Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 124320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
“Let’s tell our family in a few weeks,” I propose. “And after the first trimester for everyone else.”
She clears her throat, blinks to clear her eyes of lingering tears. “That sounds good. I’ll tell Lennix and President Cade, of course.”
I frown. Kimba is a political superstar. Race after race, she proves that, and the phones at Allen & Associates never stop ringing. I don’t interfere, but I’ll protect her from the candidates who would put their interests above hers, their campaigns over her health.
I’ll protect her from herself.
“We need very clear instructions from the doctor, Tru,” I say, tucking a curl behind her ear, kissing the curve of her neck. “I know you want to re-elect the president—”
“There is nothing I want more than this baby, Ez.” She looks up at me, her eyes sober and settled. “Nothing. If I need to curtail my involvement in the campaign, I will. I promise I’ll do everything the doctor tells me to.”
I cup her breast, even fuller now that she’s pregnant, brush my thumb over her nipple, and wait for the inevitable catch of her breath. “And what about what I tell you to do?”
She turns so her knees rest on either side of my legs, so she’s straddling me. “Are you really trying to fuck your wife out in the open on this roof?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I laugh, grabbing a fistful of curls and bringing her lips to mine in a fierce, tongue-tangling kiss. When the kiss slows, I roll my palms over the taut muscles of her back, over the swell of her ass, the supple line of her thighs. I would know her anywhere. The shape of her, the smell, the taste. Through the years, those things will change, but this living thread that has connected us since birth, it’s inviolable.
“After this baby, you want another?” I ask. “We have eggs.”
She laughs, a throaty, happy sound that wraps around me more warmly than this cashmere blanket. “We have eggs, Dr. Stern. After this one, let’s see what my body has left. I’m down to try again.”
I’m greedy. I wake up each morning starving for everything I can get from this life, from this woman, and want to offer everything I have to give. We spent two decades apart and for the rest of our lives, I’ll be making up for lost time.
She looks down at me, the laughter dying. “But if not, we have Noah and Mai. I know they’re not mine, but I love them like they are. I really do, Ez.”
“I know you do.” I lift the little tab suspended from the chain she wears around her neck, a symbol of our two weddings, of a lifelong love.
“You know Mama thinks Daddy set this all up, right?” she asks, catching my fingers at the necklace. “That he requested I present the awards, selected you, to bring us back together.”
The memory of Joseph Allen, a giant in this city, taking time to talk for hours with me that day, furiously scribbling my dreams on a napkin as our coffee grew cold, is vivid in my mind. I unpacked my heart to him that day, and there’s no way he could have seen what lay in my heart without seeing his daughter Tru.
“I wouldn’t put it past him.” My smile fades. “Maybe he wouldn’t have if he’d known what you’d have to endure, living through someone else having my child.”
Kimba drops her forehead to mine, slips her fingers into the hair at my nape.
“He wouldn’t have changed a thing. Daddy knew firsthand how messy love can be,” she says, her words wistful, certain across my lips. “Mama told me that love isn’t tidy, and she’s right, but all the mess we had to wade through to have this, to have each other, was worth it.”
Nothing life has thrown at us so far—not a twenty-year separation, not Aiko’s pregnancy or any of the challenges that come with negotiating such a complex blended family like ours—have managed to crack the foundation we laid for this marriage starting the day we were born.
Noah’s laughter, Mai’s squeals, the clack of mah-jongg tiles – the symphony of our life together—clamors from below. A cacophony that from the outside looking in probably seems discordant and sounds like a mass of noise. But to us it makes sense, all the notes fitting together. Harmony where there could be chaos. The tastes, the sounds, the stories, gathered from distant lands, borne by our blood, blended in our bonds.
Forever.