Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 45063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Both of us are crying. There have been plenty of times I’ve nearly cried these past nine months. The wedding, small moments of blistering closeness, but there’s no nearly about this.
Happy tears slide down my cheeks, and I lean over, pressing my lips against Harper’s forehead. “You did great.”
“I want to hold her.”
Soon, our daughter is in her mother’s arms. My chest cracks right down the middle, as if my heart is breaking… then becoming whole again, like it opened to make room for this new life.
Our daughter, whom I love so much already. She’s an extension of her mother, of our love, and a testament to the life we fought for.
Cradling her to my chest, I rock her gently, staring into her precious face.
I turn to Adam, who has been allowed to enter now that the birth is over. His eyes are glistening, too.
“Meet your niece,” I tell him, smiling at my old friend.
“Tell him her name,” my wife says in her sleepy voice. “Her perfect, beautiful name.”
Adam rocks her softly, then looks up at me, a question in his tear-filled eyes.
“Eva,” I say. “Her name is Eva.”
He smiles, then looks down at his niece.
I look at my woman, so beautiful, brimming with the joy of motherhood, with the perfection of the life we’ve created.
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
NINE YEARS LATER
Harper
“So, what’s it like being Mommy’s husband?” Eva says, holding the hairbrush to her mouth as a makeshift mic and then offering it to Bryson.
I sit on the couch with baby Leah in my arms, with the twins—Jackson and Hunter—sitting cross-legged on the floor. We have four children so far, each of them precious and loved, and loving in their own amazing, unique way, each one expanding the love in my heart.
Bryson looks at me, still in his Sunday PJs. The sunlight slants through the window, shining off his tight arms, his silver hair, as fit and muscular as the first time he laid his hand on my leg.
“What do you think, boys?” he says, wiggling his eyebrows in the specific way that always sets the twins’ laughter off.
It’s no different this time, our five-year-olds collapsing against each other, giggling happily.
There’s nothing like hearing my own children’s laughter, better than any high that man could produce—a shot of happiness straight to the soul.
“Shall I be nice? Or… not so nice, hmm?”
“Nice!” Hunter sings.
“Nuh-uh. Not nice!”
Eva tosses her hair, the same brown as mine. It’s a gesture she might’ve seen Tiffany do on one of our televised live shows.
It’s been a wild run, with Bryson building up his practice to twice the size it was before he left the East Coast, with Tiffany and me throwing ourselves with enthusiasm into our podcasting careers, then writing books and getting spots on television.
Adam even started dating again, taking it slow at first, but lately, he’s been speaking about his girlfriend with a spark in his voice, something I haven’t heard since Eva passed.
Life keeps getting warmer with a more beautiful glow, with more and more happiness spreading between us all.
“Hello,” Eva says into the hairbrush mic. “Dead air.”
I grin when I hear her use the phrase. She’s been asking me questions about radio terminology all week.
“I’ll be honest,” Bryson says, taking the hairbrush, meeting my eyes, and staring intensely. “Asking Mommy to marry me is the best decision I ever made. I was so happy when she said yes, kids. It led to so much happiness. It led to all of you. It led to this life. It led to summer barbecues, winter snowball fights, and cuddling under the blanket while we watch the same movie for the fiftieth time.”
The twins laugh, calling out the name of the movie in unison.
“It led to me being able to say, every single morning, that I’m the luckiest man alive.”