Kiro's Emily(31)

“She’s so fucking tiny. If this doesn’t work, they want to . . . to . . . fuck, I can’t even say it.”

If this didn’t work, Harlow would have to have surgery. Possibly the first of several before she was even three years old. They had told us everything over the past few days. We got to wear scrubs and masks and go back and see her three times a day. Each time we had to leave her again, I had cried.

Kiro held me, and we waited until we could go see her again.

“She is a Manning. She’s strong. She’s stubborn. And she is loved. She’ll be fine.” I said the words out loud. I needed that to be so. I believed it. I claimed it, and I would not let it not be true.





January 1995

Emily

I watched as my little girl walked toward me. She wasn’t perfectly balanced, but she was walking. Something she wasn’t supposed to be doing yet. The doctors said she would develop later than other kids her age, yet she’d walked at nine months. Nothing they said would happen to her had happened. Harlow was tiny for her age, but she appeared healthy.

“Where’re my girls?” Kiro’s voice boomed through the house, and Harlow started clapping at the sound of it. I wasn’t sure who worshipped whom more, Kiro or Harlow.

“There they are,” Kiro said, walking into the room and bending down to catch Harlow as she waddled toward him as fast as she could. He scooped her up and kissed her tummy, making her giggle, as they sank down on the sofa beside me. “Hello, angel,” he said, kissing me like he hadn’t seen me in a week.

“Daddadaddadda,” Harlow started chanting, wanting his attention.

Giggling, I broke our kiss and grinned at our daughter, who was now laying sloppy open-mouthed kisses on her father’s face.

“Life is sweet when you can come home to all this kind of loving,” Kiro said, as he kissed Harlow under the neck, making her squeal with delight.

“I think she missed you,” I said, reaching out to wrap one of her dark curls around my finger. She had the silkiest hair.

“I missed her, too. And I missed her momma. I missed her momma a fuck of a lot. I can’t wait to get her momma naked later. I got plans for that pu—” I covered his mouth with my hand before he could continue. Kiro may have been the world’s greatest dad, but he still forgot that cursing and talking about my private parts weren’t OK in front of Harlow.

He nipped at my fingers, and I moved my hand. “Keep it clean,” I said, smirking.

“I just missed you,” he said, with a pout that was supposed to make it all better.

“I missed you, too. And tonight we can spend some time together.”

Harlow put her little hand on Kiro’s face like I had, and he pretended to bite her fingers, too, making her giggle.

Next week, we would be keeping Mase while Mary Ann went on her honeymoon. We couldn’t travel yet with Harlow, so we would miss the wedding, but my mother was going to fly out and bring Mase to stay with us. I was looking forward to having us all together as a family. Mase was almost five now, and I never wanted him to think he didn’t fit into our family. I loved that little boy like he was my own.

“I’m going to be extra needy this week, since we’re gonna have both kids next week. Having Mase here, too, always keeps us busy. And I miss my pus—” I covered his mouth again before he could say it.

Harlow started clapping again. We had said the magic word: Mase. She loved her older brother. Luckily, he returned the affection. When she was a baby and fragile, he used to sing her songs and tell her stories as he sat on the floor beside her crib. He worried about her, and he would call and talk to Kiro and me often to see if she was OK.

Now that she was able to play, he gave her his undivided attention when he was here. And she adored him.

“I said Mase, didn’t I?” Kiro said with a grin.

I nodded. “Yep,” I replied.

Harlow was looking around the room as if in search of Mase.

I laughed and leaned over to Kiro. “I love you,” I told him. Although I had told him that twice already today. Once this morning in bed and then again on the phone later.

“Love you more,” he replied, and kissed my head. “Always love you more.”





December 2014

Kiro

In every lifetime, I believe that each soul is given one mate. Don’t get me wrong, I think that a person can fall in love more than one time. But finding your soul mate is a different matter altogether. You don’t just love that person, you adore him or her. That person is your world. Your reason for living. The one thing in this life that will make everything OK. When you find your soul mate, you’ve found your purpose. To love that one person. To experience life with that one person.