Willa
Driving from the station to the suburbs takes longer than driving from the station to an inner-city apartment, but since I never had a car anyway and had to ride the bus, I don’t really notice the difference. I was given the car I’m driving now a year ago, when I was made assistant to Sofia Silva, with the understanding that one of these days I might become head of the station. I look down at my wedding and engagement ring, smiling to myself even though I’m stuck in awful LA traffic.
The wedding was held at The Princess, something we brought up as a joke at first. Diesel—he’ll always be Diesel to me—said, “Imagine if we had it at that bar, the one where we first met.” He was trying to tease me but the idea grew and grew and grew, until I didn’t find it remotely funny anymore. The more I thought about it, the more perfect it became. So I stood in that dive bar in my dress, and Diesel stood there in his suit, and we kissed each other and promised never to let each other go. And we haven’t. For five years, we haven’t.
The traffic relents and I’m able to drive the rest of the way home. I’m nervous as I pull into the driveway. Diesel won’t be home for another hour yet, but when he gets here, I have something to tell him. Something which has made focusing today almost impossible.
I climb from the car, lift some groceries off the passenger seat, and walk toward our house. Mine and Diesel’s slice of suburbia, a four-bedroom with a well-kept green lawn and rows of houses stretching out in either direction. I pause for a moment on the doorstep, savoring this feeling, the feeling of having a home, a life. It’s one I haven’t really known since Mom and Dad.
The door opens before I can touch the handle, Frankie standing at the threshold in her little firefighter’s outfit. Diesel got it for her last week and she hasn’t been able to take it off. She grins up at me. “Mommy!” she calls, leaping up and down. “There was a fire in the kitchen and I saved the day!”
“A fire in the kitchen?” I ask Tammy, the babysitter.
She rolls her eyes, smiling kindly. “I lit a candle over the sink for her,” she says, “so she could put it out with a glass of water.”
I laugh. Tammy is easily the best babysitter we’ve had. “How much do I owe you?”
Once Tammy is paid and in her car, I carry Frankie through into the living room and sit her down in front of the bookshelf. She whines that she wants to watch TV, but I stand firm. I never got around to writing my novel. Maybe one day Frankie will write a novel of her own. Or do anything else she wants.
I put away the groceries and then join Frankie, picking up The Hobbit from the top of the shelf and continuing from where we left off. Diesel walks through the door in his firefighter’s uniform just as Bilbo is trying to rescue the dwarves from prison. Frankie leaps on him, and Diesel lifts her up and kisses her on the forehead. He smiles at me over the top of her head. Frankie has my hair and build, but Diesel’s dark green eyes. It always breaks my heart a little to see them together like this. Sometimes I can’t believe it’s real.
He puts her down and goes upstairs to take a shower. When he comes downstairs, I’m in the kitchen preparing dinner and Frankie is in the living room, finally allowed to watch TV. I need her attention elsewhere for what I’m about to reveal to Diesel. I catch him in the kitchen, wrapping my arms around him and looking up into his face. He’s grown his beard out several times since we first met, but he’s never had it this long before. He looks like a real man, a wild man.
“Is something wrong?” he asks.
“Not wrong, exactly,” I say. “Just … something.”
He kisses me on the nose. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”
I swallow, and then come out and say it. “I’m pregnant.”
He doesn’t hesitate for even a moment. His smile is instant. For a moment the world seems brighter. He hugs me tightly to him, kissing my cheek over and over. “Why do you look so worried?” he asks, laughing. “This is the best news I’ve heard all year. Come here, you silly woman.”
He lifts me off my feet and I squeal. Then Frankie comes running in, pretend hose in hand, screaming, “I’m here to the rescue! I’m here to the rescue!”
THE END
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