, to calm my fraying nerves.
He shuts his eyes, going down to his knees by the chair so he can wrap his arms around me. “We are going to have an amazing life together.” He draws back so I can see his face, and I realize that he’s down on one knee—even if he doesn’t know it. “All the things you really want, I’ll try my best to make them happen. Everything you need, I’m going to give it to you. If I don’t know how, I’ll find out how.”
I laugh as a renegade tear drips down my cheek. Luke kisses it off.
“You are beautiful and wonderful. You are the heart of our house. You make things possible that really just” —he shakes his head— “they shouldn’t be.”
“They should be,” I counter.
“Well, they only are because you are.” He shuts his eyes and his hand passes over them, squeezing the bridge of his nose. I see a single little Sky tear drop. And then it’s over, and he’s smiling. Laughing, shaking his head. Probably embarrassed. Sky and all his fucking stoicism.
The baby fusses, and I get her, holding her on my shoulder as I whip up a bottle and Luke does the dishes.
Just after we head into the den, Luke’s phone dings. It’s a text from Miller. He sent a selfie of himself in a Crimson Tide T-shirt with a Nike slash, giving thumbs up.
“I think that’s the University of Alabama,” Sky says, sounding excited.
We Google Crimson Tide and find that Sky was right.
“So, he’s in Alabama,” I say. “That’s how far he rode the bus.”
We spend some time talking about what Miller told Sky—and, later, before leaving, touched on with me.
“The world is still so fucked up for gay kids, and I fucking hate that,” I tell Luke.
“Our planning meetings for The Rainbow Initiative start next week.” He runs his hand over my hair and puts his arm around my shoulders. “Do you still want to be involved? Even though you’ll be back to sculpting after the shoulder heals up?”
“Yeah.” I take a big breath and blow it out. I look at Sky with wide eyes and arched brows. “I really do. Can you find something for me? Something I could do without some big, fancy degree or like…really any knowledge of religion.”
I laugh, feeling like maybe it’s not a good idea, and he says, “Yes. In fact, I already have a couple of ideas.”
I think about the things he mentioned as I rock Eden to sleep in our room. I could do one-on-one mentoring with kids in the outpatient mental health clinic that we hope to house on the Evermore campus. I could organize the art program for the kids who’re staying inpatient—either in transient housing, or in a special new inpatient mental health facility. Maybe one day when he’s older, Miller might even want to help out.
After Eden’s down, I find Sky in the living room. I’ve still got the kid on my brain.
“Maybe we could go watch him play during a game this fall,” I suggest.
“I would like that,” Sky says. “I’m going to call him once a week and talk. I told him to expect a lot of calls.”
“You think that person you linked him up with will help him?”
“Yeah. And I have someone assembling a database of people like that, so if it doesn’t, there’ll be other recs. Therapists who can help people around the country, for those who don’t need inpatient therapy or a place to stay…who just want to utilize our network of LGBTQ-friendly health providers. In the future, we’ll have a twenty-four-hour help line. Funding for transportation to our facility here. An ad campaign that focuses on the message that life gets better for these kids. The whole works.” Sky grins, looking like a damn peacock that’s ready to strut. “Ansley told me funds are pouring in like Evermore has never seen.”
I sit beside him on the couch. I wrap my arm around him. “All this is because you came out. Walked the whole way down the fucking aisle and got spit on and went through hell.”
“So did you.”
“We both did.”
“I did it for you.” He leans against me. “Without you, I don’t think I would have.”
“Well, you’re not without me.”
“I never want to be without you.” Sky kisses my mouth and throat, and soon he’s straddling my hips. After we’re both rock hard, he tosses a blanket in front of the fireplace.
We re-christen the spot where he used to lie alone when he’d stay home from work. Afterward, we sit on opposite sides of the couch, both our backs against the couch’s arms, our legs intermingling in the middle, and we draft our adoption announcement.
The moment we’re finished, Eden’s cry comes through the baby monitor. We both jump up.
“I’ve got it,” we say at the same time.
In the end, we go into our room together.
Sky gets Eden while I grab the bottle. I hold her, and he feeds her. She blinks at us both like we’re crazy. And we are. We really are about as crazy as they come. But mostly crazy for each other.
Luke
Rayne falls asleep with the baby. When I’m sure she’s solidly asleep and I’ve got the foot monitor snugly on her, I lift her gently from his arms and snuggle her into her little boxy bed. Then I cover Rayne’s legs with our soft sheets.
I walk quietly into the living room. Turn off the fireplace—Rayne’s obsession. I smile at that, and then I’m cheesing at the drafted press release on the coffee table.
I get water for Vance and myself and make another bottle for the baby. Before I leave the living room, I read the press release again. And then again.
I take a picture of it with my phone and send it on to Ollie—for the documentary, which he says he’s going to call Communion. I text a copy to my mother—just because.
‘Beautiful,’ she texts back. ‘I’m so grateful for this new branch of our family.’
I stand in the doorway of our bedroom for a long time, with my eyes closed. Feeling the air and being in the silence.
Present. Peaceful.
And it’s beautiful. We’re really beautiful.
We’re perfect.
Evermore United Church is pleased to announce the marriage of Pastor Luke McDowell and Mr. Emerson Vance Ray
ne McDowell, of Brooklyn, New York.
The former Mr. Rayne is an accomplished artist who lived in Chelsea before relocating to the Bay. His oil paintings and his grand-scale murals, as well as his marble sculptures, are highly sought-after.
This past spring, Mr. Rayne painted a commissioned mural inside Evermore, an occasion which re-introduced the pastor and the artist—who had loved each other quietly, in secret, painfully and from a distance, for a number of years.
Mr. Rayne’s mural featured an Eden scene.
The couple wed this summer in a private elopement, but eloped a second time, to Las Vegas, to legalize their nuptials in mid-August. The same week, they began fostering an infant.
Today, the McDowells announce the adoption of their first child, Eden Helena McDowell. Eden is six weeks old.
Pastor McDowell and Mr. McDowell say she is the first of many children in what will become a very large and happy family.
Afterword
Whew! Well that’s a wrap. But not entirely.
Miller’s story, which is up next (if it doesn’t kill me in the writing process) can be pre-ordered here for $1 cheaper than the release price.
A Sky + Rayne bonus scene that is absolutely NSFW is coming via my newsletter sometime in the next week or two, so be sure to subscribe.
A few weeks before Christmas, I’ll also share some McDowell family newsletters that give end-of-the year updates on Luke, Vance, and Eden for years 2020 and 2021.
I hope you enjoyed reading this latest chapter of Luke and Vance’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
If you’re a member of the LGBTQ+ community, as I am, and are struggling with any element of your identity, know that you are perfect as you are—from your head to your soles, and every single cell. If you need support, check out The Trevor Project, which has a help line and many other resources.
If you’re looking for another Ella James book while you wait on Miller’s book, Wrath, check out Sloth, a USA Today bestselling MF romance that is (standalone) book one in my collection of Sinful Secrets novels. Each story is emotional and angsty, inspired by a sin and centered on a devastating secret.
