Page 80 of The Vegas Rerun
I freeze too.
We haven’t told her that Joshua is her dad yet. We were planning to tell her gently, when the time was right. But she’s a sharp, observant kid. She sees other kids calling the men in their lives Daddy, and Joshua’s always there, always holding her hand, just like the daddies of those other kids. I guess it stands to reason that she would make this connection.
Joshua’s gaze slowly drifts to mine. His expression is open, raw. As if everything inside him just cracked clean open and all that’s left is his heart. I think he’s waiting to see if I’m ok with this before he replies, and I am more than ok with it. I love that it just happened naturally without us having to sit Autumn down and tell her. I give him a slight nod.
His lips twitch and then he smiles. It’s the biggest, happiest smile I have ever seen on his face. Except maybe when I agreed to marry him. I think they are pretty even.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he says, his voice catching. He cups her face gently with one hand, brushing a strand of hair off her cheek. “You want to go on the pirate ship again?”
Autumn nods her head solemnly.
“Yes please. It goes up and down like a bird. Like Dumbo, but in Neverland.”
“Then that’s exactly what we’ll do,” he tells her.
She smiles, satisfied with his answer, and snuggles into his side again like she’s done it a thousand times before. Her tiny hand reaches for his, and he folds his much larger fingers aroundhers so tenderly it makes my throat burn. I swallow quickly, not wanting to ruin the moment by crying because Autumn doesn’t yet understand the concept of happy tears.
And just like that, she falls asleep, her breathing soft and even, her face tucked into the crook of his arm.
We sit there in silence for a long moment, neither of us moving, afraid to shift and ruin this impossibly fragile thread connecting the three of us. Joshua is still staring down at her when he finally speaks again. His voice is quiet, almost awed.
“She called me Daddy,” he says.
I nod, not trusting my voice to come out without the tears I’m still trying to swallow away.
His eyes meet mine.
“We didn’t have to tell her. She just … She knew.”
I smile, and now the tears are in my eyes too, not just my throat.
“I think her heart knew before she did,” I say in a whisper.
He looks back down at Autumn, and I watch his thumb rub gentle circles against the back of her hand. The sun breaks through the clouds above us then, casting golden light across the three of us like some divine stamp of approval.
“She’s so awesome,” he whispers.
“She’s everything,” I agree.
His eyes flick to me.
“Of course she is, because she’s ours,” Joshua says.
That’s when I lose my fight with my tears. Not with sobs, but with the kind of quiet, trembling emotions that have no beginning and no end. Joshua beckons to me, and I lean into his side, resting my head on his shoulder, and he wraps his free arm around me, holding both of us close.
In this moment, we’re not just two people and a child anymore. We are a family. And she made it official by choosing him. Just by speaking one word. It’s funny because the biggestthings can be said in the smallest of ways by children, but as adults, we stress over it, we monologue, and we agonize. And that one word is more effective than anything we could ever come up with.
Later that evening, after a long day in the park, we have dinner and then we go back to our hotel room. I’ve just finished getting Autumn ready for bed and the air smells like bubble bath and strawberry shampoo. Autumn is in her Moana pajamas again, her damp curls sticking to her cheeks, her new plush Pascal toy clutched tightly under one arm. Her eyelids are drooping, as she tells us a story about how she and Rapunzel are going to open a cupcake shop together.
Joshua is lying on the floor next to her bed, listening intently, his chin propped in one hand.
“You’ll need a lot of sprinkles,” he says with absolute seriousness.
“Pink ones,” Autumn nods. “And blue ones. And glitter ones.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he says, grinning.
I lean against the doorframe and just watch them. It hits me again; how natural this all is. How seamless. It’s like he’s always been here. Like I dreamed this into being.
