When I look back at him, though, I see a sadness in his eyes I wasn't expecting.
"You had George's children?" he asks softly, his hand finding the small of my back.
"Oh, James," I say, shaking my head, giving him the slightest of smiles. "No, these babies are yours."
He draws in a deep breath and steps closer to the sleeping babes.
"How can you know? Surely you and George..." James lets his sentence drop and I'm grateful. I don't want to talk about lying with George either.
"I did what I had to do, but look at them, James. These children are yours."
He kneels before the bassinets, his hands on the rim, looking down at his children for the first time in his life.
Our boys have hair as dark as a raven's wing, eyes that dark, too—mirror images of me. But his daughter, Jamie, has hair as light as the sun, eyes green as the grass. His double. They're sleeping now, but I know when he looks in her eyes, he will know what I knew the moment I held them in my arms: they are ours.
James pulls in a sharp breath as I lift Jamie from the bassinet, swaddled tight, her little hands tucked beneath her chin. I hand James his daughter and there are tears his eyes. "Triplets?" he asks in wonder.
I can't hold back the grin now, and why would I? "Crazy, right? Just like your sister."
James blinks back tears, lifting Jamie closer, kissing her little nose, her cheeks, her lips. Breathing her in and staring at her perfection. My heart has melted, seeping toward my family.
He sets down Jamie and picking up Jacob, then Andrew, memorizing their faces. We stand there for what feels like hours, staring at our children, he unswaddles them looking at their fingers and toes, marveling over their existence. Watching him fall in love with our babies is the most beautiful thing I've ever witnessed.
As they stir, I bring them, one at a time to my breast. Nursing them in the rocker, James is transfixed by us, by his family. He begins humming the Beach Boys song, Wouldn't It Be Nice as a lullaby, and that's when I lose it. My tears begin to fall for the time he has lost, and they have lost. For the moments he has missed.
But it's only been three months... and the truth is, I thought it was forever.
I thought he was dead, but he is here, his voice cracking, tears in his eyes, over the lyrics that mean so much to us both. And somehow his voice is more soulful, raw—real—it's as if all that we’ve been through has made him more of a man than I thought possible. His beard is rough, but his heart, it's still soft.
He’s always been soft to my hard, the wide-open to my closed-door heart.
"It's like those lyrics were written for us," I tell him, rewrapping Andrew in his blanket and lying him in his bassinet. The babies are all fed, and back to sleep. "I haven't heard you sing in so many years."
"I lost my voice when you...."
I close my eyes, knowing they'd be cloaked in regret. "When I refused to leave with you when we were eighteen?"
He nods, walking toward me, and pulls me to stand. "You came out here all alone, with them?" he asks, his arms around my waist, my cheek resting on his chest.
I know I need to tell him my story, hard as it is to tell. It is time.
I take his hand and lead him to the bed I have made on the floor with all the blankets and comforters I had packed. He takes off his boots and pulls me to him, he's watching me as if I am something fragile. What he doesn't know is that right now, I am the strongest I have ever been. Stronger than I ever thought I'd be.
So, with that courage, I tell him the story. I detail the marriage vows with George, how the sister-wives dressed me in white and slipped the gold band on my finger and stood with me before Luke, our pastor. How I stood frozen, the shell of who I had once been, my heart wrecked over his death, unable to grieve.
I tell him how after, I went to the bathroom and threw up in the toilet, terrified of the night to come. How all I wanted was him.
How all I wanted was him.
How all I wanted was him, but he was dead and I was left alone.
And how I slept with George, but that it never felt real.
Because the only real thing I knew was gone.
I tell him about the months of sorrow, not being able to show my heartache over losing him to anyone for fear of what may happen to me.
When I realized I was pregnant, I knew immediately that I was carrying his child. I refused to believe George could ever fill my womb. How I clung to his memory as our babies grew and I how I was stuck in bed—but how that was better than anywhere else I may have had to be.
During the pregnancy, I resolved to leave as soon as the babies were born; as soon as I was strong enough to leave the compound with them.
And how the church planned on leaving anyway. When I tell him about the day of my escape, sick at the memory, he pulls me to him, and I lie across his chest, his head on the pillows, and I realize I have never been in a bed with him. That tonight is the start of a new sort of life.