“No!” the girl shouts and gags at blueberries.
I say, “And never fucking see Simon the sea turtle ever again.”
The girl gasps in horror. “NO!”
“Or,” Daisy proposes, “we can send this animal off to the wild where she’ll run free.”
“Yes!” she kicks her feet in excitement.
We whip the quilt off the little girl, and Daisy and I both start tickling her. She squeals and rolls back and forth, tears squeezing from her eyes. We stop when she says, “I’m Winona! I’m Winona! I’m not an animal!”
Daisy combs Winona’s light brown hair out of her face, the same shade as Daisy’s natural color. Now this child—she’s a spitting image of her mom.
Winona Briar Meadows.
Thanks to Rose’s heart and generosity, we had another daughter. Daisy’s frozen eggs, my sperm—they took thankfully, and surrogacy worked. Rose gave birth to our baby, and the whole nine months where Connor, Rose, Daisy, and I were linked together—it solidified something unbreakable between us.
Sullivan slips through the doorway, her pony half sagging, and then jumps on our bed. She must’ve finished playing checkers. “Hey, squirt,” Sulli says to Winona. Then she lifts up her sister’s pajama shirt and blows a raspberry on her belly.
Winona laughs, “Sulli!”
Sulli smiles and rolls onto Daisy’s side. I watch Dais wrap her arms around our older daughter. Sulli lifts her head up and brushes her nose to Daisy’s in a hello.
All my girls.
This is my family. And I swear to you—there’s no shortage of love in this room. Greater and stronger than anything I experienced growing up, and I just think, this is my life. This is my fucking life—and I’m not alone.
I’ve loved every moment. Especially all the ones with them.
Sullivan yawns, which causes Winona to yawn, and then Daisy.
I stand off the bed and say, “All of you, try to go back to fucking sleep.”
Winona is the only one to actually shut her eyes and start drifting again. Sulli kicks off her sneakers, and asks me, “Where are you going?”
She watches me head to the doorway.
“To the moon,” Daisy banters, her smile stretching her scar.
“Only if I see you there, Calloway.”
Daisy whispers, “Wherever you go, I’ll go.”
I hesitate to leave, but it’s close to seven a.m. I’ll see them all again. This isn’t the last moment. The last image. The last picture. Though I remember it and I live it like it is.
I watch Sulli and Daisy turn towards one another, talking quietly while Winona sleeps on the other side of them. I force myself away and walk along the dark hall.
I peek into the second room, door ajar.
Six-year-old Ben Pirrip Cobalt hangs partially off the top wooden bunk, half the quilt with him, and he snores breathy fucking snores in deep slumber.
The boy on the lower bunk rubs his amber eyes with his fist and then turns back into his pillow. Five-year-old Xander Hale has the most photogenic face of all the fucking kids. It’s been hard keeping him out of the limelight. Lo said that Xander has been counting down to the lake house.
He’s the third-born of the Hale children. Maximoff, Luna, Xander, and Kinney.
I gently shut their door so they’ll sleep better when kids start waking. The next darkened bedroom contains four wooden bunk beds, all occupied with boys, fast asleep.
On one top bunk, Charlie Keating Cobalt sleeps, but even though he’s ten, he chose to skip two grades, in the same classes as Janie and Moffy. Truth is, he probably could’ve skipped more.
His twin brother sleeps in the bunk below him. I can only distinguish Beckett’s dark wavy brown hair, almost curly and shaggy.
On the second top bunk lies eight-year-old Eliot Alice Cobalt. He shares his pillow with worn paperbacks of Shakespearian tragedies and comedies. His younger brother, only eleven months difference between them, sleeps below.
Tom Carraway Cobalt has his quilt pulled over his head, blocking out the world.
Just like the other room, I gently shut their door. It’d be stranger if we had one body fewer, one personality shyer of the number of Cobalts in the house now. Five boys.
Two girls.
Connor and Rose had seven children in total. An empire.
