Epilogue

SEVERAL MONTHS LATER

 

“Answer yes or no, Mommy,” Lily says to me.

I’m attempting to work Lily’s reddish-brown hair into a French braid, but she won’t stop moving. She’s been talking the whole time I’ve been brushing her hair and then just as I was doing the braid, she somehow got hungry. What have I done wrong as a mother that my child can’t sit through me brushing her hair without a snack? Thank God Noah was around to rush out and see if he could grab her some crackers.

“Can you just sit still?” I mumble.

Why did I think I could put Lily’s hair in a French braid? I don’t know how to make a French braid. I am completely unqualified for this task.

“Yes or no, Mommy!” Lily demands.

This is a new game of hers. She asks me to answer a question, yes or no. But I don’t get to know the question until I answer. So if I answer “yes,” the question would be something like, “Would you eat boogers?” And if I answer “no,” the question would be, “Would you not eat boogers?” Or something like that.

Can you tell I’m sick of this game?

“Hold still for just a second,” I say.

“I’ve been holding still for five hours!” (A slight exaggeration.)

“I’m almost done,” I lie.

At that moment, Noah bursts into the tiny room in the back of the church that I’ve been given to fix up Lily’s hair. He holds up a little yellow package in triumph. “Lorna Doones!”

Lily’s eyes light up and she rushes over to him, officially undoing any meager progress I’d made on her hair. “I love Lorna Doones.”

Noah winks at me. “I know it.”

I look at Noah in the dark suit he’s wearing and I swoon for the tenth time today. He’s so unbelievably hot dressed up in a suit, especially with a tie. But he also looks hot in the blue scrubs he wears to the hospital—they bring out the blue in his eyes. Or in a T-shirt and jeans.

Or wearing nothing at all.

Especially that last one.

“Noah?” Lily says around bites of her Lorna Doone.

He looks at me, taking in my harried expression, and smiles. “What’s up, Lil?”

“Answer yes or no.”

“Um…” He looks like he’s really thinking about it. He’s so good with her. When we were dating all those years ago, I never really thought about what kind of father Noah would be. I never knew he’d kick ass at it. “No.”

Lily’s eyes widen. “No? You don’t want Grandpa and Gwen to get married today?”

“No,” Noah says patiently, “I wanted them to get married yesterday.”

Lily cackles with laughter. She doesn’t hero worship Noah any less since we’ve been dating for three months. I hope he’s still around when she’s a teenager, because he’ll probably be the only one she’ll listen to.

I hope he’s around by then for a lot of reasons.

“I give up,” I say, looking at Lily’s loose hair. “I can’t do a French braid. I’m going to have to do an American braid. Unless…” I look up at Noah. “Can you do a French braid?”

Noah makes a face at me. “I’m a straight male, so… no. I can’t.”

“Yeah, but aren’t you always, like, sewing things up in the ER, Dr. Walsh?”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, and if anyone has a laceration under their hair, I’m glad to take care of that. But sorry, I don’t do French braids.”

Fine. Nobody’s perfect.

I quickly arrange Lily’s hair into a normal braid while Noah grabs the cane he’s got leaning against the wall. He’s worn his prosthetic legs for the wedding ceremony, but the church had a bunch of stairs to get in without any railing, so he took the cane. Even though he doesn’t need the extra support when he’s on an even surface like inside the church, he likes to have it around when he’s somewhere he’s never been before.

“How do I look?” Lily asks Noah when I finish her hair.

She does a little twirl so the skirt of her pink bridesmaid dress (that I didn’t have to pay for, thank God) flies into the air. Lily helped design the dress herself, and it has a scary number of ruffles. But she loves it, which is more important than my daughter not looking like a doily.

“You look beautiful,” he tells her. His eyes lift to me in my own dress—it’s a rich green color and gives my boobs the perfect amount of lift for a woman who breastfed a baby for a year and a half without realizing it would cause them to sag forever. “Just like your mom.”

I blush, even though he says things like that all the time. And my body tingles when he gets close to me and pulls me in for a kiss that’s only just barely appropriate given we’re right in front of my daughter. The truth is, for the last three months, Noah and I have been having difficulty keeping our hands off each other. He jokes that we’re making up for lost time, although it was like that before too.

The only problem is finding time to be alone together. Lily and I share a bedroom, which means Noah and I have to hook up on the sofa in my apartment after she’s fallen asleep, with an excuse ready in case she walks in on us. We’re going to tell her he’s giving me CPR. In any case, him spending the night is out of the question.

“Noah,” Lily says in a sing-songy voice. “Answer yes or no.”

He’s gazing into my eyes. I don’t think he even heard the question.

“Noah!” Lily barks.

He tears his eyes away from me to smile at her. “Yes, Lily?”

“Answer yes or no.”

I give him a lot of credit for not rolling his eyes. “Yes.”

A grin spreads across Lily’s small face. “Yes? So yes, you’re going to marry Mommy?”

Noah’s blue eyes widen. He glances at me then back at my daughter. Thanks for making things really awkward, sweetie.

“Lily,” I sigh. “You know that Noah and I haven’t been going out for very long.”

“Grandpa and Gwen weren’t going out very long,” Lily irritatingly points out.

I flash Noah an apologetic look. I can’t help but remember that day when he got down on one knee in his graduation gown. That was one of the most amazing moments of my life. And then I remember the day when I put the ring he gave me on his bookcase just before I left his life forever. Or at least, I thought it would be forever.

Noah bends down to look Lily in the eyes, leaning on his cane to help him keep his balance while he gets down to her level. “Lily,” he says. “The truth is that I do want to marry your mom.”

He…

What?

“You do?” Lily looks even more excited than she did when Dogcat came out on DVD last week, and Noah bought her a copy. I’ll never forgive him for that.

He nods. “Yeah. I’ve known your mother for a long time, and I’m starting to realize I don’t think I could marry anyone else but her.”

“Good thing she’s single,” Lily comments.

Noah laughs. “Yeah, good thing.”

“She probably wouldn’t marry anyone else too,” she adds. “Because she never went out on dates with anybody. Or had any boyfriends before you.”

“Lily!” I hiss. Not that we didn’t all know I used to have a pathetic social life, but I don’t know why Lily needs to keep reminding everyone about it.

“Listen,” Noah says to Lily, “I was thinking maybe I could try living with you and Mom for a while and see how we all get along before we make any other plans. What do you think?”

She frowns. “Would you sleep in the bedroom with me and Mommy?”

“Actually,” he says, “I thought maybe we could get a two-bedroom apartment so you could have your own room.”

“My own room!” Lily is almost levitating with excitement. “Can I have a bed with a slide on it?”

“Uh…” Noah glances at me. Lily been obsessed with slide beds ever since she saw one in one of her friends’ rooms. “Sure. I guess.”

That’s all he had to say. Lily is bouncing up and down, happier than I’ve ever seen her.

Noah straightens up so he can look me in the eyes. “What do you say, Bailey? I know it’s soon, but… it’s not like we don’t know each other.”

I take his hand in mine. It’s always been my greatest regret that I let the love of my life slip away from me. And here he is, giving me a do-over.

“Answer yes or no, Mommy!” Lily says.

“Yes,” I whisper.

And just like that, the worst mistake of my life is undone.

 

THE END