Page 44 of Trusting Trey
“And the same to you, sweetheart.” He reached out and caressed my face, then put his hand on our son’s bottom. He kissed his little head and whispered softly, “Merry Christmas, TJ. I hope you know how much your daddy loves you.”
“I can’t wait to celebrate this day with both of you,” I said, smiling into the night, “but you don’t have to stay up. Go get some rest,” I encouraged, but he shook his head.
“I’m right where I want to be. I don’t want to miss a moment of this Christmas with him. He’s the start of a new family for me, a family all my own. You and TJ are the only family I have.”
I patted his face once. “You know that’s not true. Baba and Ma love you like a son. You’re Greek now,” I said in Baba’s famous accent.
He laughed and kissed my forehead. “How could I forget? Of course, I know I have more family than TJ, but he’s the beginning of our bloodline.”
“I don’t think anyone in the ballroom last night cared that we didn’t have the same blood pulsing through our veins. We laughed together, ate together, held each other’s babies, and worshipped together in a way that was even stronger than blood, Trey. We were there because we wanted to be there. We chose each one of those family members to be in our hearts. We don’t need shared blood to be a family because we have love. Does that make sense?”
He brushed the hair off my forehead and smiled as TJ sighed with happiness. “I know you’re right. It’s less about him being part of my bloodline and more about him being here at all. I don’t want to give up a single second with him today because you put your whole heart and soul into making me a father. I didn’t think I could be prouder than being called your husband, but when they laid him in your arms in that OR my heart crumbled into a thousand pieces.”
I brought my face up to his and he kissed me, the same way he did in that OR on that September day when our lives were full of new hope for the future.
I shifted TJ into a more comfortable position and leaned back on the couch. “Did you see the way Van looked at Sugar last night?” I asked him, and he rolled his head to look at me from his side of the couch.
“How could I miss it? I’ll admit that I’ve talked to Van many times over the last few years to help me work out what was best for us. He seems to have this unique wisdom that far outreaches his age, but last night, she left him speechless.”
I grinned, my heart thrilled for a wonderful couple. “When he opened that Christmas present and there was an ultrasound picture in it, I think we were all a little speechless.”
“I had to laugh when he shook his finger at Doc Mueller before he grabbed her and Faith in his arms. It was a sweet moment for our family.”
I made a point to emphasis the words ‘our family’ and he held his hands up. “Okay, okay, I get it. We’re all family!” he exclaimed softly.
TJ was slowing in his nursing and I looked down at him, tracing his cheek with my finger. “In a few hours we can get up, eat cinnamon rolls, decorate the tree and spoil him with presents. I’ll read him the Christmas Carol and then we can go see Pappoús and Giagiá.”
“They might be more excited than we are. Your dad told me he’s glad we celebrate on two different days for Christ’s birth, because he has legal right to spoil him twice. Do you remember what we were doing last year at three a.m. on Christmas morning?” he asked.
I held his eyes with mine. “I will never forget, Trey. I was terrified, but you were unwavering in your support and love. When you held that stick up and there was a positive sign, all my fear disappeared; you had been completely right. I was going to be a mommy and my heart was instantly full of love for him, there was no room for fear.”
“You’re just wonderful,” he whispered. “Do you know that? You’re the best mommy in the world to our little guy and even though the pregnancy was tough at the end, you didn’t let it get you down. You did what had to be done for him to arrive safely.”
“It was something Sugar said to me one day that made everything easier for me,” I admitted.
He rested his hand on my leg and cocked his head. “When you were still pregnant?”
“Yes, we were having lunch, since I wasn’t working, and Faith was running around the living room. She kept running back to Sugar and hugging her prosthetic leg. It seemed odd that a child would hug hard plastic rather than real flesh, and Sugar must have seen me watching her. She laid her hand over mine and told me that having a prosthetic leg wasn’t a disability as far as Faith was concerned. To her little girl Sugar’s leg was just part of her mommy, and she found comfort in hugging it. She told me never to feel like my child would suffer because I was having a bad day and needed my wheelchair, or because I had to figure out a way to do something differently for him because of my limitations. He would never see any of that because all he sees is his mommy.”
He grinned at me and rubbed my thigh. “That woman sure knows how to hit the nail on the head sometimes, doesn’t she?”
“She has taught me to use my experience with the hazing as a unique way to look at life. Both of us almost died from something that tried to break us, but all we did was bend. So, what used to anger me about my condition now gives me reason to pause and be thankful I’m still here.”
He laid his hand on our son’s head and smiled tenderly at him. “Oh, you’re still alive, Allie. This little guy is living proof that you bent to the storm, but you didn’t break. You’re the love of my life and TJ is the perfect display of our love for each other. Come stormy seas, we will never break to life’s fury.” He leaned down and kissed TJ, then lifted himself up to kiss me. “I got you something special. I want to give it to you now.”
I grinned, because he was worse than a kid at Christmas. “We can wait until later. It’s awfully early.”
“But it is technically Christmas.” He grinned and went to the tree. He pulled a small package out and brought it back over. TJ had relaxed back into sleep and I handed him to Trey to burp while I took the box. “I hope you love it as much as I did when I first saw it.”
I tore the metallic red paper off the box and a note fell to my lap, which I read softly into the night. “Dearest Allie, I hope you know how important you are to me. Without you, I would be nothing, but with you I strive to be the best husband, and now father, for you and TJ. More than anything, this year I wanted to get you something that chronicled our love story. I hope I got it write (see what I did there?)” I chuckled aloud and he smiled at me and winked. “You have wrapped yourself around my heart since the day we met and now, in TJ, we have a visual reminder of that love every minute of every day. What’s in the box is another visual of our love and one that I truly hope you treasure for years to come. All my love on this Christmas morning, Trey.”
I held the letter to my chest as he patted our son’s back. “That was beautiful,” I said, my voice cracking a little. “You should be a writer.”
He laughed softly so not to wake the baby. “No, I think I’ll leave that to the pros. Go ahead, open it,” he said, motioning at the box.
I lifted the lid and my hand automatically went to the pendent in the shape of a book. The cover of the book resembled old-fashioned lace and said ‘Our Love Story’. “Oh, Trey,” I whispered when I pulled it off the velvet backboard. “Wherever did you find this?”
He rubbed my back with one hand. “I had it made. See the latch on the side. Push it in.”
