“Well, anything for my baby girl,” I say. “Can I get a hug?”
She runs into my arms and I twirl her around the way I used to as a kid. She shrieks, laughing.
“Daaad! I’m not a baby anymore!”
“Liar,” I say, spinning her faster. She screeches loudly, but I know she loves it. Her boisterous side tends to come out when she’s with me. She might be a perfect little ballerina, but she still loves to mess around with her old dad.
When I finally put her down, Gigi is grinning, a little dizzy.
“I’m going to go and see if the others are ready. I want them to look perfect when everyone gets here,” she says giddily, rushing from the room. Amelia rolls her eyes affectionately.
“She really loves this day being all about her, doesn’t she?” she says.
I laugh. “That’s our girl.”
“I hope she doesn’t harass them too much, she’s so bossy. I don’t know where she gets it from. It’s definitely not me.”
“Oh, that’s her grandfather through and through,” I admit. Dad was always so commanding. It’s a trait he passed on to me, and now Gigi has got it too. I have to admit, I think dad would’ve loved Gigi best. It makes me sad that he never got to meet his grandkids, to watch them grow up, and to form their own crazy, adorable personalities. I think he secretly always wanted to be a grandfather, and that’s why he pushed me so much to get married and have babies. But I know he’s looking down on us, watching all of this happen and smiling. He’ll always be the backbone of this family, whether the kids know it or not. He made me the man I am today, he made this marriage happen and he helped me on the path to love with Amelia. On days like today, I keep that in the back of my mind.
“Are you thinking about your Dad?” Amelia asks, crossing the room to wrap her arms around me. She knows me so well. I nod and she smiles. “I know that he’d be so proud of you. Look at everything we have...look how happy we all are. This is exactly what he wanted for you.”
“I know,” I say. She’s right. I can’t forget that this is exactly what he planned. I don’t need to be sad. I’ve lived the life he wanted me to have, and that’s the best way I can continue his legacy. After all, the inheritance clause was his genius idea.
And it has made us into the family we are today.
Final Epilogue
Amelia
The party is in full swing. Our garden is filled with more guests than I can count and we’ve really gone all out with this party. It’s hard trying not to spoil our kids when we have the money to give them whatever they want, so I guess we’ve just given in to it now just a little. We love them too much to deny them anything.
This party has it all. There’s a little stage set up for karaoke, where Gigi and her friends are strutting around showing off for everyone. There’s a cotton candy machine where Rachel and Alicia have been hanging out all day, wearing matching fairy costumes and making their hands sticky with cotton candy. Chris and his friends have found an old football and taken it to the far end of the garden, ignoring all the attractions we’ve hired for the day. It makes me smile. My kids really only want a few simple things. They don’t need all this fanfare.
But in some ways, this is for me too. This is for the childhood I never really had. I grew up feeling lonely, neglected, and unwanted. Now, I have the family I always dreamed of when I was a child. I have the ability to relax, to have fun, to spend silly amounts on a party just for fun. I know that maybe that’s silly of me, given that not many people have what we have. But for once, I just want to focus on being happy.
Leo joins me at my side, slipping his hand into mine. He’s been doing rounds of the guests, making polite small talk, but I know we both just want to spend this day together. The kids will be occupied for hours. This is our chance to spend time together.
“Cotton candy, my princess?” he murmurs in my ear.
I grin. “You read my mind.”
We move to the cotton candy station, where Alicia is getting her third helpings of the stuff. She’ll have a sugar crash soon, but that’s a problem for later.
“Cotton candy for my wife, please,” Leo says to the vendor. I watch the pink sugar swirling around onto a stick and then Leo hands it to me, hot and warm from the machine. He plucks a little of the fluff from the stick and places it right on my tongue. There’s something sensual about him placing the warm sugar in my mouth that turns me on. It makes me forget where we are, forget that there are people everywhere. It makes me want him right now.