Two Weeks (The Baxter Family #5)(84)

The three of them.

Everything about the morning was about to be full of firsts. Gracie Anne’s first car ride home, her first time inside their house. Her first bottle with the two of them. First nap in the nursery. All of it was just ahead.

Through every minute of the ride home, Lucy couldn’t stop smiling. Aaron, too. They were like a couple of kids whose every wish had finally come true. Most moments Lucy didn’t believe it was really happening. Yesterday they were at work and wondering if Elise would change her mind.

And today they were parents.

The day after Gracie Anne was born, Lucy had talked to her supervisor. She wanted to give a tentative two weeks’ notice. If the birth mother didn’t change her mind, she would be done on August 14 and she wouldn’t be back. Not for the foreseeable future.

She was a mother now. There wouldn’t be enough time in the day for her new job. Not enough moments to rock her daughter and feed her and sing to her. Aaron had already been given permission to work one day a week from home. This was where their happily ever after would begin.

Page one in the best chapter of their lives.

They arrived at their house, walked inside with Gracie Anne and looked at each other. Aaron couldn’t stop smiling. “There’s something I want to do first, before anything else.”

Not for a moment did Lucy have to ask what. She already knew. And with Gracie Anne in her arms, she followed Aaron upstairs to the nursery. The room that had for years caused Lucy so much pain.

The room where Aaron sought the heart of God day after day. Never once giving up.

“This place will always be sacred to me.” Aaron’s voice fell to a whisper. Gracie Anne was sleeping. They would tell her later about the day they brought her home, and how they could do nothing but come here first.

“For me, too.” Not because Lucy had always believed God would come through. Most of the time she was racked with doubt. But because this room was where she watched her husband fight for their family. Where his faith grew stronger with every passing season.

And because of that, in time so had hers.

Aaron lowered himself to his knees and he helped Lucy do the same thing. And there, with their baby daughter nestled between them, they whispered the words that mattered most. They thanked God for His faithfulness and for working out every detail of this adoption, and they praised Him for the fact that all along, Aaron had never given up.

They whispered thanks to God for helping Elise make the decision that adoption was best for both her and her baby girl. And they prayed for Elise, that in the years ahead she would know this was the right decision and that God would comfort her whenever she doubted.

Finally they thanked the Lord for every wonderful day ahead and the privilege of raising their very own daughter. Gracie Anne. Through all the seasons to come, the learning to walk and talk and ride a bike and the school days. The teaching and singing and playing together. They thanked God for all of it. From now till her high school graduation.

A million years from now.





25




Ashley could remember what it was like, being a young mother and feeling sure the day Cole would move off to college was still a million years away. At least a million.

But now, as she watched Landon and Cole pack the last of his things into his SUV, it didn’t feel like that at all.

A blink. That’s all it was on the journey of raising a child. Just a blink.

All the kids had taken turns moving things to Cole’s Explorer and now they were gathered around the dining room table. One final breakfast with Cole before he left. That was the plan.

Ashley didn’t want to spend Cole’s last hour making food. So Amy was cooking instead. Scrambled eggs and sausage and sliced oranges. Janessa and Devin were in charge of the toast.

And Ashley, well, she was doing what she had planned to do this morning. She was leaning against the doorframe watching Cole and Landon pack. Watching the easy way they had with each other, and the smiles that came more readily for guys on a day like this.

She wasn’t crying. Not yet. She’d had this date circled on the calendar since Cole had been accepted to Liberty. Along the way there were whole months when she wondered if Cole might really move to Louisiana with Elise. But God had heard her prayers and Landon’s. Cole’s and Elise’s.

Things had worked out in the best possible way. Not that it was easy. The night Cole said goodbye to Elise, he’d come home and broken down in her arms. Ashley didn’t have any clever sayings or easy answers. Heartbreak was hard.

It broke her own heart to see Cole so upset.

But the next morning he had found her and Landon again. His eyes were clear and he smiled at them. “Elise landed safely in New York. She had an early flight.”

Ashley had waited, not sure how Cole was handling all this.

“How do you feel, Son?” Landon had spoken up first.

Cole nodded and thought for a moment. Then his smile fell off a little. “Sad.” He shrugged. “That’s just honest. This whole thing has been sad.” He paused for a few seconds. “But I feel good, too. This is the right thing. For both of us.”

That had been yesterday, and now here they were living out the moment Ashley had dreaded since she’d brought Cole home from the hospital. Back when she thought she had forever.

Cole and Landon came up the walkway, laughing about something. When they reached the door Landon nudged Cole. “Tell your mother.”