Page 72 of Requiem

“What? You mean like Johann Sebastian or Wolfgang Amadeus?”

“No, silly!” I giggle. “Maybe Coda or Symphony.”

He’s looking at me as if I’ve lost my mind.

“Coda Ayers?”

“Or … Symphony Ayers,” I counter.

He shakes his head. “I don’t even know what to say to that, Julia,” he groans as he turns around and walks out of our bedroom, still shaking his head.

“Your mommy is crazy!” I hear him say to David through the baby monitor. “Crazy, crazy, crazy!”

Our son’s deep laugh tells me there’s some tickling going on a few doors down the hall. I rub my belly gently and smile. These are good minutes, I think. That’s the way I used to measure time as a child. But I had good reason; my entire life was lived minute by minute. One minute my father was fine. The next minute, he was beating me with his belt.

On this particular evening, the good minutes turn into a good hour. By the time I put on my robe and head back into the bedroom, I find Matthew and David both in our big bed, sound asleep. I stand in the doorway and watch my husband, on his side, with David snuggled into the crook of his arm. Their chests rise and fall, almost in unison.

Over the last two years, I have marveled at his capacity to love a child who isn’t his. A child who, with every passing day, grows to look more and more like his biological father. It seems as if so much of my life has been one disappointment after another, so to find myself in a happy marriage with a beautiful child and a flourishing career, well, it’s just that I never dared to think we could be this happy. Even now, I reach over and rap the wood doorframe, just to be on the safe side. I wouldn’t want to tempt fate.

But, then again, even I know that fate doesn’t always need a reason.