“What do you think of the world, princess ?,”
“I think it’s bored her to sleep ,” Cody jokes, swinging an arm around my shoulder.
Seven months ago I couldn’t even conceive of having another kid and now I couldn’t conceive of not having one. I’d loved her the moment I set eyes on her. She looked unbelievably tiny and helpless in her car seat, but she was handling her first time outside just fine.
Juliana was only 48 hours out from giving birth and the post partum was already kicking her ass. She’d been happy and exhausted after giving birth, but when I had to take the baby away to get her immunizations and a birth certificate Juliana had broken down. I was just glad I didn’t have to leave her alone. Mama, Savannah, Elisa and Rose had quickly closed ranks to comfort Juliana.
The couple in front of us in line at the courthouse is getting a marriage license and I smile at them as they walk away hand in hand. I had a newborn baby girl and had temporarily become one of those jackasses who smiled at strangers.
“Are you sure about this ?,” Cecelia Winston-Hills asks once I fill out the birth certificate and slide it over to her to witness.
“Absolutely,” I tell her.
Cece bites her lips and signs.
“Alright, Ms. Peyton Cecelia Clark, you officially exist in the world,” I say to the newborn in the carseat on my arm.
I give the clerk the birth certificate followed by Juliana’s annulment papers and our marriage certificate reapplication.
The clerk looks at the paperwork, frowning over how close together the annulment, marriage and birth dates were.
“You’ve had a busy month, Mr. Clark.” The clerk says.
“You have no idea,”
I’m afraid the clerk won’t sign the paperwork but she does.
“Shit’s about to get real, huh ?,” Cody says slapping my back as we walk out the courthouse.
I still couldn’t believe he was here. That something had actually gotten him out of Freeport for the first time in years.
“Shit’s been real, where have you been ?,” I ask him.
“Yeah, but you gotta a little girl now. You really gotta protect her,” he says.
I had a freaking daughter now. That was going to take some getting used to.
“I know,” I tell him. I wasn’t going to let the world shit on her like it did to Juliana.
We drive back to Sawyer’s house, Cecilia sitting in the back with Peyton in case she wakes up. Sawyer’s small beach house was mayhem—it was a good thing it was off season and his neighbors were gone.
The entire UL crew was at the house along with my family. When we walk in I see Sawyer in the kitchen with Raleigh and Rocket—who’d tried to interview the kid hours after she was born. She said she wanted some cute baby noises.
“Rhett ?” Juliana calls as soon as she hears the door open. “Is she okay ? I want to see her.”
Juliana’s lying down in the bedroom, Savannah and Mason are lying under the covers with her. Elisa, Rosa and Mama are sitting in fold out chairs they’d dragged into the room.
“Shit, baby I thought you told me to leave her at the fire station.,” I say and Juliana does not look amused.
Raleigh punches me in the shoulder and Mama smacks my arm. Cecilia comes into the room behind me with baby Peyton in her arms.
I move Savannah and sit beside Juliana on the bed, she’s quiet and we mostly listen to Elisa and Savannah talking--the two of them for whatever reason seemed to get along.
I also have to answer the phonecalls from my extended family and friends in Freeport and Alaska begging for an update. By the time night falls and the house starts to empty Juliana can tell Peyton’s entire birth story in two minutes.
Mason decides to sleep in the cottage’s second bedroom with Mama and Savannah that night and with the baby in a portable bassinet Mama had brought with her, Juliana and I are alone in bed for the first time since I’ve been in Florida.
She’s staring at Peyton in her bassinet with our new marriage license in her hand.
“It all feels like it’s going to be okay, doesn’t it ?,” she says.
“I think having a new baby makes everything feel better than it actually is,” I tell her. “I know we still have our shit to work through.”
“That’s what marriage is,” she tells me, lying down. “It’s work. Didn’t you listen in that marriage class ?,”
I shake my head, laughing. Damn, that felt ages ago.
“I love you,” I tell her. “I love our family and I know I’m not perfect but I want us to have a life together, it’s all I want.”
“You have me,” she reminds me. “And I want us to have a life together too. I want to create a life for Mason and Peyton where they never have to go through what I went through or even…what you went through. They’ll feel wanted and never been forced into something so terrible like I was.”
I kiss her.
“We’ll have a good life,” I promise.
***
Juliana
Three years ago I’d boarded a plane in Florida feeling abandoned and alone.
By everyone except Rhett.
He’d always been in my thoughts and now he had my heart
But I’d been so wrong to feel alone in the first place. I had people who cared about me and I’d abandoned them because it was all I’d known.
But not anymore.
“There’s my family,” Rhett smiles opening the front door of Jocelyn’s house.
The Coast Guard had given him some time off, but he’d been asked to be on a conference call so I’d taken Mason and Peyton to Jocelyn’s house so he could have some quiet and all of Jocelyn’s neighbors could finally meet Peyton.
“Ready to go ?,” Rhett asks me and I nod.
The suitcases and newborn supplies had been put in the car last night and Jocelyn follows behind me, reading off a checklist as we put the two car seats in the backseat.
Rhett hugs and kisses his mom goodbye and gets in the driver’s seat, starting the car. I open the trucnk and do a final check of Peyton’s bag to make sure her new dress is still there, I’d bought it specifically so she could be wearing it when she met Dad.
We’d be all staying in Connecticut for a week and then Rhett was going back to Alaska to finish up his last 4 weeks. Then we’d all go back home together.
Wherever we decided that would be.
The ened
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