Unbreakable (Unrestrained 4)

Kate laughed softly while I picked up Sophia from her bassinet and placed her gently into Kate’s arms for a feed. “Hopefully, she won’t look like him.”

I glanced in her eyes and saw a gleam in them. “At least, not until she’s sixty,” I said with a grin. “She looks like you.” I watched as Kate got Sophia latched on and settled down to feed. “Tiny face, pointed chin, chestnut hair.”

Kate tucked the blanket around Sophia. “With your eyes.” She turned to look at me, smiling.

“I hope her eyes turn green like yours,” I said and bent down to kiss her and then I kissed Sophia’s tiny head. In that moment, an overwhelming sense of happiness filled me, making me choke up with emotion.

I felt as if I’d been through a nightmare, and had only just awoken to discover that I was still alive and well and safe in my bed.

The three of us survived pretty much the worst that could have happened.

I knew we’d be stronger as a result and that whatever came along, our love, our bond, was unbreakable.

EPILOGUE

Kate

Almost a year to the day that Sophia was so unceremoniously brought into the world during a crash C-section at NYU hospital, the three of us arrived at a small forested area not too far from a remote landing strip in Ethiopia. Michael Owiti had asked if he could join us, since he had never seen the grave site and wanted to visit. Drake agreed and so we met Michael at the airport and made the trek together. We’d arranged a team of local guides to drive us to the area, before making our way to a site in Kenya where we’d stay for a few days, sleeping under the stars.

I had been a bit anxious about traveling with Sophia but Drake assured me that she was as healthy as any other one-year-old, and would be fine.

Almost two years earlier, I’d purchased plane tickets so that Drake and I could travel to the crash site and visit Liam’s grave beneath a tall baobab tree that stood not far from the site of impact. Drake carried the GPS while I carried Sophia, who was now getting quite big for a baby who started out her life as a preemie. Michael walked behind us both, his face grim. Perhaps Liam

’s death was becoming more real to him now that he was visiting the grave. Only moments earlier, he’d been all smiles, talking to Sophia, making funny faces to get her to laugh, his big hands playing with Sophia’s tiny ones as if he couldn’t get enough. He was a pediatrician, and loved children.

Our guides stood off in the distance beside the vehicle, watching, rifles at the ready just in case anything decided to have us for a meal.

“This is it,” Drake said and shaded his eyes with a hand, staring up to the top of the tree. After his death, Liam’s body had been cremated and his ashes buried at the foot of the tall tree. Drake had flown from Manhattan to do the deed but hadn’t been back since.

Michael stood beside Drake and the two men stood in silence for a while, each probably remembering the man in their own way. I never met Liam, but he loomed large in all our lives. From photographs of Liam before he died, I could see where Drake got his good looks for Liam had dark hair, blue eyes and a strong physique in addition to a stunning smile. No wonder he’d had dozens of women.

I held Sophia, who was wearing a tiny hat with a wide brim to protect her fair skin from the intense heat and tinier sunglasses.

“This is where your grandpa is,” I said to her, kissing her cool plump cheek. She had her pink plush bunny in her hand and was chewing on the ear. I removed the bunny ear and put her pacifier in her mouth instead, and she sucked happily away. Only recently weaned, she still was very oral and sucked on everything she could get her grubby little hands on but now that she could toddle, she wasn’t interested in the breast anymore. She liked carrying her bottle around while she inspected the world.

She made an incomprehensible babble and Drake turned around to look at her. He came over and reached for her.

“Here,” he said and took her into his arms. “Let me hold her.”

I let her go, and watched as Drake carried her over to the tree, which had a small plaque nailed into the wood. I went closer and saw the plaque, which Drake had placed there when he buried Liam’s ashes. I leaned closer and read the inscription:

Liam James Morgan, MD.

Here lies Liam James Morgan, trauma surgeon, bass player, philanthropist. Loving father and dedicated Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders volunteer who died serving the people of Africa doing what he loved best. You will be missed forever.

Rest In Peace

I remembered the first time I met Drake formally at my father’s fundraising dinner for Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders and how Dave Miller had introduced Drake that way – neurosurgeon, bass player, philanthropist. Drake was so very much like his father but at the same time, so very different in the ways that mattered the most. He wanted stability, family, and children. But he was his father’s son, going into surgery, playing the bass guitar, and working tirelessly to help patients with neurological disorders, keeping up the charity work of the foundation in Liam’s honor, and the robotic implements business Liam had started, in order to provide the specialized surgical tools to hospitals around the world.

Drake was the most wonderful man I had ever met, besides my father. I felt so lucky at that moment to have found him. To have tripped into him that night at the bar, to have fallen in the alley outside my father’s apartment so that Drake could administer aide to me, and to have been matched with him when I went in search of a Dominant to interview to quench my personal interest in BDSM.

That he loved me with his entire body, heart and soul, I had no doubt. That love grounded me, gave me a foundation, and now I was making a life for myself and for us and Sophia.

Drake stood silent, his back to me, Sophia in his arms. “That’s where your grandpa is buried, Sophie,” he said to her, his voice soft. “One day, when you’re old enough, I’ll tell you all about him.”

Michael bent down and placed a small framed photograph at the base of the tree. It was of him and Liam in better days, when the two were on some mission with MSF, the two men with their arms over each other’s shoulders. It reminded me of the picture of my own father with Liam, in a similar stance in Vietnam. How my father would have loved to be here as well, but he wasn’t able to manage the flight and trip on the savannah so he’d have to settle for pictures.

I took out my video camera and began recording, narrating the scene for my father and Elaine to watch once I uploaded it to the web.