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“Yes,” I said. “One hundred percent.”
“All right,” he said.
I hopped up, excited, my heart thumping as I went to our bedroom and opened up my bottom drawer where the gift was wrapped and ready. I had put it together a week ago, and it had been killing me not to give it to him. But I wanted this moment to be just for us, special, and for it to be tonight.
I grabbed it and brought it out to the living room where he was sitting on the couch, looking at the tree. Coming up from behind him, I was struck by how perfect this moment was. The tree twinkled with the other lights off, and the television was on one of those static stations that looked like a fireplace.
“There you are,” he said as I came back into the room.
I smiled and curled up on the couch beside him, turning toward him as I handed him the gift. He looked down at it and grinned, then immediately tore into the wrapping paper. I laughed at the boyish way he excitedly went about opening it and rested my head in one hand on the back of the couch. I couldn’t help but smile and wait for him to see what he had.
Inside the paper was a cardboard box, which he tore open rather than opening the tape I so carefully put on. I didn’t care. I wanted him to get to it as soon as possible too. To see the look in his eyes when he realized what it was.
He opened the box and tore away the tissue paper, revealing the present inside. Pulling them out, he looked curiously at each one. The smile wasn’t faltering, but it was turning more curious as I waited for the light to dawn on him.
“The first one,” I said, pointing at the first ornament, “is Owen’s ultrasound. You never got to see it, so I wanted you to have it. I have another copy of it for you in the box too, but I thought you would like it in the ornament.”
“It’s very pretty, and I love seeing this,” he said. “But what’s this one?”
He lifted the other ornament. From his perspective, it looked like an ordinary silver ball for a tree, but as I turned it around, he saw that it matched the other one. Only the ultrasound inside was different, and there was no name on it.
“This one is a little different,” I said.
“It doesn’t have a name,” he began, and then his eyes started to widen.
“The first one is our son, Owen,” I said, “the second is our new baby. The one growing inside me right now.”
He turned slowly toward me, his jaw dropping as it hit him. Then he carefully put the ornaments in the box, put the box on the coffee table in front of us, and grabbed me, pulling me into his lap.
He kissed me excitedly, his eyes welling with tears. He looked beyond excited, and I felt the emotion bubbling up inside me as well. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I laughed.
“Are you happy?” I asked.
“I seriously could not be happier,” he said. “I am so excited.”
“Me too,” I said. “Not just to have another baby with you, but for you to get to experience everything you missed last time.”
“I love you,” he said, pulling me in for a tight hug. “I love you so much. I am so happy. Owen’s going to be a big brother!”
“I love you too,” I said, nuzzling into his chest. The warmth and comfort of his soft T-shirt over his muscular chest as it soaked the tears that were streaming down my face made me feel even more connected to him in that moment.
“This is amazing,” he said, pulling the ornaments to him again and sitting back on the couch.
We sat there, looking at the ultrasound for a while in the twinkling lights of the living room tree before going back to preparing for the last Christmas with just the three of us.
EPILOGUE
GRAHAM - TWO AND A HALF YEARS LATER
“What if I can’t hit the ball?” Owen asked from the seat behind me.
“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “What’s important is that you try. Remember, even the very best hitters ever only get hits three to four times out of ten.”
“Okay, Daddy,” he said.
Mallory put her hand on mine, and I looked over into her smile as I pulled into the parking lot of the baseball park. It was a newer park, one built on my buddy Camden’s land. Ryan and Allison were standing by the fence, waiting for us to arrive, their son, Leo, wearing his own uniform. His game was going to be going on at the same time as Owen’s in the field right across from it.
The park was impressive as it was. Separated by the rest of his ranch by a few acres of corn, it resembled the Field of Dreams. But instead of just being one major league-sized park, there were several different-sized ballparks, each sidling up to the others so that there were older kids playing next to younger ones in parks with different dimensions to match their age-range.
