Upstairs, I close the nursery door behind us and turn to face him as he stands in the middle of the pale green room, two cribs on either side of him and a rocking chair near the window. He doesn’t sit and I know I’m either about to become enemy number one or we’re going to fix things.
“If you hurt her again,” he says calmly. “I will run you over with my car.”
I’m stunned, but as a father I can understand where he’s coming from.
“Understood,” I say with a nod. “But I don’t plan on hurting her. Ever. I was an idiot once, and it won’t happen again.”
“If you leave,” he continues. “If you disappear on my daughter and those babies, I won’t just run you over. I’ll reverse and do it twice.”
I almost smile. “Understood, sir.”
He studies me, and I know he’s trying to figure out if I’m just saying what he wants to hear or if I really mean it.
“I didn’t have a great example growing up,” I say before I can overthink it. “My father wasn’t…present. Not in the ways it mattered.”
His expression shifts slightly, and he almost looks like he feels bad for threatening me.
“I don’t want to screw this up,” I admit. “So if you’ve got advice, I’ll take it. You did something right raising your kids.They’re both kind, especially Zalea. She doesn’t give up on people.”
He exhales slowly, holding my gaze.
“You show up,” he says. “Every day. Even when it’s hard.Especiallywhen it’s hard.”
I nod. “I can do that.”
He steps forward, and grips my shoulder firmly. “Then we won’t have a problem.”
When we walk back downstairs, Zalea and her mother study us suspiciously.
“What did you two talk about?”
“Power tools,” her dad says.
“Vehicular safety,” I add, and she narrows her eyes.
Her mother laughs, still rocking Marina.
Later in the day, her parents finally head home, and the house feels quieter. I find Zalea on the wraparound porch with the baby monitor as the twins nap in their room. She’s barefoot, staring out at the garden, eyes closed against the warm coastal breeze.
My wife, I think to myself as I watch her.
I still haven’t gotten used to that word. We were planning to have a beautiful wedding once we were back in Saltwater Springs, but when we got to Hawaii, we decided we were done waiting for perfect timing.
Zale stood beside her as her Man of Honour, as promised, and I asked an old friend from Hawaii that I met on tour to sign as a witness to the wedding.
There was no big wedding, no aisle, and no fancy clothing.
It was just us, and it was perfect.
I step behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist and pressing a kiss to her temple.
“Do you want to take them to see Gabby when they wake up?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
We’ve started doing this almost daily, or every other day at least because the cemetery is only a short walk from here.
Close enough that it feels like it should be a part of our routine.
