Page 115 of Sully

“By the power vested in me by the state of New Jersey, I now pronounce you man and wife,” the man said, eyes a little panicked, likely worried the baby might make its appearance right there in front of him.

I pulled Bonnie in for a quick kiss.

“You ready to have this baby now?” I asked.

“You’re not allowed to touch me ever again,” she grumbled, making the girls share a little laugh.

Childbirth, I’d found out, was the ultimate way to pull Bonnie out of her shell.

She raged at me, told me I was to blame for everything she was going through, told me she was never going to let me touch her again, that she was banning smut books and the ideas they gave me.

“Oh, you’d never punish yourself like that,” I said, getting a small snorting laugh out of her as I half-carried her out of the courthouse and into the car.

On the way to the hospital, and for a few hours after, there was nothing but heavy breathing, ice chips, and accusations about what I’d done to her.

Until, with an ear-splitting scream—from the mother—and a powerful cry—from the baby—we were parents again for the second time.

“I got something for our first pictures,” I told Bonnie as I wiped her sweaty hair off of her forehead.

“Oh, yeah? What is it?”

In answer, I handed her the box I had stored in my overnight hospital bag.

Bonnie, who looked like she needed a solid twelve hours of sleep, pulled off the top, then parted the tissue paper.

To reveal five identical Hawaiian shirts.

“This is so cute,” she said, pulling each out. “Wait, why are there five?”

“One for Zima too. We can’t forget her.”

“You think of everything,” she said, pushing the box to the side, then patting the space next to her.

I climbed up in the bed, pressing a kiss to her heated cheek. “You were a fucking badass today.”

“When? Pushing that giant baby out of me, or marrying you while in labor?”

“Well, I was talking about the impressively inventive expletives you came up with to curse me with, but all that other shit too,” I said, getting a tired little laugh out of her.

We both looked over at the incubator where our new baby was fast asleep, though we both knew it wouldn’t be for long.

“What are we going to say when they ask us how we met?” Bonnie asked, pressing the side of her head against mine.

“I vote for in a bookstore.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, smile soft. “In a bookstore.”

Bonnie - 14 years

“Hey, bubba,” I said, reaching out to pet our new lab-mix puppy as he ran toward me when I pulled the grocery bags out of the trunk.

Pick-up groceries.

Because some things never changed.

Though, these days, it was more about saving time than trying to avoid people.

I would always be who I was. Introverted, quiet, sometimes quite anxious.

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