Chapter 38

" Osito, dónde está tu hijo? " I yell out from the bedroom.

" Carlitos está en la sala, " Cole shouts as he comes down the hall from the bathroom. " Está jugando futbol con Titi ."

"Está listo su biberón? "

" Sí, está en el refrigerador. Vamos, mi amor ."

I put in my signature gold hoop earrings as I swish across Aunt Mari's guest room in a long pink floral dress with a deep V-neck and sheer long sleeves.

"You look gorgeous," says Cole, putting his left hand on my waist to still me long enough to steal a kiss. I glance down to make sure he has his wedding ring on today, which he does. He has a tattoo on his ring finger, since he doesn't wear a ring to work, but for special occasions, I like to see the flash of gold on his hand.

"You don't look so bad yourself," I say, patting the navy tie resting on his white dress shirt as I pass him. It's an understatement. He looks ridiculously handsome, and the way his khaki pants hug his butt is the icing on the cake. I take his chin in my hand and pull his mouth down to mine for a quick kiss.

"Listos ?" asks Aunt Mari as we come into the living room. She's seated on the rug, tossing a mini soccer ball to Carlos. I'm very grateful she is still willing and able to host us and babysit an almost two-year-old. Her handsome husband, my new great-uncle, is unfortunately away on a golf trip at the moment. Carlos loves him only a tiny bit less than he loves his Titi.

" Sí, gracias por ayudarnos con Carlos, " says Cole, in perfect Spanish. I bite my lip. The man is too attractive for his own good sometimes.

" No hay de qué ," says Aunt Mari, as Carlos drops the ball in her lap. " Disfruten la fiesta ."

" Gracias, Aunt Mari," I say, leaning down to give her a quick kiss and squeeze the chunky cheeks of my little brown-haired, brown-eyed baby.

"I'm going to go to a little party now, okay, baby? You're going to play with Titi Mari and I'll be home soon. And tomorrow Tio Julio and Abuelo will be here."

"Titi!" exclaims Carlos, rushing Aunt Mari with a big hug around her neck that nearly knocks her over. Our squishy, hefty chunk of a baby has my looks and Cole's enthusiastic personality. He's just the best.

" Adiós, Carlitos ," says Cole as he opens the front door for me.

" Adiós, Papi, " Carlos calls back in his adorable little voice. I press a hand to my heart and exchange an emotional glance with Cole. We both melt whenever Carlos speaks Spanish.

"How is he so cute?" I ask as we start down the sidewalk.

Cole grabs my hand and kisses the back of it with a grin. "Because he's our baby. I always knew we would have the cutest kids."

The breeze picks up, rustling the palm trees under the gray June sky. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, relishing the fresh smell of the ocean wafting by. We live relatively near the ocean at our current duty station, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, but the air isn't fresh and crisp enough for my picky beach tastes. There's something magical about being back on Crown Island, being in the place where my life really began.

"Can you believe we're walking down this sidewalk talking about our son?" Cole says. "And almost six years ago, you and I walked this same path not knowing if we would even be together?"

"Wild, isn't it?" I say, squeezing Cole's hand.

"Wildly awesome," he says with a big smile. "You're incredible."

"Only because you're amazing." I feel like I won the universe's grand prize, the greatest lottery in the world.

We pop into Cafe 22 to say a quick hello to Elise. Jules married her boyfriend and they moved up to Seattle a few years ago. We still exchange Christmas cards and Jules always signs hers with cute little digs like, "Told you you'd end up with the hot corpsman!"

And then it's time for the main event at Lorraine's gallery. It all feels extremely surreal as I turn the corner, hand in hand with Cole. Lorraine is standing outside wearing a fuchsia linen maxi dress, her hair cut into a chic silver bob. "Sweetheart!" she exclaims as soon as she sees me. She holds her arms out wide, her bangles clacking on her wrists, and folds me into a big hug. "Oh, I'm so happy to see you in person instead of over FaceTime."

"Me too," I say with a wide grin.

"Hi, Cole," she says, giving my husband a big hug and a pat on the shoulder. "Thank you for getting her here."

"Of course. Without you, there'd be no us. It's almost the six-year anniversary of the famous portrait." He drops a sweet little kiss to her cheek.

