Zion chuckled into his cup, and Simone laughed through her tears. “Nah. This is a job for somebody withcharm. Somebody personable. Somebody who?—”
“Tre.”
“I’ll do it, Jules.”
And then his grin faded and he sat forward, seriously. “Let me go get him. I mean it.” He held my eyes. “You’ve got a pregnant wife. You’re not gonna want to be two days and a mountain away from Alyssa right now. You’d go anyway, I know it, because that’s what you do. You do the hard thing, every time, because you decided years ago that’s how it’s gonna be.” He didn’t look away. “It’s not just yours to carry anymore, Jules. Let it be me.”
I looked at my baby brother. Fifteen when our mother died, the one I’d spent my entire adult life trying to keep the weight off of, sitting at the table asking me to hand him the heaviest thing we had left.
Every instinct in me wanted to say no. It had to be me, because if it didn’t go well, I was the one who could take it. Because taking it alone used to be the only way I knew to love anybody.
I looked at Alyssa. She wasn’t going to say a word, but her hand was on my leg under the table.
“Okay,” I nodded. “Go bring him home, Tre.”
He looked shocked that I agreed, but recovered, smiling and nodding once.
For a moment nobody said anything. In the other room, Micah and Zhaire were losing a battle over a toy with Zaria.
“Ow! Shebitme!” Micah hollered, and Raschad was up out of his chair, crossing to where Zaria came toddling towards him wailing, with the disputed toy clutched in her hands.
He scooped her up and covered her wet face in kisses. “It’s okay, baby girl, it’s okay. How about we just let her have it, huh?” He looked back at the boys, negotiating a surrender on her behalf. “You can find something else to get into.”
“Raschad!” Simone got up. “Absolutely not. She does not get to sink her teeth into somebody and get rewarded because she’s got her daddy wrapped around her finger.” She plucked the toy out of Zaria’s fist, and handed it back to the boys. “There. Play.”
Micah and Zhaire high-fived, a vindicated united front. Zaria, deprived of the toy and justice, took a breath that pulled all the air out of the room, and then detonated. Back arched, fists balled, the works. Raschad looked down at his screaming daughter like he’d been handed a live grenade.
“Here, you want Daddy’s phone?” Raschad muttered, showing her his phone as an offering. The table lost it with laughter.
Micah abandoned the toy the second it was his again and came trotting over to us, planting himself at Alyssa’s elbow.
“Mom.” He glanced at shrieking Zaria in Raschad’s arms, then back at us. “When you have the baby. Can it be a brother?”
“We don’t get to pick, Micah,” Alyssa said.
“Okay, but can youtry.” He looked at Zaria, mid-meltdown. “Because girls bite. And they have tantrums. And they take your stuff.” He shook his head. “I just think a brother’s the smarter move.”
The whole table howled.
“See?” Taryn said, gesturing at the chaos. “This right here is why me and Zion are good with being the fun auntie and uncle. We get tohand them back.” She turned to Zion. “Ain’t that right, baby?”
“Every time,” Zion smiled, pulling her in under his arm, kissing the side of her head. “We show up, spoil ’em, buy the loud annoying toys, then go home to a quiet house and sleep in. Best deal in the family.”
“The best deal,” Taryn agreed, and clinked her glass to his.
I put my hand over Alyssa’s under the table. Then I laid my other one over the small rise of her stomach.
My son was still lobbying for a brother across the table. My other child was growing under my hand. My wife was beside me. My brothers and my sister were bickering about life with kids. My father was up on a mountain, still alive, unaware that his baby boy was preparing to bring him home.
I had never had more to lose in my life. The thought came with a wash of anxiety.
I would love to tell you that therapy erased it. That Alyssa loved me so well my fear disappeared. That walking up to my mother’s grave and touching my father’s piano cured the part of me that still knew exactly how fast a life could splinter apart.
It didn’t. Love did not make me less afraid.
Some mornings, I still woke before the sun and listened for breathing. Some nights, I checked the locks twice and then made myself not check them a third time. Sometimes Alyssa touched her stomach and winced, and I had to breathe through the part of me that wanted to call three doctors and cancel the rest of the day.
Fear was still there. I had just stopped letting it run my life.
