Renewing Their Vows

She nuzzles her forehead to mine, our wet mouths dragging together, laboring for air. “You’re my love, my life, my breath. My forever.”

The impact of emotion in my chest sends me stumbling into her, broken, her lifelong hero and lover and best friend. Everything in between. And we melt together, two joining as one, indistinguishable from one another. Grace and North. North and Grace.

Nothing can tear us apart.

Not for a second.

In that moment, I believe it with every drop of blood in my veins.

Fate has a funny way of testing us, though…

Two

Grace

I stare down at the pregnancy test in a state of shock.

We’re going to have a baby.

We’re going to have a baby.

The two blue lines blur in front of my face and I slump back on the toilet, releasing a watery laugh into the quiet bathroom. Fierce joy runs loose in my chest. So much joy I can barely bring myself to stand up under the weight of it. But somehow I do. I can’t sit there all night staring at the little white stick. North is going to be home soon and I want everything perfect when I tell him the news. We’re pregnant.

Everything looks different when I leave the bathroom and walk down the hallway, the loose floorboard creaking beneath my feet. Is it possible to feel the baby inside oneself so early? I press a hand to my stomach and take deep breaths, then I give in to the joy and giggle, doing a happy dance in the center of the kitchen.

Looking at our house through the eyes of a mother now, I can see where the playpen will go during the day, where the bottle drying rack will sit on the counter. I can see North feeding a little boy or girl at the kitchen table, his crooked fighter’s fingers holding a teeny tiny baby spoon. That last image makes my heart throb with happiness. Everything does. This life of ours…I never could have envisioned it growing up. I was supposed to attend Harvard and join the world of finance. Drive a nice car, host galas and take vacations in Bali.

But I would never, ever trade what I’ve found in South Boston with North.

Not for a bottomless bank account. Not for a staffed house in Beacon Hill.

Not for anything.

What I feel for my husband goes beyond love. Five years into our marriage and I still get a twisty yearning in my stomach every time we’re in the same room. It’s sexual magnetism. Obsession. Single-minded fixation. We’ve only been apart since this morning—he had a meeting with his boxing manager—and I’m already restless in my own skin. It needs to be pressed up against my husband. Needs to absorb his warmth, experience his hands everywhere to feel normal.

My dreamlike smile slips a little and I look down at my belly, imagining it larger. So large that I can’t see my feet. This is when I should be calling my parents to tell them this news. Our family was never warm to begin with. But now they wouldn’t even take my calls—not without a lawyer present—and I’ve learned to live with that. When my father threatened to have North killed if I didn’t stop seeing him, I did what was necessary. I took the only route available to save the love of my life and I have no regrets, because I have no doubt my father would have followed through. There is a part of me, though, that wishes I could call my mother and father to tell them they’re going to be grandparents—and have them react with excitement.

I take a deep breath and set aside the heavy thoughts, focusing instead on dinner. I was going to put together a lasagna, but now I want something more special. To make the occasion of telling North we’re going to have a baby. Do I have time to run to the store? I glance at the clock—

The sound of keys sliding into the lock brings me up short.

North.

It’s him. My husband is home early.

My temperature immediately rises, a brushing of static traveling along my skin, waking up every nerve ending, every cell, making them clamor with anticipation. And when he opens the door and appears in the entry way, my femininity contracts in a slow pull. Pure appreciation for the sight that greets me. North shrugging off his jacket, the action stretching a fitted white T-shirt across his muscles.

Dear lord. I never get used to his outward strength. He’s rock-hard everywhere. When he hangs the jacket on the wall hook, his bicep pops deliciously as if greeting me. In that split second while he’s turned around, I rake my gaze down his flexing back to his hard-working butt. It has definitely filled out since high school. Gotten a little thick with muscle. Firm as the rest of him. If he took his pants off right now, there would be nail marks left on those buns from this morning when he took me in our bed. Twice.