Page 58 of Legally Yours
“What the…?”
Cassandra giggles. “Read it.”
I read the words, and my eyes pop. I drop the card, scoop her up, and twirl her in the air. “Oh, sorry, did I hurt you… and our baby boy?”
“No, sweetie. You didn’t."
I let Cassandra down gently and examine the confetti in my hair and on my clothes.
My eyebrows rise. “Blue confetti, huh? You really thought this all out."
“Of course I did. It's exciting to learn we’re having a baby boy.”
I cheer, shout, and fist-pump the air, jumping around like I won the lottery. Out of air, I plunk down in a chair and look up at Cassandra, my face bursting with glee. “A baby boy. A real honest to goodness baby boy. Our boy.”
She laughs and falls into my lap. “Yes, it’s no rumor. By the look in your dreamy eyes, I’m thinking you’re already visualizing a brand-new sign over the agency building — Anderson & Son Modeling Agency. Am I right?”
I chuckle. “Well, it has a ring to it, don’t you think?”
We laugh and kiss, and our hands caress her stomach and the little boy within.
* * *
Roughly four months later,we are about to meet the baby boy we have celebrated so many times already. “Breathe, Cassandra, breathe. Like we were taught in the birthing classes.”
I hold my cell phone camera with an attached light ring, live streaming every second of our baby’s birth. Cassandra can’t stop me. I’m on a mission to let the entire world know how happy we are for the birth of our baby.
“Keep that camera away from my face, at least. I’m in labor here. Busy being ugly and exhausted.”
“Yes, ma’am! Hey, fathers to be out there in Web Land, say yes to everything the new baby mama says. It’s easier and safer.”
Cassandra is too busy breathing and pushing to throw a pillow at me, thankfully, but by her expression she’s thinking about it, and it makes me smile.
The labor becomes intense. I cut the streaming short to help her through it, wiping her brow with a cold washcloth and feeding her ice chips when she wants them. Cassandra’s expression is of gratitude and love, I can tell, but she’s too busy screaming and groaning to voice it then.
Minutes later, which to me feels like hours, Cassandra does the final push and out comes a perfectly formed baby boy who starts crying without a cue from the doctor. The wails are so loud they echo out into the ward, and I hear people clapping and cheering for us, too. The celebration makes us both smile.
“Listen to those lungs!” I holler. “Maybe he’s a New York Stock Exchange Floor Trader instead!”
Cassandra nods, puffing. Her face is heated and sweaty. She’s too exhausted to speak, but I can tell she’s completely overjoyed. The nurse lays our swaddled baby on her stomach, and we hold our boy tightly and give him his first parental kisses, the first in a lifetime’s worth.
“Have you decided on a name yet?” the nurse asks, smiling.
I look up at the smiling nurse. “Yes, Nurse Branson, meet Daniel Anderson, our mighty prince.”
I pick up my cell phone once again to stream and announce Daniel’s birth.
The outside world fades away for Cassandra. It’s only her and Daniel. She gazes down at our boy, and her tired eyes fill with tears.
To go from a lonely man to a deliriously joyful husband and father in only a year is a whirlwind romance I never dreamed could come true. Cassandra is perfect, and so is Daniel. My world is complete. My future is here.
All the turmoil and heartache, all the emotional ups and downs, they all fade away and are replaced by love. Simply love. I fill up, from my head to my toes, with warm, encompassing love.
David and Eunice are mere side characters in our life now, as is Emma. We have a new beginning. Cassandra has a new friend in Leslie and a loving mother-in-law I thought my mother could never be for her.
Cassandra’s parents are over the moon, having their first grandchild. The pride and joy I feel for us all is ebullient and overwhelming.
In my sleeping prince’s face, I see my happiness looking back at me. Daniel has Cassandra’s nose and lips and my strong jaw and mighty forehead. I can’t stop touching his tiny hands, and I can’t stop breathing in his scent. I never thought life could be so wonderful and fulfilling.