Page 36 of Breath By Breath
“Yeah, girls have cooties,” Grant agrees.
“What do you know about cooties?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “That’s what Royce says.”
Lena and I laugh. Right now, they think girls have cooties. Give it a few years, and that will surely change. Royce settles in the chair at Lena’s instruction. I lift Marshall from her arms, kiss his tiny nose, and carefully place him in Royce’s arms, helping him support his head. Each of the boys takes their turn. They wait patiently, and when they hold him, they tell him they love him.
Not gonna lie, that has me choked up. My heart rate kicks up. My heart is so full of love for our family. Royce and Owen are sitting on one side of the bed, talking to their momma, while Conrad is curled up at her feet. His eyes are heavy, and I know he’s about to crash. At two years old, he’s the only one of the four who still takes naps.
“Daddy?” Grant asks. He’s been on my lap, his head against my chest, just taking it all in. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was ready for a nap as well, but a few months ago, he stopped taking them.
“What’s up, buddy?” I push his hair back out of his eyes. It’s almost time for a cut. I make a mental note to take all four of the boys once I get Lena and Marshall home and settled from the hospital.
“Why does your heart sound like that?”
“Like what?”
He turns to look at me. “It’s doing this.” He taps his hand against his chest in a fast rhythm.
I smile at him. “My heart is racing.”
He tilts his head to the side. “Why?”
“Because I’m happy. I love you, your brothers, and your mother with my whole heart and sometimes that makes it beat a little faster.”
“It’s beating really fast.”
“That’s because beat by beat, my heart works for all of you.”
Grant wrinkles his nose. “Daddy, you're silly. Your heart can’t work for me.” He turns back around as if he doesn’t have the patience to deal with me. My gaze goes to my wife, and she’s watching with tears in her eyes. She has Marshall resting against her shoulder as she pats his back.
“Beat by beat,” she whispers.
I blow her a kiss, making her grin. “What do you think, baby? Is our family complete?”
She looks down at the sleeping baby in her arms. “Yeah, I think it is.”
I nod. We’ve talked a lot since finding out Marshall was a boy. It’s not that we kept trying for girls. We just kept making babies because it’s the miracle of life and evidence of the love we share. However, we’re not getting any younger, and five boys are sure to be a handful in their teenage years. We decided that this would be our last baby, but we both held the right to veto that after Marshall was born.
“The Riggins brothers.”
“Our perfect family,” Lena replies.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Lena
I’m sitting outside on the back porch listening to the crickets. I love this little piece of heaven we’ve made here. The boys love it too. They spent the entire day outside, running and playing, and it fills my heart with so much joy. I put them all to bed about twenty minutes ago, but Conrad insisted he needed another drink of water just as we were heading out here to have a glass of wine and decompress from the day.
Stanley chuckled at our four-year-old and led him back to his room with the promise of a sip of water. My husband is great with our boys. He is patient and loving, and seeing him with them makes my heart swell.
The patio door opens, and Stanley steps outside. He has the bottle of wine in his hands, and wordlessly, I lift my cup for a refill. “Con asleep?” I ask him.
“Finally. Grant also decided he needed a drink, and Royce heard us and proceeded to tell me from his bed, yelling out the door, that he’s ten and shouldn’t have to go to bed at the same time as the babies, which means Owen piped up from his room, and said the same.” He laughs.
“I swear those kids have super human hearing unless I’m telling them to pick up their toys, or clothes.” I’m smiling because it’s true, and because I wouldn’t change them. Not a single thing. I love every minute of being their mother, and I love even more so watching them grow into their own personalities.