That was just what I did, arranging the three little ducklings with their fat bodies, tiny wings, and big beaks into a basket with a promise of some mealworm treats later if they were quiet for their unboxing.
“You didn’t have to get me anything,” Miranda insisted a few minutes later, shaking her head as I walked in. “You’ve already given me everything I could have wanted,” she added in a lower voice as I got closer.
And, fuck, to hear that from the woman you loved? Yeah, that was a good feeling.
“You have to hurry up and open it.”
“What? Is it going to expire?” she asked, shaking her head at me, put lifting the lid of the basket.
Then, earning their mealworms, they suddenly broke into little choruses of quacks that had Miranda squealing, then crying, as she picked them up to love on them.
“Don’t worry,” Tig said, nodding. “Your man has already arranged to have us dig them a pond in the backyard.”
“And their Aunt Alice bought them the coolest little custom coop ever, that will be delivered in a few weeks since they’re too little to go outside yet anyway.”
“Looks like you missed part of your gift there, Randi,” Cam said, on cue, making her hand two of the ducks to an eager Alice as she looked back in the basket.
Distracted for just long enough for me to get down on my knee in front of her and pull out the ring box.
“I don’t see… oh,” she said, smile huge as she looked from me, to the ring, back to me again. “You don’t even have to ask,” she said, holding the duck to her chest with one hand, his little webbed feet dangling down, and thrusting her left hand toward me. “In this and every other lifetime, yes.”
“Hear that?” Sawyer asked, after I got the ring on, and a solid kiss from my woman, making everyone quiet down and listen. “That is the sound of every rich divorcee crying now that he is officially off the market.”
To that, Miranda let out a little laugh.
“They might have gotten a piece of you,” she said, handing me a duck. “But I get all of you.”
And so she did.
Miranda - 10 years
We didn’t rush anything.
There were no timelines for us, no pressing reason to get to any particular part of life.
So we went ahead and enjoyed six solid years together. Just us, our ducks, our eventual dogs, our friends that were like family, and our love.
We ate great food.
We saw beautiful countries.
We went to benefits.
We built an amazing nonprofit that was helping people through their mental health struggles every single day.
Then, eventually, it was time.
To, as Brock put it, ‘do the parent thing.’
But we’d both agreed that small kids weren’t our style.
First, we were both older. And pretty fond of sleeping through the night.
Second, we had a lot to offer some teens in the system who might otherwise age out with no families of their own.
We’d talked extensively with Riya, who had been adopted, and who had adopted as a parent as well.
We’d discussed it with Alice, who had, after she stabled herself out, gone after that therapy degree she used to joke about, and she’d worked with us to understand the innate trauma that came with adoption, helping us to understand what we would be dealing with when we were ready.