Page 102 of Faking Mr. Right
“Me too, Mommy!” Emilia piped up.
“Of course, and Cici will have her own pony too.”
While those words might sound like empty promises for some families, I knew Anna meant it.
“I’mma name mine Horace.”
Horace the horse,” Anna said, shaking her head. “You get your naming skills from your father, clearly.”
“Chip off the old block,” I said proudly, patting the little guy on the head.
He grinned up at me as Emilia tried to come up with names for her own future horse. “Nala!”
“She’s a lion, not a horse.”
“So?” Emilia said stubbornly. “I can name my horse Nala if I want, right Mommy?”
“Yes, of course, sweetie,” she said gently.
Emilia threw a handful of feed toward the chickens with a satisfied and happy smile on her face, her pigtails bobbing in the wind.
“Jesus,” I said to myself, but Anna overheard me.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “I just keep asking myself…how did I get so damned lucky?”
Anna took my hand in hers. “I dunno, but I ask myself that every single day.”
I leaned over and kissed her lips, planting a kiss on top of Cici’s little head as well. She was fast asleep in her mother’s bosom.
Three kids. A wife. An animal sanctuary that put my dreams of owning a farm one day to shame. Life certainly hadn’t gone as I had planned it all those years ago and thank God for that. It was better than anything I could have ever imagined.
The End!
