Page 81 of All Your Firsts Without Me

My brows pull together. She laughs, rubbing her finger over the wrinkles my confusion creates.

“What were you telling her?”

“That I’m going to be a mom.”

My confusion vanishes, replaced by thoughts of my own mother. “Oh, I have a gift for you.” I hold my finger up.

“Another gift?” She yells into the house behind me, laughing.

I come back with my gift wrapped in a brown paper bag.

She sighs as she studies the doodles I drew on the paper. All baby related. A rattle, pacifier, things like that. “I should stick to music,” I joke.

“I think they’re cute.” April unwraps it slowly, not wanting to ruin my drawings. “What’s this gift for?” she asks, pausing to look at me.

“It’s the first gift for our daughter… for you.”

Tears pool in her eyes but she keeps them in check, going back to unwrapping. When she pulls the children’s book away from the paper, her eyes widen in surprise.

“It was my mother’s,” I tell her. “Remember when you told me this was your favorite?”

She nods, tears spilling down her face. She opens her mouth to speak but she can’t. Her eyes drop to the book. Her finger rubs over the title. It’s Cinderella.

“I can’t wait to hear you read it to her.”

Slowly she opens the first page, covering her mouth.

“I have the whole set. We can set them up in the nursery. You’ll be able to read them to her every night.”

I pull her onto my lap, kissing her temple. She hugs the book to her chest. “I love it,” she whispers.

She opens the book again and starts reading. My hands caress her stomach. About halfway through the story, a picture falls out, floating to the ground beside us. We both lean over the chair to stare at it. It’s of a little girl holding this very book to her chest. My old dog, Dandy, by her side.

April climbs off my lap, crouching down to the ground. She picks it up. “Do you know who this is?” she whispers, not looking at me.

“No… wait, yeah. I think it’s our little neighbor girl.” I take it from her to get a closer look. “Yeah, my mom was so worried when she and her family moved away. I remember her crying to my dad late one night that she needed to find her. She thought someone might be hurting her. The night of our car accident, she told me she had finally found her. I was surprised to hear that she had never given up the search. She was relieved. She said the police assured her they were going to go check on her.”

I study the little girl’s eyes, they are dull, sad even, but I notice the tiny gold flecks hidden under the sorrow.

Wait… my eyes lock on April’s. Hers are open wide in disbelief. “Your mom looked for me?” she asks.

I scoot my chair back, the feet scraping loudly against the cement. My hands shake as I look at the photo again. “Is this you?” I ask.

She nods, her eyes going back to the picture.

“That was the first photo I’d ever been in,” she says quietly, pulling it from my hand. “She told me I was as pretty as a picture that day. I told her I’d never had my photo taken. She ran to her house and came back with a camera. She took this photo of me and her dog.”

“His name was Dandy,” I remind her gently. She looks like she’s in shock.

“Yes, Dandy,” she repeats, closing her eyes. She rubs the silver on her bracelet.

“This is…” I don’t even know what to say.

“Inevitable,” she finishes for me.

I run my hand down my face. She’s right. She’s fucking right. Her and I are inevitable.

When she opens her eyes, a grin tugs at the corner of her mouth. “Your mom told me once she hoped her son would marry a girl as sweet as me,” she teases, the sparkle in her eyes returning. “Remember when I told you I had something I wanted to talk about,” she asks.

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