I flush at the memory, but he squeezes my thigh, reassuring.
He’s quiet for a second, then says, “You know, when I started paternity leave, I thought it would be an excuse to work on my book. But it turns out, all I want to do is stare at her. Or you.”
He makes it sound romantic, but I know he’s struggling. The poetry hasn’t come easy lately; the days blur together in a fog of diapers, nap schedules, and endless, hungry hours.
I brush a petal from his shoulder. “You’ll get back to it. It’s just a season.”
He nods, but I catch the doubt in his eyes.
“Speaking of seasons,” he says, changing the subject with the finesse of a man who’s spent a lifetime teaching undergrads to pivot in a thesis, “Did you see what she did yesterday?”
He gestures to Emmy, who is now snoring in his lap, a tiny fist clutched against his shirt.
I shake my head.
“She rolled over. Nearly made it all the way,” he says, pride and awe commingling in his voice.
I feign shock. “No way. You’re lying.”
He sets the baby down, careful not to jostle Emmy, and gets down on the grass, lying flat on his back.
“Watch,” he stage-whispers, then demonstrates the laborious, wriggling process by which our daughter achieves a 90-degree turn before getting stuck and shrieking for help.
I laugh so hard I almost drop my cup.
He props himself up on his elbows, grinning at my reaction.
“You’re a dork,” I say.
“I’ve always been a dork,” he admits. “You just never noticed.”
I reach out, pull a blade of grass, and drop it on his chest. “I noticed. I liked it.”
He returns to the bench, reclaiming Emmy and tucking her head under his chin. For a while, we sit in companionable silence, the kind that comes from knowing you’re exactly where you should be.
After a minute, he says, “You’re going to ace those finals. You know that, right?”
I let the warmth of it settle inside me. “I want to believe you.”
He turns to face me fully, blue eyes cutting through all my defenses. “You survived fibroids, motherhood, grad school, and me. You’re unstoppable.”
My throat tightens. I don’t cry, not anymore—not in public, not with witnesses—but I squeeze his hand, hard, and he squeezes back.
I lean in, kiss his cheek, the taste of sunscreen and sweat and coffee.
“You’re my favorite disaster,” I say.
He laughs, careful not to wake the baby.
When Emmy stirs, he rocks her, humming tunelessly.
I watch them both, and for the first time since I was a kid, I want the future. I want it to keep happening, day after day, exactly like this: sun, and garden, and a man who loves me enough to make me believe in every impossible thing.
Somewhere nearby, a church bell rings the hour. I gather my books, my notes, my baby, my whole unwieldy, beautiful life, and prepare to walk into whatever comes next.
But not before I let myself savor the moment—just one more minute—sitting in the dappled gold, surrounded by everything I never thought I could have.
The way home is a mile of sidewalk raked with leaves, every tree a cathedral in early September. The campus drops away behind us and Century’s old stone buildings shrink in the rearview; up ahead, the neighborhood is all manicured lawns and dormer windows, the kind of place that thinks it can keep the world’s sharp edges at bay with a good HOA and regular fertilizer. Emmy is dead weight against my chest, her breath a damp pulse through the cotton of my shirt. She’s started that phase where sleep means total surrender—head back, mouth open, little arms limp as flower stems.
