“You guys are both fine, I promise,” she said.
“I just want to be sure.” I looked down at my stomach. She had been moving around, and she seemed normal, but…
“I get it,” Katie told me. “Would it help to hear it again from a doctor or a nurse?”
I nodded at her and wiped away more tears.
She squeezed my hand. “Ok, then I’ll find someone to give you more reassurance. I’ll be right back. Do you want anyone to sit with you while I’m gone?”
I nodded again. “Thank you, Katie.”
“I would say ‘anytime,’ but I’m sure this won’t happen again,” she answered.
I sat in the bed and tried not to cry more as I watched the steady beats on the monitors of the baby’s heart and mine. She was ok, I told myself. I looked at the door, wishing that someone would come in so that I wasn’t alone with the thoughts that I had hurt her by mistake. And yeah, the tears started again.
I heard a funny pounding in the hall, then someone yelling. And then the door to the room flung open and César stood there, paler than I’d ever seen him, his eyes huge and panicked.
“The baby’s ok,” I said, because I couldn’t stand for him to be upset like that, but then I started to cry harder and held out my arms to him.
“Camdyn. Cammie, honey,” he said, and he crossed the room in two giant steps and hugged me. I leaned into him, clinging.
“I’m sorry. I was dizzy and I was sad about my mom, and I was fighting with Warren, and I was so scared,” I babbled, but I kept repeating that I was sorry, and César said it too until mostly it was just the two of us crying and apologizing.
“Everything ok in here?” It was the voice of one of the nurses who had been helping me so much.
“Is it? Is the baby ok?” I asked, jerking up my head from César’s chest.
“I think you just dislodged…” She expertly readjusted the stuff attached to me. “There you are. Yes, everything’s fine. The doctor will come in to talk to you and then you’ll be able to go.” She smiled at both of us before she left, and then César hugged me again, but a lot more carefully.
I just wanted him there, touching me and holding me, in any way he could. “I’m sorry,” I said again.
“Stop saying that, honey. You don’t need to be. Warren Wilde made you this upset?”
I felt like I needed to intervene before he went out into the waiting room to try to kill my father. “He really didn’t mean to,” I said, realizing that I was defending him, but that he did deserve it. “He was trying to apologize and explain himself, in his way. Which sucked and wasn’t enough, but he was trying.” I nuzzled into César’s shirt, trying to get closer. “I was really upset today. It wasn’t all his fault, because I was already a mess.”
“And that was my fault.” César held my face in his palms, looking into my eyes. “I’m sorry, Cammie. I don’t think any of that, I don’t believe any of that stupid shit you read, not anymore. I was wrong about you and I’m so sorry.”
“Well, I was wrong about you, too. Because I thought you were a one-night kind of guy, but you turned into a forever kind of guy.”
“Forever?” He sighed as if he was relieved, and leaned his forehead down to mine. “Good. Because you and the baby, you’re everything to me.” He eased down to kiss my tummy and whisper to her. I could have sworn that she moved more when she heard his voice.
César looked up at me. “You know, I wasn’t always just talking to her. Like when I would say, ‘Te quiero,’ I meant it for you, too. I love you, Camdyn.”
“I love you, too,” I told him. “I want us to be together for the rest of our lives. I want us to get married.”
César smiled. “We will. We’ll get married in Mayagüez in the church where my parents and grandparents did. My mom has a veil for you so you’ll just need a dress, and my dad and my grandma already settled on the menu for the reception. I have the florist and the baker for the cake on hold.”
“How long have you been planning this?” I demanded.
“You didn’t look at everything in that Camdyn Riordan file,” he answered. “I’ve been waiting for you to come around. I’ve been waiting, hoping that I was doing the right thing when I didn’t push you for more.”
“Yeah, that was a pretty good plan,” I told him. “It worked well for you. For all of us.” I put my hand over my stomach and he rested his on top of mine. “César, will you marry me?” I asked him.
César kissed me again and then looked into my eyes. “Yes.” He kissed me harder, and I heard my heart monitor pick up.
“I guess it’s a good thing that I already have the ring at home, ready for you,” he said when we finally pulled apart a little.
“Pretty sure of yourself, were you?”
He wiped away more of my tears. “I wasn’t sure, but I was hopeful. You have to have hope when you reach for any goal line.”
He was mine. He and the baby, they were my goal, my hope, my love, my everything. We kissed again, and my monitor went crazy.
Epilogue
“Uno, dos, tres, y ya está.” César snapped up the three buckles on the tiny life jacket. “Te pongo un poco más del bloqueador solar para que no te quemes la piel suavecita.” He carefully applied sunscreen to our daughter’s sweet face, and then she returned the favor by spreading goo across his lips and nose. They talked in Spanish as Eliana liberally smeared him with her little fingers, and I smiled as
