63
Five+ Years Later
Staring out the window of my home-office-slash-library, I smile as I watch Easton’s brown head bob excitedly when his dad lifts him up onto the top of the slide. Pure exhilaration is etched upon his handsome little face as he shoots down the slide. He grows more and more like Reeve with every passing day. I can’t believe he will be five in May.
Smoothing my hand over my small bump, I hum to my little princess, awash with happiness. Family life with Reeve is everything I had hoped it would be and more. Being married to the man who has been my significant other, in so many ways, from my earliest memory, is equally fulfilling.
Reeve and Easton are my world, and I know my daughter will be too. Okay, we don’t know if it’s a girl yet, but I have a sixth sense. I just feel it in my bones. We have our sixteen-week ultrasound in three weeks, and Reeve is more excited than a kid on Christmas morning.
I stare adoringly at my husband as he chases our son around the playground, more in love with Reeve now than I’ve ever been. As a dad, Reeve is everything his father isn’t, and I know he never wants Easton to doubt he is wanted, loved, and cherished. Easton is the apple of his father’s eye, and Reeve is the most amazing dad, showering Easton with love and being there for all the important moments, unlike his own absent father.
Watching them together is beautiful, and I’m so grateful for the love we share. I will never take it for granted.
My cell vibrates with an incoming call, and I rush around my desk, swiping the screen to accept Audrey’s video call. I’ve been calling her all week since I discovered the news, needing my bestie’s advice.
Alex and Audrey got married two years ago, and they live in Boston where Alex is the head football coach at a local high school. I’m hoping they might return to L.A. once Audrey graduates next year because I miss her a lot. She is in her last year of med school and snowed under with hospital rotations, classes, and assignments. With the time difference and our busy schedules, it is murder trying to find time to talk, let alone meet up.
“Squee. I see a bump! Look how cute you are,” she says. Her gorgeous face looms large as she peers in close to the screen.
I run my hand along my slightly enlarged stomach. “It’s only barely noticeable, but I’m definitely bigger than I was when I was pregnant with E.”
Audrey snorts. “That wouldn’t be hard. No one even knew you were pregnant until the very end. You were tiny carrying him.”
It’s true. I was able to remain at UCLA until March of my junior year, disguising my growing bump with baggy tops until I woke one morning and my belly seemed to have ballooned overnight. I moved in with my parents then and switched to online classes.
Easton Jonathon Lancaster was born at three thirty a.m. on May fifth weighing a teeny six pounds five ounces. You’d never know it looking at him now. He’s tall and a healthy weight for his age.
“Earth to Viv. You’re in la-la land again.” Audrey grins, slouching in her chair in her hospital scrubs.
“I’m blaming my pregnancy hormones this time.” I sit down on the chair behind my desk and get comfortable.
“You’re glowing, babe. It’s great to see. I hated how stressed you were when you were carrying E.”
I rub my lips as I contemplate one of the most stressful periods of my life. “I love that I can embrace my pregnancy this time, but I feel guilty that I didn’t with E.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
I burst out a laugh. “Eh, I’m pretty sure it was. I was the slut who slept with two men in two days on two different continents and then freaked the fuck out when I got pregnant and spent my entire pregnancy stressed over who my baby daddy was.”
“It all worked out perfectly in the end.”
“Thank fuck.” Reeve was ecstatic when I finally announced I was pregnant. I’m ashamed to admit I had known for two months before I told him. It took me that long to work up the courage to say it. Well, that and I was waiting to see if Dillon would reach out to me, but he never did.
He never made any effort to talk to me after I left the pub in Dublin that day.
What a disappointment he turned out to be, but like my bestie just said, it all worked out perfectly in the end.
“I still feel guilty I lied to him,” I admit. A few weeks after I confirmed I was pregnant, Reeve asked me if there was any chance the baby wasn’t his.
I lied and said no.
God, I still feel such horrendous guilt over that.
“If you’d told him the truth, you would’ve taken away his enjoyment of your pregnancy, and maybe you wouldn’t be married to the love of your life with the family and career you always dreamed of living in a house you designed as kids.”
“It doesn’t mean it was right, and what if the baby hadn’t been his?” A full-body shudder works its way through me.
“Don’t do this to yourself, Viv. There’s no point looking back on the what-ifs. Fate brought you back to Reeve and you’re happy, right, babe? You are happy?”