If they wanted, we all know they would’ve had an eighth kid—what they once hoped for—but Rose took the time to give birth to Winona instead. They altered their future for Daisy and me. I can’t even express what that fucking meant to us, but we never forget their love.
We feel it every day when we hold Winona.
I head back downstairs again. The house will be more crowded tomorrow. Maria just turned twenty, and she’s flying in from L.A.—she finished filming some A-list movie. I can’t remember what Daisy said it’s fucking called.
Janie is most excited by Maria’s arrival, and the little kids can’t wait for Willow to be here. We all see her often, but she bounces between England and Philly ever since she opened a Superheroes & Scones in London. It’s not that the kids are hyper about Willow particularly but the little girl she brings with her.
Vada Lauren Abbey.
Garrison married Willow the same year she graduated college. He’s as much a part of this family as my sister—he even created one of the most lucrative video game franchises in the world, all based off of the Fourth Degree comic book universe, invested by Connor.
At the bottom of the stairs, I pass the empty living room, the floor-length windows showing a lighter sky than the one before. I check the clock and then head through the kitchen.
By the fridge, Lily holds a sleepy toddler in a panda onesie, and she whispers quietly with Lo. He has this look like he’s half-listening but really he’s thinking about how adorable his wife fucking is, especially with his daughter right there.
I know how this’ll go so I don’t wait around to watch. He’ll tease her by leaning in for a kiss, only to stick his tongue in Lily’s ear. She’ll whisper-hiss his name and then slug his shoulder.
He’ll mock wince.
They’ll look infatuated with each other, remembering how many years they’ve spent. How far their lives have come. How much love they’ve shared.
Their romance has never changed. We all thank the fucking world for that because there is no Lily without Lo. There is no Lo without Lily.
I notice Rose, dressed in a silk black robe, by the coffee pot. She tries to fix the machine, but Connor whispers to her too, drawing her away from the broken thing. With fire beneath her yellow-green gaze, Rose looks just as unaltered by the years. Just as fucking immortal.
Just as enduring.
Is it surprising—that they’d be equal in this measure too? It never has been to
me.
As I pass them to the side door, I see their spouse’s names on their lips. Richard.
Rose.
War and love is in their eyes.
Both entranced with battle plans, their fucking wit. Their words. In this moment, with Audrey sleeping in Connor’s arms, they can’t speak more than murmured whispers. War diminishes to love, and I can practically see their affection for what they’ve created.
Seven kids.
Their family.
With his free hand, Connor cups the back of Rose’s head. He holds her piercing gaze. And then Connor presses an adoring, tender kiss to her forehead. Engrained with sentiments that Connor once believed were fake.
Rose’s gaze softens a fraction, and she whispers to him, out of fucking earshot.
I’ve reached the side door, so I don’t strain to hear. They all fade behind me, and I disappear outside. Quiet, really fucking quiet. The world is just waking, and I return to my original place. On the hill.
By the red Adirondack chairs. I take a seat on the grass and bend my knees. I trace the mountains with my eyes.
I climb weekly, still endorsed by Fizzle. People often wondered if I would ever free-solo again. I do, but nothing like I fucking used to—nothing that could kill me. I don’t crave those routes, not in that way, not like I did at twenty with so much less to love.
I go at life at one-hundred-and-fifty miles an hour, but I also wake up the next day. To see this.
Right here.
Right now.
I rake my hands through my hair, the dark sky beginning to lighten. Behind the mountain peaks, an orange glow slowly crests to claim this day as today. To begin everything all over again.
Footsteps squish the grass, and before I see who, Daisy appears beside me. Without speaking, she slides between my legs, and I pull her up, until her back rests against my chest. I wrap my arms around her, both of our eyes on the horizon.
Two more people join. Without word, Lo sits down a few feet from me, Lily next to her husband. Pressed together, he holds her while she holds him. Their gazes follow ours, hushed, while warm colors paint the landscape.
Connor noiselessly walks outside and stands by a red chair near me.
Hands in his pockets. As Rose reaches him, heels sinking in the grass, he extends his hand to her, and she clasps tightly. They both turn and observe the skyline. Air weightless.