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“Yeah. Why?”
“Because I think it’s time for the two of us to leap into bed.”
“Bishop!” I plead as he scoops me up and carries me right past the couch and to the bedroom. “We haven’t finished the movie.”
“We can do that next year. Halloween’s our special time of the year and it’s time to have some more special moments with the most special lady in the world.”
“Living world or dead world?”
“If you find a way to turn us into vampires I’m all in. Then we truly can be together forever.”
“This is New Orleans, home of black magic and voodoo.”
“Voodoo schmoodoo. Right now I wanna hear about all the things that youuuuu wanna dooooo,” he says.
“Why don’t you give me a treat? No tricks!” I say pointing up at him from my position in his arms.
“I’ve got one trick you just might like.”
“No tricks. I said it.”
“But this trick is with my tongue,” he says as he carefully places me on the bed and his hands find the side of my yoga pants and he beings working them off.
“On second thought,” I say.
“I second that,” he says and a second later he’s got his face in my lap, but I can’t see him.
Why? Because my baby bump is blocking my view of the man who put that baby bump there.
And at this rate it’s gonna be the first baby of many. My baby with my Bishop. My Bishop baby.
Because he’s mine. Mine all mine.
All treats and no tricks…except for the ones that are actually treats in disguise.
Extended Epilogue
Halloween – five more years later
Bishop
I kneel down by the door and clasp my hands together.
Jack, our four-year-old, puts his little spaceman costume boots into my hands and I lift him up that extra few inches he needs so he can reach the doorbell.
The little guy is growing like a weed and next year he won’t need my help.
But Janet, our two-year-old, will, and I’ll be right there to do this all over again, but next year for the pointe shoes that go with her little ballerina outfit, or whatever she picks out as her costume.
Because when it comes to our kids they grow fast, and I try and give them plenty of room to grow.
Just like I do my wife.
Sometimes I have to remind myself that she’s only twenty-three years old. It’s tough to remember sometimes, especially considering how mature she is and how much she’s accomplished in her life already.
It’s just that a man like me wants to do everything for her. I want to make her day easier while she relaxes. Isn’t that the way a man is supposed to treat his queen?
But then I have to remind myself that life isn’t about me anymore and what I want, even if it makes their lives easier.
My life is completely about them and what they want. To give my kids room to grow and even fall sometimes, but I’m absolutely there every time to pick them right back up, dust them off, and tell them to try again.
And then to keep trying, to stay with it, until they fulfill their dreams.
Because as much as I want to reach up into the sky and grab their dreams and yank them down here and deliver them to them on a silver platter I know that they’ll get way more satisfaction if they achieve them themselves.
Which is just like my life. My biggest achievement couldn’t have been given to me. I had to discover it myself.
Sure my woman basically put what I needed to “find” literally right on my front doorstep and then put a “sign” on it in the form of a super sexy Halloween outfit five years ago, but the fact remains.
It was always her. She was my dream even though I didn’t know it until she showed up gift-wrapped that fateful Halloween night.
And now instead of sitting at home on holidays drinking bourbon and grading papers I’ve got my own family to go trick or treating with.
And when Thanksgiving comes around we’ll all go up to grandpa and grandma’s house and celebrate that as a family together too. As we always do.
It’s still kind of strange referring to my best friend as grandpa in front of the kids, but that’s what he is.
And the best part is that I get to tease him that he’s a grandpa because of me.
At first the jokes were a fun way to rib him, but now I think grandpa is his favorite word in the English language. He absolutely loves spending time with our kids.
And I know there are more on the way. I’m still obsessed with having ten of them running around, partly because my favorite word in the English language is Pumpkin.
As in her.
We go together perfectly.
Pumpkin and Bishop. Even our names are P and B, and it just so happened we gave our kids names starting with J.
