I hear the door, Tony calls out, and then again with urgency once he hears my tear-stained croak.
“My god, Jesus Ashlee what is it!” he calls out, skidding into the bathroom, scooping me up into his arms, wiping away my tears.
“I’ll call an ambulance! Don’t panic, we’ll…” he says, brushing my hair back as I lift the test in between both our faces.
It takes a moment, but I sniff my tears back and wipe my eyes, focusing on Tony then the little blue line with a smile, which turns into sobbing laughter.
“I’m gonna be a mommy, Tony… and you’re gonna be a daddy!”
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
OVER ONE YEAR LATER
Tony
“You look more beautiful than ever, Ashlee,” I tell her.
Because it’s true. She does look beautiful.
More every day, especially with our second child growing inside her.
“I look like one of those provincial hogs we saw back in that village,” she protests, making a face before lifting Emily and sniffing her behind, then turning green.
“I got it,” I tell her, calmly. “You come take the wheel and I’ll…” I motion with my hand for the baby and peck her cheek, letting Ashlee take the helm of our ride.
A canal barge. Our canal barge.
We’ve been traveling around France via canal, looking for a home out of the city to raise the kids in. I can work remotely, I don’t need to be on set every damned day.
And Ashlee?
“My greatest role, my biggest achievement so far is meeting you and having Emily. How can we go wrong if we just keep doing what feels so right?” she told me after Emily was born.
Her play is still going, showing on Broadway next week and tipped to be nominated for a Tony award… but my girl’s focus is on her family for now and I kind of have to agree with her.
It’s the greatest feeling in the world.
“Pew! Baby, what have you been eating?” I ask little Emily, who gurgles and smiles a gummy grin, letting more of the same fill her diaper.
“Only what her mother feeds her,” Ashlee calls out, popping a length of straw in her mouth, tilting her hat sideways and looking like a pirate as she manages the wheel.
“I thought you felt sick?” I ask, teasing her, going below deck just far enough to the changing table.
“Sick of changing diapers,” she murmurs, and I laugh along with Emily.
“Mommy’s such a grouch when she’s pregnant, isn’t she?” I ask Emily, feeling my breath catch, not from her diaper smell, but from her hand grabbing my finger.
“da,da!” she squeals, and laughs before trying to say it again.
“Tony?” Ashlee calls out once Emily or I don’t make a sound for a while. I’m struck silent by my daughter… her first words. The feeling I get, it makes me tear up… makes me the proudest, happiest man alive.
“Tonyyyy?” Ashlee calls again, an edge in her voice, reminding me not to worry her.
I finish changing Emily and we both head back to mommy.
“Hey you two, why so quiet? Not planning a mutiny… Tony? What’s wrong,” she asks but I shake my head, kissing Emily’s and then my wife’s forehead.
“Nothing my babies, nothing’s wrong. Everything’s just perfect. I love you,” I tell her, and she takes Emily, looking down at her starting to fidget, wanting another feed.
I take the wheel from Ashlee and she takes a seat next to me, the soft benches that are more like day beds, readying herself to feed Emily.
“Uh… eyes front, Captain!” she warns me. “I know what you're like, you’ll have us shipwrecked if you don’t keep us steady,” she teases.
Seeing her, with our baby and another on the way, feeding her with such love and adoration. The sun shining down on us, the eternal spring and summer of our life together.
It doesn’t get any better than-
Then I see it.
“Tony, you sure you’re okay?” Ashlee asks, and I feel my head nodding like a puppet’s.
I spot a mooring up ahead, and ready the barge to stop, hooking us up once I shut the motors off.
It’s the house from my dream, the scenery, the light, Ashlee and Emily… everything.
It’s like I’ve stepped into the dream I had all those months ago.
Ashlee comes to my side, putting her free arm around my waist, the other cradling Emily to her chest.
“You just saw it, yeah?” she asks, a hint of mischief in her voice.
“How’d you…?” I start to ask, but some things are best left unspoken. Some dreams just have to come to pass.
Even from this distance, I can see it needs a lot of work. A two story ancient farmhouse with a grove of even more ancient trees on either side of a white clay road leading up to it.
But I’ve never felt more peace, more fulfillment than this moment. I don’t even have to see it up close to know we belong here, to settle down and make it our own. Ashlee, my family and me.
“ah-ah!” Emily shreaks, “ah-ah,ah-ah!” waving her chubby little arm as her mommy points it out to her, smiling and whispering something to her, producing an old brass key and pressing it onto my hand, kissing me on the lips.
“Happy anniversary darling, and thank you for bringing us home.”
“But how did you?” is all I can say, all I can wonder.
“A girl just knows, Tony. When she’s with the one who makes her whole, she just knows.”
“I love you Ashlee,” I stammer, still amazed.
“I love you more, Tony. More than you’ll ever really know.”
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A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS
Book 1: Baby Lust
Book 2: Veteran
Book 3: Built
Book 4: Bambino
Book 5: Rescued
Book 6: Leader
Book 7: Professor
Book 8: Burned
Book 9: Worldly
Book 10: Pistol
Book 11: Policed
Book 12: Driven
Book 13: Lucky 13
Book 14: Lumberjacked
Book 15: Protector
Book 16: Carpenter
Book 17: Italian Stallion
Book 18: Gardener
Book 19: Budapest Billionaire’s Virgin
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