Happily Letter After(85)

Once I got over my hysteria, I realized Sadie was still standing there looking down at the large, oval diamond—and everything that came along with it.

I held up my index finger. “Stay right there. Don’t move.”

“Yeah . . . not going anywhere at the moment.” She laughed.

Thankfully there was a store on the corner. I ran inside, asked the man at the register for a couple of plastic bags, and thanked him profusely.

I rushed back, then used one of the bags to cover my hand in order to carefully pick the ring out before placing it in the other bag.

Sadie then discarded everything else and tied the other bag she’d been holding.

Now collectively over our laughing fits, the three of us just stood there. I needed to acknowledge the ring but didn’t know quite how to do it. So I did what felt right in that moment.

Kneeling, I said, “Sadie, this is probably going to go down in history as the shittiest proposal in the history of proposals. But now that you saw what you did, I can’t erase it. The surprise is already ruined, so I’m going to run with this.” I took a deep breath in. “I wanted so badly to propose to you over Christmas. Birdie and I had been planning it for some time. Then, as you’ve probably been able to figure out, the ring went missing. We scoured the earth for it. And now it’s clear why it never surfaced.” I looked up at the sky to gather my thoughts before I met her gaze again. “I was devastated, because I thought the ring was an important part of the process and chose to delay something that in my heart I really didn’t want to put off. This was apparently the universe’s way of showing me that the ring wasn’t the most important part. The most important part of a proposal is the expression of love.” I put my hand on my chest. “I love you. Birdie loves you. Please say you’ll be a part of our family forever?”

Tears covered Sadie’s face, her words barely coherent as she nodded. “Yes! Of course, it would be my honor. Yes!”

Then I stood to kiss my lady hard—my lady, who was still carrying a poop bag. But somehow none of that seemed to matter right now. My daughter jumped and clapped while Marmaduke continued to bark at us. Birdie came between us and we hugged her.

We’d gone from laughing to crying in unison. If anyone had been watching this episode on the sidewalk from start to finish, I could only imagine they were either thoroughly confused or thoroughly entertained.

“I promise to get the ring properly disinfected,” I said.

She wiped her eyes. “It is so beautiful from what I could see of it.”

I turned to the dog. “You could’ve choked on that, you crazy animal.”

Sadie laughed. “I guess it was fitting that he somehow be a part of this, seeing as how he had a big part in us becoming a family.”

Birdie excitedly proclaimed, “And now I can tell everyone my dog poops diamonds!”





EPILOGUE

SADIE

Eight years later

Christmas break had become my new favorite time of year. As I waited at the door for Birdie to arrive home from college for the holidays, I could hardly stand it. I’d missed her so much.

Over the years, Birdie had become like a best friend. Our relationship was different from a typical mother-daughter one. It was born out of a conscious choice and desire to be in each other’s lives. We weren’t stuck together by blood but rather by some unnamed magical source that felt even stronger.

Blood. That word immediately reminded me of one of the hardest days of my life, the day we’d told Birdie the truth. Sebastian and I had decided that when she turned sixteen, we would tell her about the egg donation. A few months after her birthday, we sat her down with the envelope and told her the story, not only about the donation but about all the circumstances that led me into their lives and finally about the possibility that I could be her biological mother.

She’d sat there in silence as we laid it all out. I remember thinking she must have been in total shock because out of everything she could’ve said, the first question out of her mouth was, “You pretended to be the dog trainer?”

When the reality had started to set in, it was hard. That was certainly an intense and emotional day, one I’d never forget for as long as I lived. Her emotions ran the gamut from shock to confusion to sadness to eventually—understanding. It took about a full year for things to feel normal again after that, though. But eventually, they did. And if anything, telling her made our relationship stronger. Ultimately, as crazy as our story was, all the pieces of it were still bound together tightly by love.

After the revelation, it had taken her almost that full year as well to come to a decision on whether she wanted to definitively find out the results of the DNA test. We decided that if she wanted to, we would get a traditional blood test just to be sure of the accuracy. Birdie ultimately came to the conclusion, however, that knowing whether we were related by blood wouldn’t change how much she loved me. She also believed that Amanda might not have wanted her to find out. So she felt it best to continue not knowing. Sebastian and I fully respected her decision, and once she made it, a sense of relief came over our household. We were able to finally move on.

Sebastian, Birdie, and I ended up taking the infamous envelope that had been stashed away in Birdie’s room and burning it outside.

And that was that.

Would a part of me always wonder? Sure. But in the end, it didn’t change anything. And that was what was important.