“Now that’s what I needed,” he said several minutes later.
“Me, too. Nothing is right when you’re not here.”
“All I want, the whole time I’m gone, is to get home to you guys.”
They held each other for a long time until Sam glanced at the clock on the stove. “We’ve got to get changed, Godfather.”
“Okay, Godmother, but I’ll be having unholy thoughts about bedtime while I’m in church.”
“Nick! Stop it.”
He laughed as he followed her into their room.
“What goes on at a baptism?” Alden asked forty minutes later when they were in The Beast on the way to church.
“They dip the baby’s head in water,” Scotty said, “and declare her a human.”
“That’s not exactly it,” Nick said. “They absolve the baby of original sin in the eyes of the church.”
“What’s original sin?” Aubrey asked.
“The sins you’re born with,” Nick said.
“How can a baby be born already being a sinner?” Scotty asked. “What kind of trouble can they possibly get into inside their mother?”
“This is a wonderful can of worms you’ve opened, my love,” Sam said, smiling at Nick.
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Hopefully, the priest will explain it better than I did,” Nick said.
Scotty snorted with laughter. “You guys are a red-hot mess.”
“Oh, we know,” Sam said. “We have a teenager who tells us that every day.”
“It’s okay. You’re our mess.”
Sam fanned her face dramatically. “Isn’t he just the sweetest boy ever?”
Nick laughed. “God, how I missed you people while I was gone. No one entertains me the way you guys do.”
“We missed you, too, Daddy,” Aubrey said sweetly.
Nick melted when she called him that. He reached out a hand to her, and she held on tight to him.
“Do you think my other daddy minds if I call you that?” Aubrey asked softly.
“I think he knows how much you’ll always love him, but he’d want you to have a daddy here with you as well as him in heaven. You can love us both if you want to.”
“I want to.”
“So do I,” Alden said.
“And you’re Mommy,” Aubrey said to Sam as Alden nodded.
“I’d love to be Mommy,” Sam said over a huge lump in her throat. “We love you both so very much.”
“We love you, too,” Alden said.
