Page 127 of Just Ten Seconds

“All I heard out of that statement was that tonight is totally on the table.”

She leans in and kisses me again. Her breath hot on my lips. “Tonight is most definitely on the table.” She sucks on my lower lip and then backs away. “As long as you take the middle-of-the-night feeding.”

I laugh at her statement. She knows I live for late-night feedings with my son.

While I sleep more than I did before I met Mara, I can still function fine on just a few hours of sleep. I guess that’s what years of sleepless nights will do to a man.

I give Mando a kiss on his head and then tiptoe out of the room. As Mara jogs down the stairs, I pause and look at the family photo we just hung on the wall. Me, Mara, Amanda, and Armando sitting on the deck with the lake behind us. It’s our first photo as a family of four and my favorite thing in the house. That says a lot, considering I built almost everything in here by hand.

When I made my grand gesture to Mara two years ago about living here, I knew that I wanted to be a family with her. While she said yes, it didn’t happen as quickly as I had hoped.

Six months after that day, the three of us moved in here together. It was enough time for me to sell and pack up the model home Amanda and I’d lived in and for Mara to get back on her feet in her own way.

She got a job teaching at a drama school in the area and went right into rehearsals for her next role at the theater play, Our Town. Thankfully, her arrest record wasn’t an issue because of the nature of her offense. I think Mr. Kenner pulled some strings. She still worked at the café on weekends because as she said, the money was good, and it gave her a chance to spend time with Jackie.

It was also during this time she found the therapy she needed. Instead of a group, Mara sought a private therapist who could help her manage her grief, and abandonment issues. After the first session, she said she knew she was on the right path to healing properly.

I continued to go to the bereavement group, and to this day, I still manage to go when I can. If not for the help, then for the connection. I’ve grown close to Tracey over the years, and I enjoy her company, even on weekends when she comes over with Lauren and Joey for a barbecue or a football game in the fall.

The next six months were pretty fantastic. We found an easy routine while living together, and Mara even let me put a ring on her finger. It wasn’t a fancy proposal. Just me on one knee in our living room while Amanda was sleeping over at my mother’s house. Mara said yes, and we had a small ceremony here at the house. Since we had both been previously married, she didn’t feel right about us getting married in a church. I didn’t mind as long as she was mine.

Next to our family photo is another that Mara found important to hang. It’s of me and Nicole after Amanda was born. Amanda is swaddled in my arms as we grin at the camera. It’s our first picture as a family of three.

I often wonder what life would have been like had she lived. Sometimes, I panic, thinking about how much I love Mara and what it would have meant if I’d met her while Nicole were still alive. It’s a thought that can drive a person crazy. My mother says not to think on it. She said if Nicole hadn’t passed, Mara would never have entered my life. She is my gift, and I should accept that gift without question.

So I do. I accept all the gifts. Especially the gift both women have given me. My children.

Mara was shocked to learn she was pregnant. We had been lying in bed one night when I noticed she felt swollen. She mentioned her breasts had been tender, so I suggested she take a pregnancy test. We had never used protection. A foolish move, I agree, but it was an unspoken conversation we’d had the first moment we were together. If a child came of our love, then it was for the best.

Armando Dean Delgado was a surprise. Not just his arrival, but also his gender. Mara was convinced she was having a girl and had a name picked out—Maggie. It was cute, but I wasn’t crazy about it. She said if I let her pick the girl name, I could pick the boy name. Imagine her surprise when we had a son.

I was nervous leading up to his birth. I had convinced myself hospitals were a place of lost hope. When the doctor put my son in my arms, the place where my first wife was told she was going to die became the place my son was brought to life. My mother always said that with death comes life. I truly felt that when I held my son for the first time. If mine and Mara’s story hadn’t played out as it did, the moments occurring in the seconds they were supposed to, then my son wouldn’t be here today. As old man Kenner once told Mara: You can’t change the past. It’s the foundation. That foundation brought us Armando.

His name means soldier. I thought it was appropriate for a man whose parents had fought away their painful pasts to be together. This kid will be able to conquer anything. And if he can’t, he’ll have the three of us by his side.

“Dad! Dinner’s ready!” Amanda calls from downstairs.

I make my way down the stairs and into the kitchen where Amanda is sitting at the island with her textbook open. I step behind her and give her a shoulder massage, tickling her neck and making her squirm.

“I love you, but you are so annoying!”

I laugh and give her a loud kiss on the cheek. I might be annoying, but it’s only because I love this kid so damn much. While her brother is our soldier, Amanda is the loved one. That’s what her name means—worthy of love.

“Am I bringing you to theater practice tomorrow?” I ask her as I cross the kitchen and open the refrigerator.

“I can bring her,” Mara says from the stove. She’s stirring a tomato sauce Rita taught her to make. It’s become her weekly Sunday staple and always makes the house smell like heaven.

“You’re ready to return to work?” I ask.

She grimaces at me. “I had a baby. Not a quadruple bypass. Women give birth and go back to work the next day in other places. Three months is more than enough for me to sit in a theater and watch a bunch of kids prance around.”

“I do not prance,” Amanda states. “I glide.”

I’d wipe the eye roll off her face, but even I remember what it’s like to be ten years old. At her age, I was spray-painting the sides of buildings. I’ll take her sarcasm any day of the week.

Mara points the spoon at me. “Also, this is Amanda’s first lead role. I’m not missing a second of my daughter’s experience.”

I close the refrigerator door, completely forgetting what I was there to get, and walk over to my wife. Taking her face in my hands, I devour her in a kiss.

“And that’s my cue to leave.” The sound of Amanda closing her textbook and then marching out of the room makes Mara laugh against my mouth.

“You’re scaring our daughter,” she says.

I kiss her again.

For as long as she lives, she will never understand how sexy I find how easily she accepts Amanda as her own. She doesn’t make Amanda call her mom because Amanda had a mom. A good one. But she always calls Amanda her daughter because, in Mara’s eyes, she is her child just as much as Mando is.

“I love you,” I tell her with my words, my mouth, and my body—as much as I can with a preteen lurking around.

“I love you too, Dean. Every second of every day.”

I hold my forehead to hers as I savor this moment. I know, someday, I’ll be an old man, sitting at a table, reminiscing about my life. When I do so, I’ll be able to say I was loved not once, but twice. And while the years pass quickly, it’s the seconds I live for. Because, in the seconds, the most beautiful things can happen.

You just have to be in the moment to experience them.