Page 59 of Dr. Grump's Surprise Baby

“It was very sweet.” They’d signed the documents at the local courthouse, with Jonathan and Sara as witnesses, and afterward the four of them had all gone out for a four-star dinner. It had been a wonderful experience. But there had been several things it had lacked.

“We should do it again,” Dominic said. “We should hold a big ceremony. I’d like to say my vows to you in a church, with our families there. And afterward, we can have a real party, with music and dancing and champagne — everything we couldn’t do last time around.”

“Do you wish we had waited and done it like that?”

“Not at all,” Dominic said. “I love being married to you. I wouldn’t have wanted to wait. But I also want to celebrate our marriage. I want to see you in a white dress. I want to get up in front of everyone we know and tell them how lucky I am to have you.”

Emily laughed. “Well, itwillbe nice to have wedding pictures with Selena in them,” she said. “Most people aren’t so lucky.”

“So you’ll do it?”

“Sure, I’ll do it,” she said. “It sounds great.” She set the bottle down, turned, and wrapped her arms around his waist.

He grinned down at her and bent to kiss her. “Amazing,” he said. “I’ll start looking at venues. Unless you want to take charge of that.”

“No, I’m happy to let you handle it,” Emily said. “But I want to pick out the cake.”

He laughed. “You’re on. Nothing with pineapple.”

“I always liked raspberry best.”

“That sounds good. And you’ll have to get a dress, of course.”

“What about Selena?”

“What about her?”

“She’s going to have to dress up too. I want her to be the flower girl.”

“The flower girl!” Dominic laughed. “She can’t even sit up on her own. Even by the time we plan this event, which I’m sure will be a good few months from now, she won’t be old enough to do much.”

“Yeah, but we can decorate a stroller and have my mom push it down the aisle for us. She would be thrilled to do that. And Selena will be old enough to have a basket of flower petals on her lap by then. We might even be able to persuade her to throw some of them. Think of how cute it would be.”

Dominic smiled. “You’re right. Okay, she’ll be the flower girl — but I don’t think you can take her dress shopping until right near the date. You know how fast she grows.”

“You’re right,” Emily agreed. “God, I can’t believe how much she’s grown already. She still seems tiny to me, but when I look back at pictures from right after we brought her home, it’s like I’m looking at a whole different baby.”

“Although,” Dominic added, “I don’t think I could ever possibly mistake her for another baby. She looks exactly like you.”

“It’s really Ruth she looks like, not me,” Emily murmured.

“I think you’re right about that.” Dominic had seen a lot of pictures of Ruth by now. Once the illness had taken hold of her and she had been in the midst of chemotherapy, her appearance had changed radically. But there were plenty of pictures from before that time, and Emily was right — their daughter was the spitting image of her aunt. It was a part of the reason she had been givenRuthas a middle name.

It was a blessing to be sure, but it also made Dominic worry more than a little bit. What would it be like for Emily to watch Selena grow up — to grow past an age Ruth had lived to see? What would it be like for her to watch Selena become an adult? He knew Emily well enough to know that she would never try to make her daughter a replacement for the sister she had lost — but would her parents be able to promise the same thing, or would they fall into the trap so many grieving families fell into when a newborn child came along?

He didn’t want to invite that problem by talking about it. He would keep an eye on things, and if he noticed it becoming a problem, he would say something — but he was willing to give the benefit of the doubt. Emily’s parents were sweet and loving with their granddaughter, and it made him feel a sense of acceptance about the fact that his own parents hadn’t lived long enough to meet her — although he knew they would have loved her, and would have been thrilled to welcome her to the family.

It felt so good to be a part of a family again. He had been on his own for too long, and now he had people all around him. A place to go on the holidays. Hell, a reason to take time off work on the holidays.

He’d even taken paternity leave. They had both requested time off from the hospital for the baby’s birth — although Emily had been shocked by the fact that he had done it. “I would havethought you’d still want to work,” she’d said. “It’s all right if you do, I can manage things by myself.”

“You shouldn’t have to manage by yourself,” he had told her. “Besides, our baby will only be a newborn once in her life. I don’t want to miss out on that. That’s more important than work.”

“You’ve really changed,” she had told him admiringly.

Hehadchanged, he thought now, watching Emily as she returned to preparing the bottle. He never would have been able to do this before — slow down and give himself permission to enjoy his time with his family. He would have felt the need to do something productive — and the only thing that would have felt truly productive was being at work. But now he could take a prolonged leave of absence, help Emily recover from childbirth, get to know his new daughter — and prepare for the renewal of their vows.

He was lucky. He understood how lucky he was. It was thanks to her that he felt able to do all these things. Emily had helped him to see the world in a whole new way, and if she hadn’t walked into his emergency room that day and joined his group of interns, he would have a very different life right now.

---