“Then, why would we shop for a different one?”
Their eyes slowly connected as he pulled the pillow away, and she said, “Not a different one, Andrew. A second one.”
“Honey …”
“Go look in the bathroom.”
He hurried out of bed, and Honey watched him disappear through the door. She knew he was going over to the counter where she had left a pregnancy test, picking it up in his hands to read the results on the window screen.
Smiling at the plus sign that was directly in the middle.
Honey had known weeks before that she was pregnant. She’d already missed her period. She just couldn’t handle seeing the results yet, so she’d put it off until she couldn’t any longer.
When her husband appeared again in the doorway, hair tousled from sleep, marks on his face from the sheet, he said, “Baby …” so softly.
Honey’s eyes were already welling with tears, pausing at the edges before rolling like fat barrels down the hills of her cheeks.
She nodded at him, and it was the best feeling.
Andrew moved so fast that she barely saw him come onto the bed, but she was instantly in his arms, and he was holding her against his chest. The warmth of his skin was like a blanket, enveloping her into this safe, protected nest.
“Oh, Honey …”
“This time feels different,” she admitted.
She hadn’t been sure if she should say that out loud. She certainly didn’t want to jinx anything. But what she had voiced was true. The things she had felt over the last couple of months were unlike the previous time she had been pregnant.
One of his hands dropped down her body and stopped when it reached her stomach. His fingers spread wide, and so very gently, he rubbed small, baby circles across her navel. “Honey …” he said so softly.
She tilted her head to look in his eyes. “I didn’t think this was ever going to happen.”
“I did.” Andrew’s expression softened as he squeezed her tighter. “And I believe it’s all going to be okay. It’s just something I feel in my heart.”
Honey didn’t know if she would carry their child to full-term. She didn’t know if the birth mother would change her mind on the adoption at the very last minute. She had so many questions and no answers to anything.
But one thing was very clear in her mind.
“I believe in you,” she said.
SIXTY-TWO
BILLIE
I PLACED MY PARENTS’ wedding photo back on the nightstand, making sure it was in the same spot it had been in before. Then, I stood, slowly making my way down the hallway. I passed my old room again and reached the landing, this time turning in the opposite direction, heading toward my father’s office at the end of the hall.
Where some men came home after work and relaxed in their dens, my father went to his office. Everyone knew, if he was home, that was where you could find him. It was the only space in our house where he could really unplug even though he was still working when he was in there. It also happened to be where I had spent most of my time as a child.
Covering the walls in here were pictures from the trips we had taken over the years. We had gone skiing and hiking, on cruises and to Disney World. We’d traveled all over the world. In almost every one of the photographs, there was some type of food in our hands. Tacos in Mexico. Conch chowder in Key West. Gelato in Rome. Falafel in Tel Aviv.
With each picture came a memory, one after the other, building the foundation of what I had turned into a career.
And all of it was because of my father.
He had taught me everything I knew about food. How to cook it, how to use my tongue to find the missing ingredients, how to really appreciate all the different flavors.
I owed my palate to him.
I was so close to getting it all back. I just wasn’t there yet.
I continued to make my way around his office, my eyes roaming over the timeline of snapshots, the different hairstyles and outfits I’d rocked over the years. I ended at the closet in the far corner of his room, and something made me open the narrow door and pull the string to turn on the overhead light.
My father had converted the closet into storage, building shelves on all three of the walls. Once I was inside, I immediately went to the left, picking up the large plastic crate on the bottom. The lid was worn because it had been opened and closed hundreds of times over the years.