When I said something along those lines to my mother this past Christmas—while all of us were wearing our matching pajamas, of course, thanks to Luca—Mom quirked an eyebrow and retorted, “Watch, Maddox will secretly become your favorite, later on.”
“Excuse me?” I replied, given the implication of Mom’s comment.
“Kidding,” Mom said with a patronizing pat on my arm. But then, she waggled her eyebrows and added, “Or was I?”
“Maddox,” Maverick snaps to my left, jerking my mind back to the present. “Chill.Please.”
I look at Iris and we both chuckle again. It’s hilarious hearingMaverick using the same tone and inflection we always do with Maddox.
“Oh! I’ve got a bite!” Maverick blurts, drawing our attention to his line in the water.
“Remember to set the hook before yanking back,” Iris instructs calmly. “Patience, my love.”
“I know, Momma.”
It was never Iris’s idea for Maverick to stop calling her “Iris”—or “Irish,” when he was little—and to start calling her “Momma.” From the start, Iris has always been extremely respectful of Vanessa. But after Maddox came along andhestarted calling Iris “Mommy” and “Momma,” Maverick suddenly adopted “Momma” for Iris, without prompting, and “Mom” for Vanessa. And that’s the way it’s been ever since.
“Not so fast,” I call out when Maverick starts reeling in the fish way too quickly.
“Dad, please. I’ve got this. This ain’t my first rodeo.”
I smile to myself. I used to say that all the time in interviews, whenever some clueless reporter asked if “the pressure and all the expectations” were getting to me.
After a little maneuvering, Maverick pulls in a medium-
sized, wriggling rainbow trout and holds it up, grinning, like it’s a massive marlin, and we all cheer and applaud like he’s harpooned Moby Dick.
“Looks likeI’llbefeasting tonight,” Maverick teases. “What will the rest of you eat?”
“Mav, you have to share,” Maddox says, his little fists on his hips and his dark eyebrows scrunched.
“Maddox,” Maverick shoots back, copying his little brother’s inflection. “I wasjoking.”
“Oh.”
Laughing at their exchange, Iris snaps some photos of Maverick with his fish before helping him free the wigglingthing from its hook. While she does that, I keep an eagle eye on our holy terror, Maddox, to make sure he doesn’t do something stupid. Or, at least, to keep the kid alive while he inevitably does that something stupid. The stream is shallow and slow moving where he’s playing, but Maddox Maguire is exceptionally talented at finding new ways to defy physics and give us a heart attack, so we’ve learned to keep eagle eyes on him at all times, whenever he’s not in a safely contained, Maddox-proofed environment.
In short order, the fish is nestled in our waiting cooler and Maverick’s line is back into the water with new bait attached, thanks to Iris. After making sure Maddox is clomping around in a spot that’s directly in Iris’s line of sight, I peek underneath the floppy, flower-patterned hat covering my newborn baby girl’s tiny, blonde head, and to my surprise, I’m met with two big, blue eyes staring calmly up at me.
When our eyes meet, Ivy coos and kicks happily against my abs, and my heart explodes with boundless love. “Hello there, girlie,” I coo. “Did you have a nice nap?”
Ivy gurgles happily.
Iris calls out, “Was that a ‘feed me’ sound?”
“I don’t think so. She’s just looking up at me happily.”
Iris snickers. “I don’t blame her. I’ve done that myself, a time or two.”
I shoot Iris a goofy grin, and she beams one back in reply.
“Let’s let her hang out till she asks to be fed,” I suggest. “So far, she just seems happy to be here.”
Iris agrees and returns to Maddox, just in time to see him jumping from one big rock to another like a flying squirrel.
“Careful, love!” Iris calls out to him, a note of anxiety in her voice. “Those rocks are really slippery.” She shoots me a look that says, “Holy hell,” and I return her nonverbal message with a similar one of my own. It’s useless to tell that kid to becareful. From what I can surmise, Maddox Maguire doesn’t have a careful bone in his little body.
“Watch the holy terror for a second, babe,” Iris calls out to me. “I think I’ve lost my bait.”
