“Clara, do you have any fuckin’ clue what it feels like to be a man who got it so damned wrong the first time around, he had to watch his kids pay for that, knowin’ he’s got something totally fuckin’ right, and he gets to give a kid that?”
“I didn’t, but I think I’m getting it,” she whispered, her voice strange.
“You gonna cry?”
“You’re being very sweet.”
“Clara, darlin’, you got my baby in you. That’s no reason to cry.”
“Happy tears.”
Fuck.
Happy.
She was happy they were going to have a baby.
“Do you know what it’s like to have it wrong from the start and be given the gift of being able to give a child something so completely right?” she asked.
“You didn’t have it wrong.”
“It was still wrong. And now it’s very right.”
Fuck.
“I love you, Buck,” she said.
“I know you do, baby, and I love you too.”
“Are you happy?”
“I’m elated.”
She let out a little hiccupping giggle.
And ended it crying.
He kissed her, rolling them to their sides.
And then he kept kissing her.
He ended it reaching up to touch his lips to her nose and then tucking her tight to his front.
He thought she was going to sleep.
She wasn’t going to sleep.
He knew that when she said, “You know, we had to go through it all to get here and get what we have…right here.”
“I know.”
And he did know.
But he didn’t have to like it.
“So, if you had the power to erase it, I wouldn’t know, after all that, how amazingly lucky I was to be right here.”
Amazingly lucky.
Buck closed his eyes.
And said, “I know.”
“I can’t wait to tell the kids.”
“Yeah.”
“And Locke. I think he’ll be happy.”
“He’ll be happy. I’m happy and you’re happy, baby. So yeah, he’ll be really fuckin’ happy.”
“I love to make you happy, Buck.”
“It’s good you’re doin’ something you love.”
She giggled and then she snuggled.
He gathered her closer.
“’Night, West,” she murmured, all sleepy. “Merry early Christmas.”
“’Night, Toots,” he whispered. “Thank you for the best fuckin’ present ever.”
She pressed even closer.
“My pleasure.”
He grinned into the dark.
Clara fell asleep.
Buck remained awake.
After a while, he tipped his head back and looked out the windows at the moon.
He didn’t howl.
“You’d like her, Ma,” he said quietly.
The moon had no reply.
* * *
He’d get the reply seven months later, when they had her, and they had a name all picked out for her. But sweaty and red-faced, hair sticking to her skin, Clara’s gorgeous blue eyes came to him with their little girl curled all mucky on her chest, and she said,
“I think she’s Lenora.”
That wasn’t the name they’d picked.
So Buck knew.
His mom approved.
But in that moment, to his wife.
He agreed.
* * *
Two weeks after that, he carried Lenora and the bag he had into their bedroom.
Clara was curled up in the chair in the corner, reading.
“Did you guys have fun running your errand?” she asked.
“Mm,” he hummed his answer.
She didn’t hesitate to put her book aside when he handed her their girl.
Buck then went to the bed, dumped what was in the bag on it, and got on with sorting it.
Once he took the thing out of the cardboard envelope and put it in the other, he turned to the dresser.
Making adjustments, he shifted a bit to the side the pic Tatie took with her selfie stick of the four of them wrapped around each other in front of the tree on Christmas morning that was front and center.
And he shifted back the frame that had a pic of the four of them at the foot of Vail Mountain, all in winter gear, the kids with their boards planted in the snow, Clara looking cute with a hat with a big fluffy ball at the top of it pulled down to her ears.
And he shifted the frame that was angled with the first one he’d moved, holding that center space.
A frame that had the pic of Clara standing next to him out in the area beyond the front of the deck. She was wearing a white dress with thin straps, lace with the tiny dots and big flowers stitched in overlying it, sleeves of that lace that went down to her elbows. It had a semi-wide skirt that had a slit up the front to her mid-thigh and a thin white belt tied around her waist.
A gown she’d worn with bright pink, sexy sandals.
She had her arms around his middle, her cheek to his white shirt, her foot kicked back, exposing her shoes and a shapely calf.
A massive smile was on her face.
Same as him.
That was because, beside them, Tatiana, wearing her bridesmaid dress, had just jumped up on Gear’s back.
And Gear had caught her.
Both his kids were full-on, eyes closed, mouths-open laughing.
He had good-looking kids.
He set the new frame down. Eight by ten. Pride of place in the middle.
The couch in the living room.
Buck had Lenora in an arm.