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“I’m sitting right here.” Iz smacks my shoulder. “Stop talking about me.”
“She’s feisty, huh?”
I smirk. “Yep, just the way I like it.”
“So…” Kit’s call crackles as they move. “Why are you there?”
Nerves slide into my every pore. Not only are we introducing Lucy, but we’re kind of announcingus. “Ah, I’ll explain it all soon.”
“What happened with Belle?”
“Nothin’. She’s probably still sitting at the restaurant.”
Kit snorts. “Atta boy. She’s a bitch, anyway. Okay, we’re at the door. Let us in.”
“Okay, hang on.” I hang up the call and turn to Iz. “I’ll be back in a sec, okay?” I lean forward and kiss her scarily white lips. Then I bend lower and kiss my daughter. “I love you guys. Back in two seconds. Don’t run off.”
I stand and work toward the doors with a speech in my head about why Bobby can’t come in with Kit. One at a time. I consider for only a second stepping out to make room for them both, but I shoot it down before the idea fully forms. I just can’t do it. I can’t walk away. I only just got them.
I hit the button on the wall and watch the doors swing open. The first thing I see is Kit. Her soft eyes twinkle with emotion.
And I lose it.
I stagger forward and take her in my arms. She’s a girl. She’s my brother’s girl, but I let her hold most of my weight as I sob my fucking heart out. I didn’t even know I needed to cry, but she holds me tight while I fall apart.
“Jimmy.” Kit’s tearful eyes pull back as she fingers hair from my eyes. “You’re scaring me. Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. She’s perfect.” Kit’s poor tiny body bows under my weight. I feel bad, but I can’t stop crying.
This is my first moment since I pulled into Iz’s driveway that I’ve stopped to think. This is the first moment without my daughter in my arms, and without Iz to be strong in front of, and my mind replays all of last night’s horrors.
Like a movie reel, I see Iz’s shaking. The spewing. The forceps. Iz’s crying. Her grunting. Her screaming in pain. I replay the silence, where Bean was supposed to be loud and pissed at us for removing her from her mother’s womb. Bean’s limp body. The oxygen mask dwarfing her tiny bruised face. My last view of Iz as she bled all over the doctor and the floor. My painfully beating panic as I raced after Bean, but I left my heart back in the delivery suite.
Only now in retrospect and a quiet moment do I realize how my girls flirted with death. How close I was to losing everything.
“Come here.” Bobby takes my weight from Kit and hugs me tight. He squeezes and holds me together, when really, I just want to fall to the floor. “You’re okay. Everything’s okay.” He repeats his mantra over and over again. “Come on, take a seat.” He leads me to a bench just three feet from the double doors. No one can get in there without us seeing. He squats down in front of me the way I did for Iz. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
I’m Iz’s strength, and right now, Bobby’s mine.
“Come here, Princess.” I take Kit’s hand and pull her down to sit beside me. I need the comfort. I need her strength. I can’t believe she was ever not in my life. In my brother’s life. “I love you, you know that?” I swipe at the pathetic tears that dribble off the pointed edge of my chin. “Even when you call me a hundred fucking times in less than an hour and nag the ever-loving shit out of me.”
She tearfully snickers. “I do it because I love you, too. If I didn’t care, well,” she shrugs, “then I wouldn’t care.”
I nod at the floor. “I got to watch my daughter’s birth last night, B.” My voice cracks. “It was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I watched Iz cry and scream, and I watched her vomit and shake because she was so damn sick. I watched them resuscitate my baby girl after they clamped the jaws of life onto her skull. I worried they would break her neck. I held Iz’s hand when they resuscitated my baby, then I had to choose. Iz was bleeding out. And Bean was clinically dead. I had to choose.” My body shakes as I relive the nightmare. “Iz made me choose Bean, shemademe, and I had to leave her there while she bled.” I look up to Kit as fresh tears roll off my nose. “I didn’t know if she’d be okay. I held Bean for hours, and had no clue if Iz was okay.”
“Jim.” She squeezes my hand gently. “I’m so sorry all of that happened. She’s okay now though, right? They’re both okay?”
“Yeah, they’re both okay. Iz is almost transparent, she’s so pale from blood loss. And she’s sore. She has half a billion stitches and she’s so tired.”
“Can we go in and see her?” Bobby asks softly. “Can we see your daughter?”
My daughter.And my future wife…
“I asked her to marry me.”
Brand new tears slide over Kit’s cheek. Damn girls and their happy tears.
Bobby chuckles. “It’s about time, little brother.” He takes my head in his hand and pulls me down so my forehead rests on his shoulder. “Everything’s how it’s supposed to be, now.”
