Epilogue Two

"Higher," Lander instructs, raising his chin at Dalton. "And Ev, lower. But not too low. Ah, you've gone too low. I told you not to go too low."

Everett's green eyes are daggers. "You want to see me go low? I'll go low, Lander," he warns before he drops the curtain rod he and Dalton are attempting to hang. "Fucking Mariana Trench."

I step between the two, intervening before they can get into one of their embarrassing, half-assed hitting squabbles. "Enough. And no swearing in the baby's room."

Cora snorts from her seat in the glider. "Swearing is the least of your problems. When are you going to tell the baby you used her room as sex toy storage when you first moved into this place?"

"Why would they tell their child that, Cora?" Everett questions, shaking his head. "Do you want their child to go to therapy?"

Cora rolls her eyes. "There's nothing wrong with child therapy. Think how much better your life would have been if you had started therapy as a child."

Five years ago, Everett would have given Cora the finger for that comment. Today, he motions for her to come over with a wink and a tilt of his head.

Five years ago, Cora would have flipped Everett two middle fingers for that gesture. Today, she saunters right over, places her hands on his cheeks, and kisses him with far too much tongue for my baby's nursery.

Lander obviously agrees with me because he clears his throat. "If you guys have to fuck right now, can you please do it in Valeria's office?" He motions towards the door.

"Hey!" I protest. "My office is a sacred space where I do pro-bono legal work for women. There will be no fucking in there."

"Don't worry," Cora remarks, having untangled her tongue from Everett's—although she's still dangling off him, and he's still kissing her neck. I swear, the guy is basically always in heat around his wife. "One of the perks of us buying side by side row homes is the one-minute walk home."

From the other corner of the nursery, Dalton lets out a groan. "You two are going to fuck now? Not fair. Essie's already waiting for me in bed. You know how she gets when she can hear you two on the other side of our wall."

"I'm right here," Essie announces, appearing in the doorway to the nursery in a short silk robe. "Dalty, what's taking so long?"

Dalton's jaw lowers and his eyes swivel from Essie's face to her hemline. "Did you walk over here in that?"

"I came through the backyard," she explains, shrugging. "Relax, Dalton. Tens of thousands of people have seen me in far less than a robe."

"Fair point," he concedes, his expression shifting from concern to heat before our very eyes. "And fuck, you look good…"

Essie flicks her eyebrows up, seductive. "All the more reason for you to get your ass home."

Dalton glances over at Everett and Cora, and there's a split second where all our friends tacitly realize what's about to happen.

"Run!" Dalton bellows at Essie, who turns and sprints out of the nursery, but Cora is hot on her tail.

"Go, Cora!" Everett shouts after her before leaping onto Dalton's back and trying to stop him. "Sweep the leg!"

Dalton stumbles out of the nursery with Everett latched onto his back, and Lander and I are left alone, laughing. This isn't the first time our friends have fled our place in a mad dash to return to their respective row homes. Everett and Cora's place is two houses over from ours, and Dalton and Essie bought the place in the middle. In true DC fashion, the homes are right on top of each other. By chance, our friends' homes were designed with Cora and Everett's bedroom against Dalton and Essie's—and they hate hearing each other through the walls.

"I can't believe those are the four people we've chosen to be our child's godparents."

"We've always been reckless," Lander replies before putting his arm around me. He plants a kiss on my head. "How are you two feeling? Ready for me to heat up dinner?"

"Give me an hour. I have a call."

"A work call? You're on maternity leave."

"The baby's not here yet," I remind him, rubbing my gigantic belly. "Plus, the thought of making my clients and their families wait twenty weeks for updates on their cases makes me sick."

My response earns me another kiss from my husband. "Baby, you're a much better lawyer than I ever was."

"I've only been practicing a year. I'll be jaded soon enough."

Ardently, Lander shakes his head and says, "Look at you. The only thing I've ever cared about that much is you." He places his hand on my belly, running his palm over the blossomed arc that sits where my flat stomach used to be. I don't miss it, and neither does Lander. This is what we've always wanted.

"For now," I remind him. "In three weeks, we're both going to care about someone more than we've ever cared about anything."

His hand caresses my stomach again, gentle and protective, but awestruck at the same time. "Years in the making, baby. We've both been waiting for this."

Later, I work from the glider in the nursery, drinking tea while my husband hangs the curtain rod. Once he's done, he loops a gauzy duck-patterned curtain over it and spends several minutes arranging it until it's perfect.

It's funny. Lander has become the very spouse Frank Cavendish told him to find for himself. He doesn't work. He cooks, he cleans, he decorates, and he looks hot as hell while doing it—all so his wife can focus on her law career. It's been over five years since our scheme resulted in Frank getting divorced, fired from Cavendish Waits, and estranged from his only son, but we never get sick of saying it: Frank Cavendish can go fuck himself.

