Her heart was thundering hard, her throat tight, aching. She could hardly believe the words she was hearing. She was afraid for a moment that she might be dreaming. “You love me?”
“I have. From the beginning. But there was too much in the way. Too many things I didn’t need. All I need, all I have ever needed, is you. You make me a stronger man. My love for you is what makes me think that I should be.”
“We don’t even know... Kairos, if I lose this baby, I don’t know if there will ever be another one.” She swallowed hard. “Five years, it took five years for us to conceive this one and now...”
“It doesn’t matter. It...it matters, because of course I want to have children with you. But as far as whether or not I stay with you, there is no condition placed upon your ability to bear children. The country will do just fine with Andres’s children if need be. Or with the children of the distant cousin if we must. The country will survive, that much I know. But I will not survive without you.”
She tilted her head up, pressed a kiss to his lips. “I love you,” she said, her heart so full it could burst.
“I love you too. Whatever lies ahead, we will face it together.” He took hold of her hand, curled his fingers around it and pulled it against his chest, placing it right over his beating heart. “I am stronger because of you,” he repeated. “Never forget that. You’re the one who showed me that we always have a choice. That you can choose to let go of the painful things in the past, so that you can have a future.”
“I’m so busy being happy, I realized that for myself,” she said. “Because I’m so glad that now, no matter what our pasts, we’re going to have a future together.”
“Yes, my love, we will.”
“I’m so glad, agape,” she said, smiling up at him.
“I imagine I’m allowed to call you that again.”
“Yes, because now I know you mean it.”
* * *
“Do you see it?”
“What?” Tabitha asked, holding on to Kairos’s hand so tightly it hurt.
“That little flicker there.” Kairos pointed that out on the sonogram monitor, and they both looked at the doctor.
“You have a heartbeat,” she said, smiling at Tabitha. She moved the wanderer over Tabitha’s stomach, and a slight frown creased her brow. “Actually, I see another one.”
All of the breath left Tabitha’s lungs in a gust. “Two?”
“Yes.” The doctor paused, highlighting two different places on the screen. “There,” she said, pointing, “and there.”
“What does that mean?” Tabitha asked, knowing that she was feeling sick. But for the past week she had been certain they would find a living baby inside of her. She could hardly process what they were seeing now.
“Twins,” the doctor said.
Tabitha looked up at Kairos, who was looking a bit pale and shell-shocked. “It looks like you’ll be getting your heir and spare all in one shot,” Tabitha said.
“Neither of them will be a spare,” Kairos said, his tone fierce.
“Of course not. But that is what they call it. And it’s what you call your brother.”
“I’m going to outlaw the term,” he said, his eyes glued to the screen. “Twins. You’re absolutely certain?”
“Completely,” the doctor said. “It’s very likely the bleeding was nothing, and she was simply too early in her pregnancy last week to see a heartbeat.”
“Well,” Kairos said, bending down and kissing her cheek. “You are certainly full of surprises, my queen.”
“Quite literally, at the moment.”
Kairos laughed. “Yes. Very much.”
Tabitha sighed happily, her eyes on the screen, on the evidence of life in front of her. “I’m glad you put all your burdens down, Kairos.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Because for the next eighteen years we’re definitely going to have our hands full.”
EPILOGUE
NEW YEAR’S EVE was officially Kairos’s favorite holiday. It had been for the past five years. Ever since that New Year’s Eve when his wife had been waiting in his office at midnight, ready to demand a divorce.
Because since then, everything had changed. Most importantly, he had changed.
He looked around the large family area in the palace. Everything was still decorated for Christmas, the massive tree in the corner glittering. This was the last night they would have it. The last night before all of the holiday magic was removed and everything returned back to normal.
The children were already protesting. The twins, along with Zara and Andres’s brood—which was in Kairos’s estimation a bit much at three, with one on the way—were not ready for the holidays to be over.
“I don’t want to go to bed,” Christiana said, pouting in that way of hers that was both aggravating and irresistibly charming. At four, she had discovered that she could use her cuteness against her parents to great effect.
“I don’t either,” said Cyrena, turning an identical pout his direction.
“It is nearly midnight,” he said.
“It is not,” Christiana said.
“Well,” Tabitha responded, “it is somewhere in the world.”
Andres laughed. “That isn’t good enough,” he said, “not for my niece. She’s far too clever for that.”
“Worry about your own children, Andres,” Kairos said.
“Mine do not know their numbers yet. I live in fear of that day.”
“And when they learn to spell,” Zara said, placing her hand over her rounded stomach.
“The horror,” Kairos said. “Okay, girls. It is truly bedtime. But I am certain if you ask her very nicely, Grandma Maria would love to come and read to you.”
His mother smiled at all of them from her position on the couch. Reconciliation was never easy. It had been particularly difficult for Andres. And as far as Kairos went, it came and went like the tide for the first year or so, as he dealt with anger, sadness at all the missed years and then determination not to miss any more because of mistakes that were long past the point of correcting.
All they could do was move forward now. And now, when he saw his mother with his children, with Andres and Zara’s children, he knew that none of them regretted their decision to release their hold on the past.
“Of course I will,” she said. “I never tire of reading to them.”
She ushered the children out of the room, and then Andres looked at Zara. “Are you exhausted yet, princess?”
“Very,” she said, “and my feet hurt.”
“Well, we can go back up to my bedroom, and I will rub your feet. And possibly some other things.”
Zara smacked him on the shoulder, then followed him out of the room anyway, leaving Kairos and Tabitha alone.
It was then that Tabitha turned to him, smiling at him, unreserved, unrestrained. Perfection. “Do you think we’ll make it until midnight tonight?”
“I do always try to stay awake until midnight on New Year’s Eve. Just in case you decide to ask for a divorce. I would hate to sleep through it.”
She laughed. “Not a chance.” She looked around the room. “Can you imagine if we had given up then? Can you imagine what we would have missed?”
“I don’t like to. I’m so grateful that you gave me a second chance.”
“So am I.” She leaned against him, wrapping her arm around his waist. “Do you remember when I told you how hard it was for me to be happy in the present? How difficult it is for me to simply be in the moment?”
“Yes,” he said.
“It isn’t now. I have lived in a million perfect moments since you said you loved me. And this is one of them.”
Kairos looked around at the Christmas decorations, the evergreen twisted around the pillars, the large tree and the clear lights that glittered in the midst of the dark branches. And he had to agree. The perfect moment, the perfect woman.
The perfect life.
* * * * *