Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 39840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 199(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 133(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 199(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 133(@300wpm)
It feels like the one thing I can give him that he can’t get anyplace else. All his money and influence… all that charm he oozes. It takes two to make a baby.
“Our baby,” he murmurs. His lips form a crooked smile at first, and then he hugs me so tight I feel the stool disappear from under me. He lifts me up into his arms and spins me around.
“A baby!” he calls out. “I’m going to be a daddy!”
I watch his face keep moving long after he stops spinning, making me way dizzier than I was a minute ago, but it’s the best feeling.
“Then just tell me yes. Right now,” he says, smiling so wide I think his face might actually peel off his skull.
I feel my expression going blank, my mind wandering as I watch him.
“Yes to what?” I ask, sounding way blonder than I am.
“Just say it,” he pleads in a softer tone. “Make today the happiest day of my life, Jasmine. Tell me I’m going to be a dad, and then tell me you’ll be my wife.”
It’s the last thing I expect to hear him ask me, and here in the store, of all places—me in my grubby denim overalls and track pants.
Him in his thousand-dollar leisure wear.
James Jones, a man with the world at his feet, wants me to be his wife.
“Yes… Yes.” I tell him calmly, saving all the shrieking and hollering for when Iris creeps back over in a few minutes. It’s as if she already knew that James would ask once he found out I was carrying his child.
Our baby.
The instant family neither of us ever had. I can tell from the look in his eyes that whoever they are, they’re going to need a little brother or sister to play with… and as soon as possible.
EPILOGUE
FOUR YEARS LATER
James
“Nervous?” Iris asks me, helping me with the flower on my lapel.
I feel my head stabbing a nod as I ask her the same.
Iris and Phil are renewing their wedding vows as part of our own little anniversary ceremony we have every year.
We do it all again—the dress, the flowers, the big church with an organ playing, and our family.
Iris and Phil, plus the James Jr., Jeanette, and Jaxon Jones I only ever dreamed of having once.
All here and together every year to celebrate.
Just us.
To celebrate our family and the bond with my wife. Today is also about Phil and Iris always showing Jasmine and me just how long true love lasts.
“Wait sixty-three years, James. Love her like you do a little more every day. Grow old together. Laugh and cry together, and yeah, even get a little nervous,” Iris tells me. Her voice fills with emotion, and her eyes are a little misty, but they’re not sad tears.
“I’d be nervous if I wasn’t nervous,” I add, hearing the tremor in my own voice.
Knowing I’d never forgive myself if I forgot, even for just one day. For one second, even, but I know I never could forget—never forget just how amazing Jasmine and our three beautiful babies are.
The life we have together now… I’d be nervous if I took it for granted, is what I’m saying.
“Well… shall we?” Iris asks, and I offer her my arm.
Helping her slowly but surely to the altar, joining my wife, who is right by Phil in his wheelchair. His withered hand reaches for Iris’s and squeezes it in a way I guess only sixty-three years of loving someone so much could.
My own hand finds Jasmine’s, looking down at her, mouthing the words “I love you” to her for the twentieth time today. I know our love will last just the same. When you find the one, many problems you may have disappear because nothing else matters.
Iris knows it. Phil knows it. Now Jasmine and I know it.
My eyes feel a little itchy. Must be the A/C in the church or something, but looking down at the kids… Little James Jr. in his tuxedo. In their most formal onesies, his brother and sister, Jaxon and Jeanette, gurgling and kicking in their strollers.
It’s quite a sight, and one I’ve never been prouder of or more fulfilled to be a part of.
Our family. Us.
Jasmine and James Jones. Renewing our vows every time we touch or say I love you. Or when we make love in other ways.
For now, it’s with words, and I feel more than just one tear rolling down my cheek once Jasmine and I exchange the vows we make anew every year.
It’s Little James Jr. who really undoes me and everyone else as he reads a poem he wrote about his mommy and daddy who get married every year, and his grandma and grandpa as he calls them. The kind of thing that only a three-year-old could come out with. It melts all our hearts because it’s just like him and all our little babies. It’s real, and it’s from the heart.