“So, you want to date me and my son?” Leo questions, taking two steps closer to my hospital bed.
“I’ve already met your son, and he’s a stunner, so the hardest part of dating a single dad is already over.” My internal shaking subsides with a hint of Leo’s humor.
“Yes, well, my son isn’t even a day old, and I’ve already had a major parenting fail, introducing him to my girlfriend too soon.”
“But I think he likes me, so that’s a good sign.” I put my hand back out to pull Leo right up next to my bed. “I hope his dad likes me too.”
“His dad does like you, but . . .” Leo pauses. A woman knows a but followed by a pause is never good. I close my eyes, steadying myself for heartbreak.
“But what he really is is knock-over, put a fork in him he’s done, in love with you. Has been since the moment you had no interest in talking to him at that bar in Santa Barbara. Men love women who play hard to get, and you, Nina Morgan Clarke, have been the hardest one of all to get.”
I pull the bed blanket over my head, feigning embarrassment at what a fool I’ve been. Under the cover I’m bursting with relief that Leo and I may be okay. That we all may be okay. I roll down the blanket to give Leo the toothiest grin I got.
Down on one knee, Leo’s holding the velvet box I had been desperately hunting for in his bedroom. Did he actually hear me on the phone last night and swing by his house to pick it up before coming to the hospital? Did he suspect I was nosing through his drawers looking for it? Oh, who cares, the ring’s here. It’s actually here.
I pluck the box out of Leo’s palm. “Can I open it?”
“Please do.”
Pop.
“WHAT?!” Shining back at me are four equal-size diamonds lined up along a gold band. This is not the solitaire that was presented to me at ten thousand feet somewhere over Nebraska.
“Whose ring is this?” I ask Leo, beyond confused.
“Yours. One diamond for Morgan, one for Xandra, one for you, and one for me,” Leo says, pulling the ring from the box and picking up my left hand. My fingers are swollen, but Leo fights to get the ring on me just like he’s been fighting for us all along.
“Wait. How? The other ring? I love it. I mean you.” I can’t compose a complete thought let alone a sentence.
Leo nods to Marisol. “She had faith you’d come around.”
“And when you did, I didn’t want you in some twenty-year-old’s ring. You need something, shall we say, age appropriate.” Marisol picks up my hand to inspect her good work. “Well done, Leo,” Marisol says, giving Leo her sisterly approval.
“With you and T. J. on my team, I just may have a fighting chance at being a good father and a good husband.”
I look at Marisol and raise my right eyebrow, reminding her, cradle to crypt, she is first and foremost on my team. She squeezes my hand to let me know she hears me. She always hears me.
“Mom, are you going to say yes? This baby’s getting heavy,” Xandra asks, having reached her teenage limit holding a newborn.
“I’d like to hear your answer as well, Nina. Contrary to what Marisol says, I’m not actually getting any younger,” Fitzroy chimes in, having spent the last several minutes as the patriarch of our family quietly observing his daughter’s future unfold.
“I haven’t been asked anything yet,” I say, looking to Leo expectantly. Leo lets out the easy, warm laugh I’ve missed.
“Nina Morgan Clarke, will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I declare, falling back into my hospital pillows, breathless from fatigue and happiness.
“I can’t wait to invite the world to our wedding, I love a good party!” Leo does a jig right there in our cramped room. Soooo first marriage of him.
“You can invite anyone you want, baby,” I assure Leo. “Except your Singapore Sloan. That chick is not coming to our wedding.”
NEW TRIMESTER
THIRTY-ONE
Marisol 8:22 AM
How’d you do leaving Morgan with your Spanny this morning?
I look down at the two-tone gray car seat covered in a green gauze swaddle blanket. I rock it gently back and forth with the big toe of my Gucci-clad foot. I don’t want Marisol to hear Morgan cry over text.
Nina 8:22 AM
Fine.
Marisol 8:23 AM
He’s at school with you, isn’t he?
Nina 8:23 AM
He’s very advanced.
Ring.
“Where’s the nanny?” Marisol demands.
“I gave her the day off.”
“She must be something special if she got her first day of work off.” I can feel Marisol crossing her arms in judgment on the other end. “We talked about this, Nina. And did a dry run last week to get you ready for your return to school.”
“I know we did, but . . .”
“But what? No one else can take care of Morgan as well as you can?” Since Morgan came home from the hospital, Marisol’s been worried about me going back to work the first of August. I’d always considered myself more of a TGIM than TGIF type of mom, but turns out birthing a body and adjusting to life on baby lockdown did not go as smoothly as I expected.
Surprising to no one but me, sixteen years later I didn’t remember the ins and outs of infancy nor the hallucinations that come with week after week of no sleep. More than once, I wondered if I had made a drastic mistake trading my life in for a new one, but then moments before a meltdown （mine, not Morgan’s） Leo would sweep in with his Black to Basics parenting tidbits and take over while I took myself to the shower. Turns out not only is Leo a master at diaper changing, bottle feeding, and laundry, but he’s already introduced Morgan to his Marisol. T. J.’s son, Ace, was born a few days after Morgan. Now the four of them hit the playground to check out the older kids’ sandbox skills and Little League.
While I thought I would be clamoring to head back to work, my four-month maternity leave has gone quicker than I expected, and I’m not sure I’m ready to return. In the last month, we have hit our stride at home, and now I’m risking toppling our tenuous microcosm by heading back to work. But I guess today is as good as any to mark my first day as Royal-Hawkins’s quadfecta. A first-generation Black female mother-of-two head of school.
“I can’t believe I was able to leave Xandra at daycare when she was barely six months old. That was some stone-cold parenting when I was young. I’ve grown mushy as an old mom.”
“You’re not an old mom. You’re the mother of a newborn in an old bod,” Marisol says, getting my facts correct. “Xandra turned out just fine, and so will Morgan. But I get it”—Marisol’s tone softens—“I wouldn’t even leave my boys alone with Jaime their first few months, but I eventually gave in and hired Spanny when I realized spas are not conducive to sleep schedules. Besides, Morgan won’t be with a total stranger, he will be with KayCee’s niece.”
I peel back the gauzy coverlet and peek in at the oversize chunk consumed with the wonder of his tiny fingers. Every time I take Morgan to the pediatrician to be measured and weighed, she comments that given his size I may have a budding basketball player on my hands. I haven’t told Jared the good news yet.