Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
I smile as she walks into the room wearing one of my T-shirts. It’s baggy but still shows her thick thighs, curvy shape, and the perfection of her new maternal figure.
“You look so beautiful when you’re sleepy,” I tell her, meaning every word.
She plays with her curly hair. “Really?”
“Don’t be modest. You know how crazy you drive me.”
“Which one am I stealing, huh? I need a shield.”
“Ask them.”
She rolls her eyes, laughs, and then leans down. We play this game when I’m bobbing them on my knee like this. Rosie coos and lifts her arms, making cute baby babbling noises.
“I think you’ve got your answer,” I say, laughing.
“She chose you last time, remember?” Emma grins, scooping our daughter up and cradling her to her chest. “She’s a smart girl. She doesn’t want to create any problems between Mommy and Daddy.”
“You hear that, D? That means you have to choose Mommy next time.”
“I had the scariest dream,” Emma says a moment later, rocking side to side with Rosie. “I thought it was the day I came to visit Rosa. Remember the day in the garden?”
“It’s hard to forget a naked man running rampant in your house.”
She smiles, but there’s real fear in her eyes. “I was scared and confused at the time. Just now, I dreamed I had visited, me and Rosa had a nice lunch, and then I went to my new place. I started my new job. You didn’t kidnap me. We didn’t fall in love. We didn’t have Damien and Rosie. I dreamed my life went as planned, and that’s the most terrifying thing I can think of.”
I hold Damien to my chest, then stand and wrap my other arm around my wife, kissing the top of her head and inhaling her scent. I swear it’s different since she became a mother. I tell her, “We’ve got a new plan now, a better one. Make the Family more legitimate. Keep our children safe. Love them. Support them. Cherish them. You’ll get your degree and kick ass as an accountant if you want to. I could use your help.”
“I do want to,” she says, “but for now, I just want to be with the babies. Does that make me lazy?”
I laugh gruffly. “Lazy, you? I’ve seen how you care for these two. You get up even when you don’t have to just because you don’t want to miss a single moment. Emma, you’re the best mom there is, and that’s no small feat.”
The four of us embrace—my perfect family.
“I love you,” she whispers.
“I love you too.”
EPILOGUE
EIGHT YEARS LATER
Dario
“But it’s the truth,” Leo says, grinning at me across the marble kitchen island.
I’ve got to say that big brother has done well for himself. He’s always looked powerful, ever since I was a kid. However, I feel something standing in his large, modern kitchen. He’s in his silver suit while his wife prepares dinner behind him, and his kids play a board game on the dining table.
Maybe jealously. Once, I would’ve thought, This is what Angelica and I could’ve had, but those thoughts faded a few years ago. Lately, I’ve wondered if I could find somebody else and be happy too. Leo’s setting one hell of an example.
“He’s off in the clouds,” Emma says, smiling at me over her shoulder.
“Are you, Uncle Dario?” Damien wanders over, so big for his age, with broad shoulders and dark hair like mine and Leo’s used to be. “Is that why he’s staring into space like that? Oh, no, Uncle Dario, is something wrong?”
“Can it, kid,” I say, and he laughs as I reach over and pull him in for a hug, ruffling his hair. “Soon, you’ll be too big for me to wrestle with.”
Damien puffs himself up. “We can still wrestle. Just maybe I’ll let you win now and then.”
“You hear that, Leo? You’re raising an honorable boy here.”
“He’s not so honorable when he’s eating all the nachos,” Rosie says, and I swear, she’s a picture of Rosa at the same age, right down to the brown hair, bangs, and her eyes.
She carries over an empty bowl and places it down.
“No refills,” Emma says, snatching the bowl up. “It’s dinner soon.”
“Okay, Mommy,” Rosie says, “but only because your food is so delicious.”
“Food and numbers, both are simpler than people.”
Rosie laughs in that special way she does for her mother. Emma is an excellent mother to all four of her children, but she and Rosie, maybe because of her age, are starting to form a more sister-like bond as well as a mother-daughter relationship. I guess it’s an inside joke.
“Is it time to eat?” five-year-old Tommy calls over from the table, kicking his legs as he fiddles with his board game piece.
He is his mother through and through, right down to the curly hair and the same eyes. Honestly, seeing all these mini-mes walking around makes me a little jealous. It makes me wish I could find a woman of my own. Am I ready?