I was sure there was only one direction. But, the horizon is clear—I see a new fork in the road, and I know it’s time to try a new way because I was set free of the burdens I have held onto. “I need to live—for him,” I tell Brody. “I want to do it with you.”
“Then let’s live, let’s live until we run out of breath,” Brody says, placing a kiss on my lips.
Epilogue
Three Years Later
“How’s the temperature?”
“It’s good, a little hot, but—not bad,” Brody tells the woman filling his foot bath with water and soothing salts.
Hannah and I give each other a look and snicker as we glance back down at our magazines.
“Is this your first pedicure?”
Brody set his chair on the highest massage level and he can barely speak without sounding like a talking vibrator. “Yeah, it’s Mother’s Day, and this is what my girls want to do.”
The woman taking care of Brody’s pedicure looks at me and smiles, but I get the sense that there’s a feeling of hatred for me as she scrubs the bottoms of my husband’s feet. Better her than me.
“When are you due?” The woman pouring salts into the basin my feet are in hasn’t said much since I sat down, but it seems like she’s trying to make conversation.
“Last week,” Hannah answers for me. “A long last week ago.”
I swat at Hannah with my magazine. “Be quiet.”
“Oh, is it a boy or a girl?” the woman continues.
“Another girl,” Brody sighs.
“You’ll be getting pedicures for life,” his pedicurist says with what looks like a snarl. I might be making the same face, though. I hate feet, which works out well for me since I haven’t seen mine in about four months.
I didn’t plan on having kids, but Hannah has opened my eyes to a new world. One I didn’t expect to find. I enjoy the challenges she has come along with, and the reward of seeing the effect I have on her life gave me an urge I fought for as long as I can remember. I’m still not sure I would have brought up the idea, but Hannah asked us for a brother or a sister less than a month after Brody, and I tied the knot. Surprisingly, Brody was way more on board than I expected him to be after raising a teenage girl. As for me, I thought baby fever was just a saying, but once it hit me, it was all I could think about. The weakness I suffered with through eating and the accompanying pains slowly faded over time, and I knew if I was going to become one little person’s world, I would need to make every sacrifice to remain healthy. I know I’m strong enough now.
So, here we are, a week overdue, waiting on our little girl. I can already tell she’s going to be giving her daddy just as much trouble as Hannah.
Hannah pulls her phone out of her back pocket, which she has been sitting on. I’ve asked her to stop doing that since she’s going to crack the screen, but she won’t listen. She places the phone up to her ear. “Hello?”
Hannah looks between Brody and me. “Ah, yeah. We’re getting pedicures.” Hannah looks down at her feet, wiggling her toes around in the blue water. “Yeah, Dad too.”
“Who is that?” Brody asks her.
“Sure,” Hannah says. “It’s aunt Mel.” Hannah hands the phone over to Brody rather than me.
“She wants to talk to your dad?” I question.
Hannah shrugs. “I guess so.”
“What’s going on?” I ask, using a more pointed tone with her. She has a weird look on her face, and it makes me think something is wrong.
Brody glances over at me then back at his lap. “Yeah, no problem. I’ll ah—I’ll handle it and let me—an update would be great as soon as you find something out.”
What the hell?
“Did you pick out a color?” the woman asks Brody as she begins to drain his water.
“Oh, no, color, thanks.”
“No, color?”
