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Sophia knocked on the front door, as high up as she could reach. “Hello, UPS!” she called out. She’d learned that much from Aiden. “Hello, it’s UPS!” Her father patted her head and gave her a thumbs-up.
I had been carrying the master key. I unlocked the door and let Sophia push it open. She gasped when she looked inside. “It’s my house?”
“Yes, of course, it’s your house, Sophia,” her grandma Betty said to her. “Will you let us live with you?”
“You can live with me. You’re my parents and my grandma.” Sophia looked up at all three of us and nodded.
The place was beautiful. It was a cramped townhouse by standards anywhere outside New York, but it was palatial for New York.
“Oh, my goodness, these shiny floors. You two really outdid yourself,” Mom said.
The hardwood floors gleamed. Restoring and polishing those floors had been Aiden and my weekend project for the last few weekends before move-in. During that time, Mom took Sophia on long walks around our new neighborhood.
“We did what we could.” I shrugged while wrapping my arm around Aiden’s beefy shoulders. “You did the down payment thing. We did the floor-polishing thing.”
“This really looks amazing,” Mom said, still looking at the floors.
“This really looks amazing!” Sophia said in agreement and pointed all around the house.
Moving into a Victorian townhouse for Sophia’s fifth birthday was financially draining but worth it every bit. Mom had sold her house in the suburbs and agreed to become our full-time nanny. Aiden pulled overtime hours at UPS, and I worked for home consulting for public libraries. Sophia provided cuteness, warmth, and the unstoppable energy of an adorable little girl.
Aiden lifted Sophia up into his arms. He looked into her eyes. “Happy birthday, Sophia. Happy birthday.”
Our daughter beamed. It was Aiden who was almost crying. I knew that he was thinking that five years back, he’d almost had doubts about whether he and I could raise this beautiful, wonderful, life-changing baby girl. That first night with me, Aiden had no idea how much it would change his life for the better.
When he drove his route, the picture on his truck’s dashboard reminded him of his wife. The close-up photo he’d kept as a screensaver on his iPad reminded him of his most precious daughter and how she’d grown up over five years.
“I’m five today!” Sophia announced, standing on her new house’s doorstep. She didn’t have to announce her age for Aiden and me to know how quickly she’d been growing up. She was already on Facebook, “liking” her dads’ photos of her, and she could write her name and address with a pencil or an iPad.
Sophia was Mom’s baby girl almost as much as she was Aiden’s and I’s. She relished being a grandparent to our girl and loved every minute they could spend together.
Mom had put up most of the cash for the townhouse. That was her present for Sophia’s fifth birthday. But I had a present of my own for my daughter. Fully physically recovered five years after my pregnancy, I’d been sneaking over to the townhouse before the move-in date and working on converting one room to a library — Sophia's library.
With bookshelves not just along the walls, but library-style, bookshelves in the middle of the room. All not much taller than kid-size, so my daughter could reach. With a computerized library catalog on an Ipad and an antique card catalog, I’d bought from my former employer as decoration. I looked forward to spending an evening explaining to Sophia how the old-fashioned card catalog worked. With one of her parents a librarian and the other a literature Ph.D., she’d naturally be fond of books. There was even a copy of Khalil Gibran’s “The Prophet”— the book that had started the entire romance. We would read it aloud to Sophia one day.
Lord Byron, she could read on her own.
***
Our first night in our new master suite was exciting. I had purchased some sexy lingerie for the occasion, and once I knew that Sophia and Mom were asleep, I snuck away to put it on.
Aiden was in the shower washing off a long day of moving boxes and setting up furniture. Initially, I had planned on laying back on the bed and surprising him. Still, as he lingered under the warm water, I grew impatient.
“Almost done?” I poked my head into the steamed-up bathroom.
His strong back was to me. Aiden had his head down against the tile, letting the spray warm his muscles. After all these years, his body still turned me on. The exertion of working for UPS kept my husband fit.
“Do you want this shower?” he mumbled, not lifting his head.
I stepped confidently into the bathroom — heels on my feet and a tight lace teddy covering little.
“No.” At the sound of my voice, Aiden turned. “I want you.”
