Page 72 of Come Find Me Tonight

Our girl.

I laugh at myself now for thinking Appa was sassy. Ember has Appa’s fire times ten with a defiant flair when she chooses, and I’m not looking forward to her teenage years. She’s already three, and I swear it was last week I heard the ultrasound tech tell us Appa was having a girl.

We were buzzing the days leading up to Appa’s anatomy scan during her second trimester. Appa was finally herself again after the first trimester symptoms subsided, and I was obsessed as soon as she started showing. Nonna was convinced that we were expecting twins because of how early Appa bumped out, but it was just the combination of a petite mom and a tall dad. Nonna still didn’t believe us, even after we showed her Appa’s ultrasounds.

“Did you want to find out the gender?” the ultrasound tech asked, smoothing cold gel over Appa’s stomach that made her wince.

Appa lit up and answered quickly. “Yes!”

We talked about whether we wanted to know or be surprised for weeks, weighing the pros and cons, but on the way to her appointment, Appa looked over at me while I drove and said she wanted to know. Either way was fine with me.

Let’s be real. With Appa, I never minded a damn thing.

“It’s a girl!”

Appa turned her head so fast from the screen to see my reaction. Her cheeks were lifted from smiling so hard.

“A girl,” she whispered to me.

Damn, Nonna was right about that. She said Appa was carrying too wide and high for the baby to be a boy, but we both thought she was losing it. Now I understand.

But a girl was a relief and meant a smaller baby, right? I was concerned about the baby’s size in relation to Appa’s frame, even though it seemed irrational. I knew she could handle anything, and her body was built for this.

Ember’s brown ringlets bounce as she keeps sprinting, loud with laughter, but she skids to a stop when Enzo appears at the end of the row. “Uncle E! Uncle E!” She stretches her arms above her head, and he pulls her up into his arms. He’s technically Cousin Enzo to her, but since I didn’t have siblings, I let her think that. It was cute. Especially because her actual uncles in Georgia had nothing to do with Ember or us, for that matter. And Enzo was like the brother I never had.

“Lose this?” he teases me when I approach them.

I smirk. “No. It’s all part of the plan.” He passes her into my arms, and I run my hand over the back of her head. “When’s it going to be your turn, E?” I ask. We’re both thirty-two now, and he watched his younger brothers as they all became dads.

“Whenever I meet my Appa,” he says with wistfulness in his voice. His gaze drifts toward my mom’s house where Appa is.

To be clear, Enzo wasn’t the type to give your girl a second look, but I knew how much the past five years had gotten to him as we all grew into our families except him. He and Appa have developed a solid friendship, and he’s amazing with his nieces and nephews. I think he has a soft spot for Ember in particular.

“You will,” I reply. “Catch you later?” Enzo just nods and turns the other way. I shift my neck to look at the squirmy little girl in my arms. “Want to go see Mommy?”

“When will she be better?” Ember asks me with her big puppy eyes—another trait she picked up from Appa. Ember looked so much like Appa, but my dark features came through in her, making her blue eyes at birth change to brown by her first birthday.

“Soon.” I kiss the side of Ember’s hair to hide the fact I’m choked up thinking about everything Appa has endured over the past few years.

Ember’s birth was less than glamorous. Appa went into labor right on schedule and was cursing my name when I forgot where I was supposed to press on her back during the contractions for counterpressure.

“Robby, here,” Mom instructed, pressing on Appa’s lower back while she braced herself against the counter. I replaced my palms with hers, pressing harder than my mom.

“Is that helping?” I asked Appa.

“I don’t know…maybe,” she breathlessly replied.

Many hours, one failed epidural, and a threatened C-section later, Ember was born. The doctor predicted she’d weigh around seven pounds, but she was closer to eight and a half. Almost more than Appa could take. It was a blur, but I’ll never forget whispering to Appa that she did it when they put Ember on her chest for the first time. Appa couldn’t hold Ember for hours at first, weak because of her anemia and exhaustion, but they both made it. That’s what mattered.

“Why is she sick?” Ember asks.

I set her down and take her little hand in mine, so she can’t run off again. “She’s not sick, just had surgery. She’ll be better in the long run,” I say to Ember as we walk back toward my parents’ house. Mom and Appa are sitting on the front porch, Appa lounging on the outdoor couch with a blanket over her. It’s early spring and getting chilly as the sun sets past the mountains in the distance.

“Promise, Daddy?” Ember asks, looking up at me.

I shudder when I make eye contact with Appa from a distance. “Yeah, I promise,” I say and give her hand a gentle squeeze.

After Ember’s birth, Appa swore off getting pregnant again following the traumatic birth, and I nearly got snipped. But on Ember’s second birthday, she watched Ember play with her little second cousins at the vineyard, and I knew the look on Appa’s face. It was yearning after the trauma subsided.