Slade hates sugar.
I’m obviously the last in this room to know that fact about my husband.
I’ve been baking for him for months. He’s eaten every bite.
“You hate sugar?” I say, my voice soft, clearly wounded.
“Lila—”
“All those cookies. The brownies. Dessert every night.” I stare at him. “Slade, I made you cinnamon muffins every week for two months. Were you just eating them tobe polite?”
“No.” He steps forward and takes my face in his hands. “Baby. I love everything you make. That’s the truth.” His thumbs brush my cheekbones. “It’s true, I never used to have a sweet tooth. But you changed that.”
Slade doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean. I’ve learned that about him: if he says it, it’s true. Full stop. No performance, no softening, no pretense. He wouldn’t change that for me.
His arms wrap around me and I lean my cheek against his chest as he embraces me.
Then I notice the kitchen.
Every single Rhodes has stopped what they were doing. Daryl with his basting brush. Walker mid-potato-peel. Sadie with a wooden spoon. Tanner with his mouth full of pecans. All of them staring.
Slade doesn’t look at any of them. Just keeps his arms around me, his chin resting on top of my head, looking out the kitchen window at the November sky, like they’re not even there.
Jonah plants himself on a counter stool and gives us an assessing look. “Are you guys gonna have a baby?”
Apparently, there are levels of silence we have not yet discovered. I thought the quiet was awkward before. This is excruciating, pin-drop silence.
“I... um… what?” I offer, very eloquently.
“Because,” Jonah continues, very reasonably, “that’s how Dad hugs Mom. And then Mom got my baby sisters in her tummy.” He considers Slade very seriously, pushing his glasses up his nose like a world-weary old man who’s seen too much. “Two at a time, Uncle Slade. I warned them it could happen.”
Tanner makes a strangled sound and turns to face the wall.
Walker very carefully sets down his potato peeler, shoulders shaking with silent laughter, while Daryl presses his lips together as he stirs something at the stove.
Sadie is the first to break, her giggles tumbling out into big, helpless laughter. I feel my face go scarlet but can’t help but laugh too. Everyone else except for Slade follows in that laughter too, while Jonah looks on, still clearly expecting an answer to his question.Are you having a baby?
Slade’s arms tighten around me.
“We’ll see, bud,” he says.
Not no.
We’ll see.
I press my face into his chest so nobody can see my expression, but pull away just in time to see the kitchen door to the porch swing open.
Josie slips inside.
My sister-in-law looks the same as she did at our wedding, every bit as effortlessly beautiful in a simple cotton shirt and jeans as she was in that silk bridesmaid’s dress.
She’s got a travel bag over her shoulder. She winks at us with a finger raised to her lips, signaling all of us to be quiet.
Then she creeps up behind Jonah at the counter and covers his eyes with both hands. “Fee fi fo fum,” she growls in a low theatrical voice, “I smell the blood of an Englishman.”
Jonah screams with pure delight. “Josie!”
He spins and launches himself at her and she catches him, laughing, swinging him around. In the living room, both babies spot her simultaneously and their arms start flapping, identical toothless grins and happy squeals materializing, radiating the joy babies reserve for faces they love.
