“Baby, Snapshot,” I say, my lips spreading into a smile so wide and filled with happiness my goddamn jaw starts to ache.
I stride over to her and grab her hands, stopping them from worrying at each other, and then slide my hands up her arms and cup her face.
“Slow down and tell me. Just… just tell me.”
I can barely keep the emotion out of my voice.
If I didn’t know myself better, I think I might cry.
I feel choked with emotion.
“All three were positive,” she whispers, tears sliding down her cheeks. “We’re pregnant, Trent. We’re pregnant.”
She yells the last sentence and throws herself at me, leaping into my arms. I hold her close, grabbing her ass in big greedy handfuls as our lips clash in a fusion of lust and love and the future opening itself up before us, like a book, the best damn book in the world, filled with so much happiness it’s a wonder the pages don’t jump around in joy.
I spin her around and around, both of us laughing like lunatics.
“Trent, I’m dizzy,” she giggles.
I put her down, smoothing her hair from her face, leaning down to kiss the warm tears from her cheeks.
“You’re going to make the best mother,” I tell her.
“You’re going to make the best father,” she says.
I smile and she smiles wider like we’re looking into a mirror, our bliss reflected in each other.
EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER
Tess
I sit on the back porch with Henrietta in my arms, rocking her softly as she smiles up at me. I’ve heard people say that three month olds can’t smile, but even with her eyes closed and her breathing sleepy and wonderful, I know she’s smiling.
I have no idea how long I’ve been sitting here, with the sun dappling us, coming to rest on the garden. It lights up the swimming pool, making the water shimmer, and dances over Trent’s gym equipment and the remains of yesterday’s photoshoot.
I staged a special scene just for Henrietta, sitting her next to our cherry blossom tree, catching beautiful snapshots of her as petals danced around her.
This past year has been better than my wildest fantasies. The wedding was like something out of a fairytale, held near the cabin where we had our first date, with a section of the forest cleared away and a rose-petal aisle laid out for me to walk down.
When I saw Trent standing up there in his suit I almost burst into tears, but I didn’t want to ruin the makeup the artist had spent so long applying. My hair was in expert weaves and I felt truly, amazingly, astonishingly beautiful despite my bump making my belly big and round.
If pregnancy taught me anything, it’s that there are more important things than my body’s shape.
Not that Trent has been put off by how pregnancy has changed me.
Last night as I was chopping some tomatoes for dinner he stalked up behind me, his hands roaming all over my body, driving me to hormone-infused hysteria as he explored me lustfully.
He doesn’t care if I’m sweaty, tired-looking, or that I haven’t lost the pregnancy weight.
We did it right there on the counter, writhing together wildly, my fingernails dragging down his back as we bucked to a shared end.
I close my eyes and let out a contented sigh, listening to Henrietta’s calm breaths.
Trent should be home any minute now.
His management consultant business has exploded over this past year, the same way my freelance photographer career has, both of us marching side by side into a sun-bright future.
Mom is getting married to Liam in a few months.
Angela has booked three more TV gigs since the advertisement.
Life just keeps getting brighter, more wonderful, and sometimes that scares me. Sometimes my old doubts creep into my mind and tell me it’s all going to go wrong.
But all I have to do in those moments is look down at my daughter, at the soft smile on her lips, listen to the happiness in her every breath.
And I know everything is going to be okay.
No…
Much, much better than okay.
Forever.
Trent walks onto the porch, moving with his characteristic quietness, a trait he’s cultivated ever since I gave birth to our daughter.
I look up and he smiles at me, silhouetted in the sun. His hair glimmers silver and he looks like a knight in shining armor in his iron-colored suit, which is fitting.
He saved me after all.
He saved me from self-doubt and self-consciousness and self-hate.
He walks across the porch and leans down, kissing me softly on the forehead and then bringing his lips to our daughter’s forehead, giving her a soft kiss of her own.
“I missed you today, Snapshot,” he whispers.
“I missed you too,” I whisper back.
We stay like that, with his arm around me and both of us looking down at this beautiful amazing little person we made together until the sun begins to set.
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
TEN YEARS LATER
Trent
“Daddy, you have to stay still,” Henrietta says, peering at me over the top of her mom’s camera.
I grin at her, jiggling from side to side. “I am staying still.”
Behind her, Russ and Jacob laugh and shake their heads.
“Silly Daddy,” Jacob says.
“Silliest Daddy ever,” Russ says.
The twins are going through a phase of following their big sister wherever she goes, so it’s only natural that they trailed us into the garden and over to the cherry blossom when Henrietta suddenly decided she wanted to take my photo.
My wife sits on the back porch with Lila in her arms, rocking our baby softly from side to side, smiling down with so much radiance in her expression I almost shed a tear. I used to fight that instinct sometimes, that whelming of emotion inside of me, but
