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“Peanut?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been calling the baby in my head. You know it’s gender neutral that way.”
My hand goes to her stomach, cradling it.
A sense of awe overwhelms me. Our child is growing right there.
“I was so heartbroken over leaving you. But the thought of having a piece of you with me forever, a physical manifestation of our love… I can’t put into words how happy that made me when I thought I’d never see you again.”
“You know there was never a chance of me not finding you. I would have uprooted the entire world to have you back in my arms, to make right what I broke.”
“I’m glad you added the last part,” she jokes. “Otherwise, you’d sound really creepy.”
I swat her bottom playfully, making her giggle. That happy sound is pure music to my ears. I’ve missed hearing that easygoing laugh. Other than that unfortunate swan incident in Monza, it had been missing from our relationship since I kidnapped her after her vacation.
Silence descends over the room then. It’s comfortable and strangely nourishing.
Ella is relaxed in my arms, her breathing even.
“I can’t wait to hold our son,” I admit to her. “When I was little, papa would lift me up onto his shoulders and carry me through the sprawling fields behind our house. The world looked so vast and enchanting from up there, like an endless sea of possibilities stretching out before me. I remember the wind tousling my hair, and I would grip onto papa’s head, giggling uncontrollably.”
Even now, the memory makes me smile. Papa was always tense, but in those moments, he seemed almost carefree.
“Despite being so high up, I knew papa would never let me fall. We used to walk to a large dam at the edge of our property. Papa had fishing gear there in a small shed, and once in a while we would sit for an hour or two catching fish and just talk.
“The day he taught me how to cast the line and reel in the fish we caught is forever etched into my memory. It was one of the happiest days of my childhood. Papa was always busy with family business, but that day he spent all afternoon with me. It was just the two of us, and having his undivided attention made me feel invincible.”
I sense Ella’s smile against my skin as she draws lazy circles on my chest.
“What did the two of you talk about?” she asks, genuinely curious.
“He’d tell me about growing up, the challenges he faced, and the journey he took to become the man he is.”
Even with Ella resting on my chest, I sense her face scrunch up.
“He left out all the gory bits,” I laugh. “He didn’t introduce me to family business until much later,” I assure her. “Though he always spoke of our responsibilities. The duty to protect and care for la familia, but even more importantly, the ones you love.
“My mother… whenever he mentioned her, his face would light up. His love for her was so palpable. I expected it to be like that for everyone. It baffled me when I looked around and found other relationships weren’t like that. Perhaps it’s why papa repeated over and over to wait for my ‘One’, to never settle for less, and that I’d recognize her immediately. And I did.” I smile against the top of her head, before moving my hand from her abdomen and tilting her head up to kiss her.
My angel, my life.
I’d do anything for her.
We get lost in our kiss, in each other.
When we come up for air, I continue, “So you see, I can’t wait to impart the same lessons to our son. I can’t wait to teach him how to fish and share stories with him about us and his grandparents. I want him to understand the importance of being a protector, a provider, a guardian of those he loves. Like my father did for me, one cast line at a time.”
A shiver runs down Ella’s body, goosebumps peppering her skin. Then I get them too, and it hits me just how much I want this, how much this means to me.
“What if our baby is a girl?” she asks out of the blue.
“No. De Marco men have always fathered a boy first,” I reply without hesitation.
“Well, you might be the first to have made a girl. In my family line, there are only girls.”
What a preposterous idea.
“As it’s the man’s sperm determining the sex of the baby, I’m not worried. It’s a boy, angel.”