And speaking of men who can go fuck themselves, my father called me again last week. He's been calling on and off for the past few years, and I've never answered. Based on the country code, I know he's back in Mexico, his ambassadorship having ended a year ago when someone anonymously reported that he was using visa sponsorship as a form of light blackmail.

Gosh, I wonder what anonymous schemer ratted him out.

When my father lost his ambassadorship, Sebastian lost his job as well. Sebastian, aghast at the prospect of returning home to Mexico, paid an American woman to marry him. The case manager easily saw through the sham relationship, and Sebastian is now a couple months into his five-year sentence. He may have emailed me a few months ago, asking if my husband ever practiced immigration law. I may have politely informed him no, and sent him the email address for a much better lawyer: [emailprotected].

I take a long drink of my tea and sigh, content.

"Everything you've done in this nursery is perfect, Lander," I tell him when he steps back to admire his handiwork. "I guess it's finally happening. Do you think we're ready?"

"God no." Lander lets out a rolling chuckle. "Nobody ever is, but I'm not worried. If there are two people who won't take the responsibility of starting a family lightly, it's you and me. We know exactly what not to do."

Truer words have never been spoken. I raise my tea. "Power hour. Here's to shitty fathers."

Lander grabs his mug off the dresser and raises it too. "To mishaps at the emergency alert system."

"To breaking the rules."

"To streams."

"To schemes."

He kisses me. "To you."

"To you too," I reply.

And when the moment is perfect—when we're content, holding hands, and taking in the magical sight of our finished nursery, he raises his mug even higher. "To boobs."

It happens that night.

I bolt upright, fumbling in the darkness, my heart racing. The last time I woke up this disoriented, I thought a ballistic missile was headed my way. Tonight, there's still no missile, but once again, my entire life is about to change. The bed is wet, soaked with amniotic fluids. In other words: It's time.

It's sooner than I expected. They told me the first one is always late. They told me I had time. Three weeks, they said at our last appointment. Three weeks at least.

The pain kills, even with all the Lamaze shit we learned. I groan, Lander speeds, and the District is a blur of sparse headlights and monuments lit by the moon.

By the time we get to the hospital, I'm doubled over, crushing the hell out of Lander's hand with my own. I barely make it into the wheelchair.

There are two nurses, then three, and all of them are speaking into a radio, reciting codes and abbreviations. Lander jogs behind me, rattling off my date of birth, trying to catch my hand and missing. Before I can panic about this, that, and everything in between, he tells me he sent a text to the group chat. Cora, Everett, Essie, and Dalton are all on their way—my first reminder that as scary as this is, it's the most wonderful and important day of my life.

There's a lot of equipment and the epidural apparently isn't happening—there's no time. The thought of so much pain is horrifying, but I remind myself what I've known for years: A woman's body is built to endure far more than anyone is willing to acknowledge.

The pain is excruciating, but my husband is there. For the last five years, he's been here for every painful thing I've endured—the good and the bad.

The pushing takes twenty minutes.

And when those twenty minutes are up, the doctor presses a baby girl against my bare chest. She looks up at me. Her hair is dark and her eyes are blue, and I know enough about babies to recognize I'm a big blob of shadow to her. To me, she's the most miraculous thing I've ever seen.

I wonder how my own father felt in this moment. Lander's father. Even Frank. Did they look at us and feel the same overwhelming sense of obligation I do?

A long time ago, all I dreamed about was getting away from my father and making him pay for the ways he hurt me. It never seemed like a possibility until I found my own two feet. For the past few years, I've done exactly what Dean Lopez told me to: I've proved my father wrong. It's the most glorious payback in the world, but I'm not done—I'm never done.

I'm going to be a better parent than my father ever could have been.

I'm not a camgirl and my husband isn't a lawyer anymore. For a long time, it's all we were. Today, we're someone's parents—Marta Valeria Dawson-Fuentes. The first face she sees is mine and the first words she hears are from her father: soft whispered Spanish welcoming her to the world.

Lander leans over our daughter and me, his eyes glossy, fighting back a tear before he stares right at me. "I already love her forever," he murmurs. "Is that possible?"

I nod. I know exactly what he means.

We have no idea who she'll be or what she'll do with her life, but I know we'll love her regardless. Unconditionally. Because that's what everyone needs, right? Love. Careers, legacies, expectations: In the scheme of things, all of us will spend the last twenty minutes of our lives thinking about who we loved the most.

As far as I'm concerned, if loving someone is the best way to spend your last twenty minutes, there's no better way to spend a lifetime.

The end