“A tiny cry?” Laddie guesses.
“Yeah,” Liam whispers. “A tiny one.”
I watch as Laddie wipes away a tear from Liam’s cheek with the side of his mitten. Liam lets him, closing his eyes like the touch alone is enough to undo him.
Meanwhile, Dawson has been standing beside us, staring at the scene like he’s watching a season finale he didn’t know he signed up for.
I press a mitten over my mouth, overwhelmed by relief, fear, joy, all of it tangled together inside me.
Because the moment I’d been terrified of?
The one I ran from for six years?
It turns out…
It was the moment my son was waiting for.
And the moment Liam has been aching for.
Laddie’s face lights up so bright it could replace the sun.
“Mama, did you hear? I have a Daddy!”
“Yes, sweetheart,” I manage, blinking fast, trying to stop my tears.
This is the moment everything changes.
For all three of us.
34
EMMA
“I like Daddy a lot, Mama,”Laddie whispers as I tuck him in for the night.
It’s his first week in his own room, stretched out in Talia’s huge bed, and even though he spent all day bragging about being “totally a big kid now,” he looks so terribly small in it.
I swear he had a big growth spurt just in the past few days, and yet when I put him in this adult-size bed, he’s my little baby all over again.
I kiss my son on the forehead and stroke his hair.
“I’m glad you like him,” I tell him softly. “He’s your dad. And he likes you a whole lot, too.”
He thinks about that for a second, blinking up at me with those big green eyes.
“Do you like him?” he asks.
The question is innocent enough, but it hits me quite heavily. I feel my throat close up, and tears well up in my eyes. I push mylips together and breathe through my nose, trying to hold back the strange emotions I feel.
I nod.
“I do,” I say. “I like him a lot. I always have, since I was very young.”
“Do you want him to be yourboyyyfriend?”
He drags out the last word in a goofy voice, then immediately dissolves into giggles, burying his face in the pillow. He’s suddenly very fascinated and embarrassed by anything he perceives as “kissy.”
“Bro,” I say, tapping his nose with my finger. “Mind your business.”
