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“Our middle names?” So he’d thought about this? Pictured us, maybe, the same way I had? I could hardly believe it, but at the same time, I could. It all felt so right, me and Spencer together. Building our dream house. Raising our kids.
“Pinch me,” said Spencer.
I laughed. “Pinch you? Why?”
“So I know it’s not a dream this time. Go on, pinch me hard.”
I tweaked his ear hard. He spun away, groaning, then he spun back. He caught me up in his arms and kissed me like he meant it, a long, burning kiss to seal our shared future. Fire rose in my belly, every emotion — joy and desire, excitement, triumph. Spencer was here with me, and he felt how I felt. He wanted what I wanted, our baby. Our life. All my dreams had come true, and I had them in my arms.
EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER: SPENCER
Izzy never moved into her new apartment.
She came home the same day we finally talked and said all the things we should’ve said all along. Leon and Lola took Izzy’s new place. It was perfect for them, close to work for them both.
Moving Leon out felt like the end of an era, overdue in some ways, too soon in others. I could’ve lived happily forever with my two best friends, but Izzy was more than that, and Leon had Lola. We were all growing up, all moving on. I couldn’t quite picture what our next steps would look like, but I was excited to take them with Izzy.
Izzy worked out her notice and said goodbye to the douchebros. I picked her up that day, and we went shopping for the baby. We bought so much stuff it wouldn’t fit in my truck, and we had to have it delivered the following day — a crib and a stroller, a high chair, a swing. A changing table. A playpen. A dinosaur onesie. We had bags full of clothes, boxes of toys, a mobile that played music and glowed in the dark.
“That’s a whole lot of stuff,” said Izzy, when our order arrived, boxes piled high, blocking our door. I picked one off the top, our new bottle warmer.
“Whatever happens, we know we’re prepared.”
“Do we, though?” Izzy cocked her head, doubtful. “I have this terrible feeling there’s something we missed, and we’ll bring our baby home, and it’ll be the one thing she needs. She’ll scream through her first night because we forgot her, uh… Thing.”
I pulled Izzy to me and kissed the top of her head. “If she screams through the night, we’ll be right there to hold her. We’ll do it in shifts, and we’ll take turns sleeping. Then, in the morning, we’ll go grab her thing.”
“Or make a Taskrabbit do it. Do they work at night?”
“Some of them, probably.” I kissed her again. “Don’t worry. We’ve got this. And if we don’t, we’ll learn.”
We learned all right, from our first night as parents. We had a little girl, six pounds, seven ounces, and she had lungs on her like an opera singer. She used them to let us know she was angry, and she was angry because I took her blanket, but we didn’t know that. Couldn’t figure it out. We tried walking her, bouncing her, driving around in the dark, but still she kept howling. Izzy laid her on the dryer — with her blanket in it — hoping the vibration would soothe her displeasure. She went quiet for a second, then got going again, and she didn’t stop till that blanket was dry, till Izzy wrapped it around her, soft on her skin. Then she stopped, and she gurgled, and she went straight to sleep.
“That’s what this was about? Some stupid, cheap blanket?” Izzy laughed quietly, not to wake the baby. “Isn’t that the free one we got from the hospital?”
I felt its satiny corner. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”
“Why did you wash it?”
“It was covered in spit-up.”
“We need to get a spare one for next time you do that.” Izzy leaned against me, heavy with exhaustion. “Why can’t human babies be like baby horses?”
“Two hundred pounds and covered in hair?”
Izzy swatted me weakly. “Up and walking. Taking what they need.”
“You’ll eat those words when she is up and walking.”
We shared a tired laugh at that, then we all napped together, curled like nesting dolls in each other’s arms.
Three more months flew by in a talc-scented haze, feedings and tummy times and long, sleepless nights. We lost Stella’s blanket in a grocery store bathroom. Izzy spent half a day hunting it down. I bought a fabric pen and printed a note on its binding – LIFE-AND-DEATH BLANKET – BABY SCREAMS IF REMOVED! IF FOUND, PLEASE CALL – and then our phone number.
I threw Stella’s hat in my hockey bag instead of my tube socks, and had to borrow a pair from Enrique. We won big that night, and I kept Stella’s hat. I kissed it every game all the way through the playoffs. It saw us clean through to our first Stanley Cup, but I pooped out of the party to a chorus of jeers, and hurried home to what mattered the most in my world.
“I’m so proud of you,” Izzy told me that night.