"Aww, what a time, what a memory. Well now that you're here, I think we're about ready to begin. Come on, let's say hi to Giada."

Giada spies me coming into the gallery and says, "Is that the great Tia Slaeden? Hi, you!" She squeezes me in a tight side hug. "I am so excited for this new collection. When you told me the concept, I thought it was so brilliant. What are you working on after this?"

There's a flicker of nervousness as I brace myself to tell Giada my plan. "I'm actually taking a break from painting for a bit. I'm going to partner with a military spouse nonprofit for a year to expand their offerings for art therapy classes."

Giada's eyes go wide. "Oh, that's so perfect for you. Tia, that sounds incredible."

I smile with relief. "Thank you. I've been anxious about taking time off, so I really appreciate your encouragement."

"Well, you've been churning out collections left and right, I think a break is well-deserved."

Cole wraps his hand around mine and squeezes. The many collections I've released over the last two years were a byproduct of him being deployed and me struggling to cope with being a new mom and solo parenting and us being stationed on the East Coast. It's been a rough season, demanding a lot from both of us and our marriage. Art was always there for me and my collections have done well, but to be honest, I'm a little burnt out.

Now that Cole's back for a while, the chance to paint alongside other military spouses and equip them for processing their stories through art is a perfect fit for the year ahead.

"Okay, are you ready?" asks Lorraine, handing Cole and I a flute of champagne. I press my hand to my stomach to still the butterflies. Cole glances over, then puts his arm around my shoulders and gently turns us so our backs are to the modest crowd. He tickles my sleeve with his fingers so I look away from the drop cloth draped over my largest painting in the collection and into his warm brown eyes.

"You are my favorite artist," he whispers. "You have created a stunning collection of paintings, and I am so proud of you. I love you. You got this."

I nod and he presses his lips to mine with love and confidence as Lorraine calls for everyone's attention.

"I love you," I whisper to him before turning back to the small crowd gathered.

Lorraine raises her voice to be heard to the back of the gallery. "Thank you all for being here today to celebrate the unveiling of the latest collection from Tia Slaeden. I'm going to turn the floor over to her for a few brief remarks."

I step forward and Cole takes a step back. I pull my phone out of my pocket and open up my short speech in my Notes app.

"I want to start off by thanking Lorraine. If you weren't already aware, Lorraine has been there for me from the moment I decided I wanted to have a career in art. I walked into this gallery as a heartbroken woman who had just quit my job in D.C., and decided I would paint something worthy of being displayed here. Coincidentally, that's how I fell in love with my husband." I turn to Cole with a wink, and he blushes under his collar as he raises his glass in acknowledgement.

"This collection is called ‘Art is Long and Time is Fleeting.' It was inspired by the idea of mentorship, the kind shown to me by Lorraine and Giada Burke. It's also about following in the footsteps of those who have lived bravely before us, in big and small ways, people like my great aunt and my grandmother. Looking to those ahead of me in life has given me so much encouragement and I hope I can inspire others to study our own personal heroes. I'd like to read an excerpt from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, A Psalm of Life, which is also where I got the title for this collection."

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints in the sands of time;

Footprints that perhaps another,

Sailing o'er life's solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

My dear friend, Mr. Longfellow, stays with me to this day, a kind and thoughtful muse.

"In this collection, you'll see everything from the mentorship of father to son, to the corpsmen who inspire my husband in his work, to the women who have poured into my life and made me who I am today. I hope you enjoy it."

I reach behind me and give a gentle tug to the drop cloth. It falls away to reveal my largest painting in the collection, a thirty-six-inch by thirty-six-inch portrait of three women painting, their backs to the audience. The woman in the middle is smaller and shorter, with a braid down the center of her back. She stands in front of a canvas with only a few brushstrokes on it. The other two flanking her have nearly complete paintings on their easels, and they are pointing at the middle woman's canvas, offering advice and encouragement. The woman on the left has a silver bob, and the woman on the right has her hair done up in a French twist.

Lorraine and Giada gasp and within a few moments of recognition, there's not a dry eye in the house. I am grateful my vision has translated to the audience, even though it means Cole has to go find a box of tissues for all of us.

