I feel my smile spread. “That’s great, Ems. Why do you seem so nervous about it?”
“A couple reasons. First, I need to tell her about her dad. Hallie said the social worker could do it, but I don’t want that for Maddy. It has to be me. Also, I know you have a lot on your mind right now, and I don’t want you to feel any pressure. Like, because I’m adopting her, you have to suddenly help me or become a full-time parent or something. I only want you to do what you’re comfortable with.”
I take Emma’s other hand, relieved that this is something I can fix.
“Ems, I love you. I love you, and I love Maddy, and there is nothing in the world that will ever change that. I know I have things I need to work through, and I will. I’ve already started. But none of that means that I don’t want us. All three of us, together. We’re a family. We’ve been a family since the second you got the call from Hallie that Maddy was coming to live with you, and I spent a hundred years putting together that damn desk. Like you and everyone else have spent the last two days drilling into my head, family sticks. If you’ll have me, I want to be there for everything. For the good parts of parenting and the not so good parts. Not to help you. To do it with you. I know you’re adopting her, but I hope one day, when we’re married, I can adopt her too.”
Emma swallows thickly, her eyes swirling with emotion.
“You would want that? To get married?”
I kiss Emma’s hand again, never taking my eyes off hers.
“Only if it’s to you.”
“You know…” she muses, “It’s easier to be a parent if you’re living in the same house as the child you’re parenting.”
I give her a sly smile as warmth fills my chest. “You asking me to move in with you, Ems?”
She shrugs a shoulder. “I mean, you’re at my house most nights anyway, and your house, well, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I kind of hate it there. It makes me sad to think about you rattling around in all that cold, staged perfection.”
I laugh at that. “You and me both.”
“So why not personalize it a little? Haven’t you lived there for like, fifteen years or something?”
I wince. “More than that. It never seemed necessary. I guess…” Now it’s my turn to swallow hard. “I guess I always figured my life here was temporary, so why make a home.”
Emma squeezes my hand, understanding on her face.
“And now?”
“Now I want to sell the damn thing. That part of my life is over. I’m a work in progress, Ems, but there will never be anyone who loves you more than I do. Who loves Maddy more. Your house is more of a home than any place I have ever lived in my life, so let’s be there together. All of us.”
Emma nods, her eyes glazing with unshed tears and shining with a love that settles me down to my core. “I have to check with Hallie on the logistics. Make sure there isn’t an issue, and I think you’ll probably need to get a background check and maybe go to classes or something? I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”
I wrap my hands around Emma’s neck and lean over the center console to kiss her. “We’ll find out together. I’ll go with you to talk to Hallie, and I’ll do whatever I need to do to make it work. You’re mine, Ems, and…”
I’m interrupted by a happy shriek outside the car. I turn and see a delighted Maddy running down the school steps.
I grin at Emma. “And so is she.”
I open the car door just in time for Maddy to fling herself at me. I catch her on the fly, pulling her in for a hug. I close my eyesand breathe her in, grape shampoo and little girl, and the last missing piece of me slides into place.
“You’re back!”
“You bet I am, Little Red.”
“I missed you! I need to tell you all about Halloween. Oh my god, it was so much fun, and we had a girls’ night, and I got to stay up late and eat tacos and look!” She turns so I can see the back of her head, her hair twisted into some kind of complicated braid.
“Molly gave me a fishtail braid and she promised me she would teach me how to do it. Can you come over?”
She stops talking and sucks in a breath, and I laugh, filled with love for this little girl.My little girl, I think. Mine and Emma’s. Ours.
“Yeah, Little Red. Let’s go home.”
“Maddy, is it okay if we talk for a little bit?” Emma asks.
We’re sitting at the kitchen table, surrounded by boxes of cereal. As soon as we walked in the door, Maddy dropped her backpack, said she was starving, and insisted that cereal was the only thing she wanted.
