Page 324 of What We Brave
The old me used to buy travel-size everything. Shampoo, lotion, toothpaste. Full-size bottles felt like too much commitment—what if I needed to leave quickly?
Now I have a Costco membership. I buy toilet paper in bulk. I have a necklace that's designed togrow.
The old me would have hives.
Getting the kids to bed is a process.
Iris goes down first, passed out in Blake's arms before eight. Juneprotests all the way to her room and is asleep within minutes. Caleb holds out until almost nine, then finally admits defeat.
"Will Santa know Grandma and Grandpa are in the little house?" he asks while I tuck him in.
"Santa knows everything."
"But how?"
"Magic."
He frowns. "That's not a real answer."
"It's the only one I've got. Go to sleep."
I kiss his forehead. He smells like sugar cookies and the evergreen soap Blake buys. Like Christmas.
"Night, Mama."
"Night, baby."
I close his door and lean against it for a second. Just breathing.
He called me Mama like it's the most obvious thing in the world. Like I'm a person who knows how to do this. Five years of being a Mom and I still sometimes feel like I'm improvising—like eventually someone's going to check my credentials and realize I have no idea what I'm doing.
But he's alive. He's happy. He said "indispensable" today, mostly correctly.
Maybe that's enough. Maybe that's the whole job.
My parents are getting ready to leave when I find them in the living room. My father's studying the photos on the mantel—kids at various ages, our commitment ceremony, a candid of the three of us from Reid's department picnic.
"Beautiful family," he says without turning around.
"I know."
"I wasn't sure at first. When you told us about..." He gestures vaguely at the photo. "This."
"I remember." Hard to forget that trip. The woman I am now never would have put us in that position. I would have broken the news to them on the phone, and kept talking, so by the time we visited, they'd have had time to wrap their heads around it.
"I was wrong." He turns to face me. "Never seen you this happy. This settled."
"Took me a while to figure out what I wanted."
"Took us a while to get out of your way." He pulls me into a hug. Same aftershave he's worn my whole life. "Proud of you, Lainey."
I hold on tight.
Proud of you.He was always proud of me growing up. Proud of my nursing degree and the work I did. Proud of my decisions.
Until Reid and Blake. It took a year, but I don't have any doubts that he's proud of me again. More than proud. He would go toe to toe with anyone who dared question my family.
My mother joins in, wrapping around both of us. "We'll see you in the morning. Early. The children will make sure."