The rest of the event passes by in a blur of congratulations, well-wishes, and a lot of sales. The special paintings, the ones most meaningful to Cole and me, will never be sold. I learned my lesson on that point. Cathy graciously keeps my paintings at her house since I don't trust them to survive military moves. Carson and Cillian will drive down with her later this week to hang out with us and pick up a couple from this collection that I'll be keeping.

After everything is concluded at the gallery, I say a quick goodbye to Lorraine and Giada. We'll meet for brunch later this week, then again to package my sold paintings.

"I can't believe they all sold," I say, bubbly on champagne as Cole and I walk to Mexican Take Out for burritos. I giggle when he swings our joined hands back and forth.

"Never doubted you for a second," he says. I pull him in for a kiss.

While we wait to order, my phone dings with a notification, a new message in the group chat we still call "Military Goal Diggers." It's Cole and me, Anisha and Mick, Denny and his wife, and Luko and his wife in the group, and it is constantly pinging with a message or GIF. I gasp when I read the text.

Mick

Just dropped my paperwork to go SELRES.

Anisha immediately replies with a string of GIFs of dancing, applause, and partying.

Cole's also looking at the message on his phone, smiling as Anisha keeps sending the GIFs and the guys give a simple thumbs-up to Mick's text.

"It feels like just as quickly as it started, it's all going to be ending," I say. "Mick's going reserves and he's only a few years from retirement now."

"Crazy," Cole says, sliding his phone back in his pocket.

"Crazy," I say, shaking my head. "It's the one-word tagline for military life."

Late that night, Cole and I snuggle up in the guest room bed while Carlos sleeps across the hall in his pack-n-play in what used to be my mini art studio. Even though he's only a few steps away, we miss him so much, we're both scrolling through our phones and looking at pictures of him, melting over his big brown eyes and chubby baby face. Now feels like the right time to bring up the thing that's been on my mind for a while.

"Should we have another baby?" I whisper.

Cole shakes his head with a rueful laugh. "Queenie, I barely survived you giving birth to Carlos."

I smile at the truth of it. I decided I wanted to try to have Carlos at home and Cathy was my midwife. Cole hated seeing me in pain and he was stressed the entire labor and delivery. All his corpsman instincts went right out the window and his protective, caring instincts towards me took over. At one point Cathy asked him to help by refilling my water bottle and he yelled, "I'm not letting go of her hand, Mom!"

I bait the hook a bit. "Yeah, but what if it's a girl? Can you imagine Carson and Cillian and Julio being uncles to a little girl? And your mom and my dad would be over the moon."

Cole sighs and I think I'm gaining ground.

"What if she's a cute little blondie with curly hair and she takes after your dad's side of the family?"

"Oh my gosh," he groans, rubbing his hand across his eyes. "But what if it's a boy?"

"Then Carlos would have a brother, like you and I have brothers. They'd be adorable little troublemakers."

Cole wraps his arms around me and pulls me against his bare chest, snuggling his face into the curve of my neck with a kiss that makes me melt. "You really want another one?"

"I really think I do," I say, running my fingers across his scalp. "Would you be okay with another one?"

"If it can be delivered by a stork onto our front porch."

I giggle. "I think that's how they come nowadays."

"Okay, perfect."

One year later, baby Carina is born with a full head of blonde hair and our family is complete. Cole weathers her birth bravely and tears of joy run down his cheeks as he kisses us both.

"My girls," he says with a grin.

As I sit on our bed with Carlos tucked next to me, and Cole holding Carina, I see our wedding photo over our bed in the reflection of the mirror across the room.

It's a photo of Cole dipping me with a kiss, in front of the arch of swords at the end of our ceremony. Denny was the one who tapped my butt with his sword and said, "Welcome to the Navy, Mrs. Slaeden." For a brief moment, as everyone cheered, I wondered how I would feel about being a Navy wife, five, ten, twenty years down the road.

Now, I can confidently say I couldn't be happier. It's not easy to live at the whims of the Navy, to move and leave friends and have Cole be deployed and work demanding jobs. But with Cole, I am home. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we do our best to care for this love between us, this incredible gift we've been given.

THE END