Forever (This #5) (44 page)

“Gracie! Gabe! Did you want to help Momma frost these cookies?” When Sam and I were younger, after Mom died, we agreed the first to get pregnant with a girl could have her name. We didn’t expect we’d both be pregnant at the same time. Our children are two weeks apart. We happened to have ultrasounds the same day to find out the genders. We figured why not do a buy two get one free kind of deal? Brothers and sisters got to find out the sex of their babies together. We decided I’d find out first since I was further along—even if it was only by a little bit.

“I’m doing the first one,” Gracie screams. She’s been playing dress-up, and she’s wearing a tiara and blue princess ball gown that makes the eyes she inherited from her father pop. I move my hand from my very pregnant belly to my chest because her messy black hair and big grin nearly take my breath away. She’s the girl version of her father. When Bradley held her for the first time, he said she was beautiful like her mother. I didn’t have it in me to tell him she got her beauty from him.

“No, I’m doing it! I’m older.” Gabe, who looks just like Gracie and Bradley, puts his arm out, pushing his sister back so he takes the lead in their race to the kitchen.

My proud mother moment is cut short when I see they’re nearly about to trip over each other’s clumsy feet. They inherited that from me. “What have I told you two about running in the house?” They slow to a fast walk, their arms dramatically swinging by their sides.

When they reach the island, Gracie tries to slide between Gabe and the counter as I pull the second batch of baking sheets from the oven and place them on the stove. “You’re older by two minutes, Gabbie. That doesn’t count.”

“It does count. Uncle Joe says it does. Mom, she called me Gabbie again. Make her stop.”

“Shh.” I bring my finger to my lips. “You’re going to wake your sister. What if we let Hannah do the first one?” They both sulk. “That would be the polite thing to do.”

“Hannah always gets to ice the first cookie.”

“She’s your guest.”

“But she’s our cousin. She’s practically our triplet. She’s always here.”

“She’s still your guest. Tell ya what. If you promise to not fight, you both can do one each before she gets here. They’ll both be the first. Unlike your birth, you can do them both at the exact same time.”

They both clap and grin at each other as if the fight I just refereed didn’t take place. I shake my head. “Go to the table.” While they were playing, I set up bowls with different colored frostings and toppings.

“One cookie each, okay?”

“Kay!”

I stand in between the both of them and watch as they lift the spreaders and get to work on their confection masterpieces.

That first Christmas, Bradley and I made so many memories and traditions. We still go to Aiken every year to see the lights. We get together with Sam and Joe often. The biggest transformation is Sam’s relationship with our father. After that first Christmas, she and Joe both did some counseling for their parent issues. Christmas Day, we all still gather, and there haven’t been any more outbursts surrounding toasts
. Thank God
. It’s taken Sam a couple of years to really embrace that Gabe is the only father we have, and it’s okay to not forget the past, but it’s important to forgive people who hurt you…to not hold a grudge.

Some traditions have evolved as our family has grown.

We make it a day picking out trees with Sam, Joe, and Hannah. They take theirs back to their place, and then we meet back here. We bake cookies and Bradley and Joe take a little television outside with an extension cord to watch their football games while decorating the house. Sam and I watch as the kids decorate the tree. When everything’s ready, we light everything together as a family. The next day, we repeat everything at Sam and Joe’s. Ryan and Rebecca along with their little guy, Cadence, come along that day.

Since Bradley and Joe found out they were brothers, they’ve been even more inseparable than they already were. And Hannah, Gracie, and Gabe might as well be triplets. Cadence and our other daughter, Emmaline, are the same age. They play well together, but we don’t see Ryan and Rebecca a whole lot. Ryan is an emergency room physician at Mercer.

The doorbell rings. Metal hits glass as the spreaders my children were just holding fall into the bowls. Bradley intercepts them in the living room. “Didn’t your mother just tell you not to run?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, Daddy,” Gracie says. “I made my cookie for you.”

“I made mine for you too.”

He laughs. “I bet they’re the best cookies I’ll have ever put in my mouth. I can’t wait to try them.” They walk to the door and open it.

Standing on the other side, Joe’s holding a bag of Chinese take-out. Hannah could pass for Gracie and Gabe’s sister, except she has her mother and father’s brown eyes.

Gracie pulls her inside. “Hannah, c’mon. The cookies are ready!”

“Last one to the table is a rotten egg.” Gabe cuts in front of them.

“First one to the table is a…” The girls laugh. “A loser.”

“Hey,” I say. “Be nice.”

“That was us being nice,” they say in unison.

I shake my head as I glance back at Sam holding her belly. “Oh goodness. They’re something else. And this one, I just want him out. Heartburn’s a killer tonight.”

“No kidding.” I rub my belly. “And I swear he’s going to be the best kicker. Come in. It’s cold out there.”

Joe chuckles. “Didn’t think you’d ever ask.” He scoots past us. Bradley greets him with a fist bump and takes one of the bags to the kitchen.

Everything is finished. The only thing left to do is flip the switch on the lights inside and outside. Joe has his arm wrapped around Sam’s ever expanding waist, and Bradley’s over by the outlet. Gracie, Hannah, and Gabe are holding hands.

Gracie’s blue eyes gaze into Hannah’s brown ones. “This is my favorite part. C’mon, Daddy. Plug it in!”

Gabe echoes her. “Yeah!”

Bradley shoots me that grin that makes my insides flip even all these years later. I’m holding our three-year-old daughter, Emmaline, on my hip. The honeymoon phase comes and goes. Life is beyond crazy with three kids and another on the way, but I would dare say we’re more in love now than we’ve ever been. I smile back at him. “Three. Two. One.”

“Merry Christmas!” everyone shouts. The lights bounce off everything shiny and create a glow that matches the warmth this family creates.

Bradley walks over and puts his arm around my waist and kisses me. “Every year it gets better and better. I love our family so much.”

I smile. “Hard to imagine it getting any better than this.”

He shrugs. “True.”

Emmaline starts to kick. “Daddy, wanna pway wif Gwacie and Gabbie.”

Gabe rolls his eyes. “Ugh. I hate it when people call me that. My name is Gabe.”

Joe laughs. “We should remind him he hates it when he’s in high school and all the cute girls are calling him that.”

“So true. It’ll be here before we know it.”

Gabe scrunches his nose. “Girls are gross.”

Bradley smiles. “That’ll change. You just wait.”

Gracie and Hannah both act offended, push their chins to the ceiling, and ditch him for Gracie’s room.

Joe picks Hannah up from Sam’s lap. Sam gets up and hugs me. “We had a great time tonight, as always. I’m on call tomorrow. You know, ‘tis the season for sick kiddos. But as soon as I get done at the office, I’ll call so you can head over.”

“Yeah. Keep the cooties at your office, please. But I gotta get these little stinkers to bed myself.”

She hugs Bradley. “Let me get the door for you, Joe,” I say, as I rush past him.

“Thought you’d never offer.”