I smile as Brandi holds up this pink, frilly stuffed bunny rabbit. “What do you think?” she asks for the hundredth time today. Today we are picking out nursery décor at a local baby store, and Brandi is being her indecisive self. We have yet to nail down a theme, and Brandi insists that there must be a theme. We’ve only been here for a little while –about ten minutes or so, but I have this feeling in the pit of my stomach that we are going to be here all day; I don’t mind too much, though. This is a big deal to both Brandi and to me. It is for our daughter, after all.

Believe it or not, I am actually really enjoying this –like really enjoying this. Crazy –right? I am actually having fun looking at all this pink girly stuff that could potentially go into my daughter’s room. “Have we nailed down a name yet?” I ask. “I feel like once we get a name, we’ll know what we want for her room.”

“Good point,” Brandi says and puts the bunny back up on the shelf. She sashays down the aisle. “What are our top three?”

“Eliza, Ambriel, and Susan,” I say.

“Scratch Susan,” Brandi says. “I know I said I wanted her to be named after my mom, but I just am not feeling that name for our baby.”

Thank God. I really didn’t want my daughter to be named Susan. “Okay,” I say. “So that just leaves Eliza and Ambriel. So it’s the moment of truth, Brandi. What’s it going to be?”

She smiles at me and reaches out, poking me in the chest. “You pick.”

I freeze. Is she serious? Surely she’s not serious. “You want me to pick?”

“After the way I was when it came to you and this baby, I think I owe it to you to let you pick out her name –especially since its two names I chose anyways. I’d be happy with either one. So you pick –are we having an Eliza or an Ambriel?” She doesn’t look at me; she is too distracted looking at these goofy looking baby calendars and oohing and ahhing at each one of them like they are just the most amazing things she has ever seen. The aisle we’re in has a number of weird knick-knacks like that. I’m sure we’ll wind up picking out a baby book while we’re here; I don’t even want to know how many clothes we’ll wind up buying before the day is out. Brandi has been eyeing the dresses over in the corner ever since we first got here.

I already have a favorite name, so I choose rather quickly. “Ambriel,” I say confidently.

She turns around at me and has this incredibly happy look about her. “Good. That one was my favorite too.”

“Okay,” I say, “Ambriel it is. So, what will our little Ambriel like?”

“Pink, for sure,” Brandi says. “It’s got to be pink and frilly with a name like Ambriel.”

Then I spot something across the store that grabs my attention. “Oh my gosh, Brandi, look!” I grab her wrist and practically drag her and her giant belly through the entire shop over to where this sample nursery is set up. It’s the mobile hanging over the bed that caught my attention. It’s pink and fluffy just like Brandi wants, but the theme is just perfect. It’s girly and sporty –like us. There’s a pink softball, a ballerina slipper, and by some grace of God –the one sport that is literally never represented in these sort of collaborative things –a pair of pink boxing gloves.

Brandi smiles. “That is the cutest thing! Look at the little ballerina slipper.” There is a fake excitement in her voice.

“You don’t like it?” I ask, feeling really disappointed. What could be more perfect than a theme that incorporates both of us? Maybe she thinks the boxing thing is weird for a girl –if so, I should really introduce her to all the women I train at the gym. That would probably give her a heart attack if she is turned off by pink boxing gloves.

She laughs at me. “No, I love it. Okay, the truth is, I came to this store yesterday while you were trying on tux’s with Marty. I saw this, and that’s why I insisted we come here first. I knew you’d see it and totally love it.” She points over at a stuffed kangaroo with a tiara and pink gloves on, “look at this –isn’t it cute? It comes with the set.”

Wow. Brandi has really come around. I thought getting back with her was going to be much more of a struggle, but she’s putting her full heart and trust in me again. It’s almost impossible to believe that she has turned around this much after the way I had been. It’s like none of that ever happened! There are a thousand different places we could have gone today, but she brought me here just because it is probably the one shop on the planet that has an appropriate nursery theme for the daughter of a boxer.

“Oh, and look at this one!” Brandi picks up another stuffed animal. It’s a white, fluffy mouse with a tutu. “I think this theme fits our family perfectly, don’t you think? It’s called Sporty Animal in Pink. She picks up the blanket which is basically a pink blanket with a bunch of over-the-top girly animals playing various sports: the kangaroo boxer, the mouse ballerina, the tiger softball player, the dolphin swimmer, and the elephant mountain biker.

“I totally agree,” I say. We buy the set plus literally any of the stuffed animal add-ons that you can get in addition to the set. I put the kiddie lamp into the cart too because my girl, the kangaroo with the gloves, is the base of the lamp. We grab wall décor, a rug, blankets, and anything else that will go with the theme before heading to the checkout. I have the manager get the white crib, changing table, and dresser from the back, and soon we have pretty much bought up half the store.

I can’t believe how much fun I had doing this. “I can’t wait to get this all set up in the nursery,” Brandi says from the passenger’s seat of my car as I am loading up everything in the back.

This was a good day for us both, but I still can’t help but to think of Laurel. It’s like Laurel has permanently tainted my mind. It’s been two weeks, and she still hasn’t come back to the gym. I wish I had left things better than what I did. I owe her an apology at the very least –maybe that will clear my conscience a little? It bums me out that I can’t spend a day with my wife without something reminding me of Laurel –like a damn kangaroo with pink gloves. I cringe; I hope that my daughter’s nursery won’t be a constant reminder of her. This might have been a bad idea…

I climb into the driver’s seat and look over to see that Brandi is holding the stuffed mouse and kangaroo. “These two are going to be Ambriel’s favorite, you know that, right?”

“Of course,” I say and cringe again to see Brandi hugging the kangaroo that is starting to suspiciously look more and more like Laurel. Why can’t I get her out of my head?