Incoming Zoom: Leilani Kauhi.
Cal clickedaccept.
And suddenly our future appeared on the screen, smiling, sunlit, and very, very real.
“Hi!” said the young woman on the screen, waving with both hands. “Can you hear me?”
“Hi!” Cal and I both said, a little too enthusiastically.
She smiled, relieved. “Oh good, it’s working. My mom’s router sometimes likes to take a nap. It’s an island thing.”
She had long dark curls pulled back in a braid and a radiant face with no makeup. She was sitting outside, with lush green hills and a flash of ocean behind her, and a rooster crowed somewhere in the distance.
“I’m Leilani,” she said, her grin wide and effortless. “And just a heads up, if a chicken walks through the shot, just ignore it. That’s just Doug. He loves attention wherever he can get it.”
Matt blinked. “Is… Doug your—”
“Rooster. He’s a menace. He thinks he owns the place.” She glanced off-screen. “We’ve talked about boundaries, but he still insists on doing his own thing.”
Cal laughed first, then me. I was already a little bit in love with her.
“So,” Leilani said, folding her hands in front of her like she was about to give a toast. “I watched your profile video and first of all, you two are adorable. Like, nauseating. In a good way. Like…aspirational nausea.”
Cal smiled, almost bashfully. I could feel the heat rising in my face.
“I just really liked how you talked about love,” she added,more gently now. “And building a family on that. It felt… real. Which I think is kind of rare when people talk on camera about serious stuff.”
My cue cards sat forgotten on the counter.
“Thank you,” I said, blinking fast. “That really means a lot.”
“Also,” she said, suddenly bright again. “I saw your list of values, and I just wanna say, Ialsooverthink text messages and cry at Pixar movies. Don’t even get me started on Bing Bong! Gah! So, I feel like we’re already aligned.”
“That was me,” I said quickly. “The crying and the overthinking.”
“I assumed,” she said with a wink.
We all laughed again.
Then Cal, ever the steady one, leaned forward a little. “Leilani, we loved your video too. The way you talked about your family—how supported you feel, how much joy is in your life—it really struck a chord with us. It made us think… if we’re lucky enough to go through this with someone, we want it to be someone who understands that kind of love.”
Leilani nodded, visibly touched. “That’s really beautiful. Thank you.”
A breeze lifted a strand of hair from her forehead, and for a moment, we were just three people suspended in a quiet, gentle space together, even though we were half a world away.
“Okay,” she said brightly, breaking the spell with a grin. “Serious question. Are you prepared for the possibility that the baby may arrive already singing Broadway show tunes?”
I gasped. “IknewI should’ve worn my Sondheim shirt.”
Cal chuckled and shook his head. “We’re absolutely prepared.”
“I just want you to know,” Leilani said, lifting an imaginary microphone. “If this all works out, I plan to be the kind of birth mom who sends the kid annual birthday letters, homemade cookies, and wildly off-key videos of me singing ‘Defying Gravity.’”
I made a choked sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
Suddenly Leilani’s tone shifted gears, panic taking over. “Oh! But only if that’s what you want. I know everyone has different boundaries around openness, and I would never assume. I’d never want to overstep the mark, I promise. But I’d love to talk it all through. Together.”
Cal’s hand found mine under the counter.
