Thirty Nights (American Beauty #1)(104)

“Aiden, where you going?” Anamelia calls after him.

“I have to make a call, Anamelia. It’s okay, Elisa will be with you.”

Her bottom lip juts out but she recovers quickly. “Wait! I have a phone,” she says, digging her pink Barbie phone out of her Hello Kitty rucksack. She flips it open and hands it to him.

An endless moment passes in the foyer as the girls and Aiden look at Anamelia’s outstretched hand. Then his posture straightens, he draws a contained breath, and treads back to Anamelia, taking the phone from her gingerly.

“Er, thank you,” he says.

She grins and claps. “You have to put it in your ear.”

He puts it next to his ear (“Hello, Benson”), reaches in his back pocket and gives her his iPhone. She giggles and twirls in her Mary Janes. And with that small exchange, we troop into the living room, Aiden bringing up the rear while I squeeze his hand instead of doing something stupid like dropping on one knee and proposing.

The moment we cross the threshold, the girls zoom in on my bowls of Baci and Aiden’s piano. For his part, Aiden marches to the kitchen where Cora—bless her from her brown hair to her white apron—has laid out gingerbread cookies. He goes straight for them and eats four. I bite my lip not to laugh. He is a stress eater.

Thankfully, the girls decide to slip out on the patio before Lieutenant Hale swallows Cora’s entire roasted chicken whole. They start playing in the wild meadow, tossing a beach ball around that is making the bluebirds mental. Every few minutes, Anamelia sprints back to Aiden—who has shoved his patio chaise flush against the glass wall and has erected a barricade of immigration books around himself—and shows him a worm or ladybug, demanding that he names it. (“Er, Benson?” “No, it’s a girl!” “Elisa?” “No!” “Anamelia?” “Yaaay!”)

Eventually, we sit at the dinner table, Aiden at the head with his back to the wall.

Maybe it’s the intense day crashing down on me, or the look of a table with four kids and Aiden and me on each side, but an emotion I’ve never felt before swells inside my lungs and takes over my body. The closest thing I have felt to this is happiness. I struggle for the word… Rightness—that’s what this is! A sense of life even amid the end. A life that until now, I have avoided thinking about. My own family.

I never thought I would wish for kids after the last four years. I would never want to leave them behind if something were to happen to me. But now, seeing Aiden the most tired I’ve ever seen him, surrounded by four little angels eating mashed potatoes and feeling this fierce protective instinct inside me, I see rightness. I want this. Not as a fantasy. As reality. With him. The force of the realization makes my blood pound in my ears. As with all awakenings with Aiden, it’s sudden, immediate and—I have a feeling—irreversible.

I watch Anamelia eat Aiden’s peas. He gives them gladly, trying to barter for a cookie in return. I smile. They’re so similar, despite being thirty-one years apart. Maybe his memory is propelling him back to his own childhood. In this moment, I have no doubt he will make an incredible father. Then I remember him telling me he won’t have children just so Daddy can break them. I shiver but not in fear. I shiver with loss. Because with him, I would have enough children to field the Manchester United football—umm, soccer—team.

He looks up at me. “Do you have any peas over there? We’re having a pea crisis on this end,” he says, unaware of the life-changing epiphany I just had.

I pass my peas to Anamelia. Aiden watches me with that same strong emotion as before. The half-panic, half-something-else one. I want to ask what it is but Bel is watching us like Denton watches boiling chemicals: sharply and barely blinking.

After dinner, we read Percy Jackson to the girls. Anamelia insists that Aiden should be the one who reads because she is used to a man’s voice. As they settle on either side of Aiden and me on the leather sofa, I finally feel that Aiden and I got this one right, all considered. I kiss him, ignoring their giggles and claps.

“Thank you for doing this,” I whisper. I don’t know how many years this evening aged him. He looks exhausted. Some vacation I gave him.

He smiles and looks at Anamelia, who has fallen fast asleep on his lap, drooling on his designer jeans and clutching his iPhone. Daniela is fading on mine. I decide to give Maria and Antonio the night off.

“Overnight guests?” I mouth at Aiden.

He shrugs. “We have room.”

I call Maria who promises to make us tres leches cake and we take the girls to one of the guest rooms with a pale-blue king bed. I sit with them as they fade off one after the other. Then, I turn off the light and leave the door ajar.

With every step away from the girls, the terror of the day—and its beauty—overwhelms me. I contemplate calling Reagan but she would only worry. No need to upset her until we know more. I trudge to the bedroom, needing only one set of arms.

When I walk in, Aiden is passed out on the bed diagonally, fully dressed, arms spread to the sides, mouth open, snoring softly. It’s as if he barely made it. More than ever, I want to touch him, kiss his scar, whisper thank you. Or just undress him and tuck him in. But I can never wake him. So I do the only thing I can. Watch him sleep.

His face is relaxed, the sculpted brow free of the deep V I give him during the day. But even in sleep, the tension never leaves his body. He sleeps like a warrior. Never at rest, always on guard. My guard. Would I have ever been able to get through this day without him? Even breathe? I search through my memories to find a moment where I’ve felt so protected despite all danger. There’s a vague whisper of childhood monsters and Peter. But for real monsters—death, distance, voids so black they make nights look like days—there’s only Aiden. Strong, silent, isolated…yet, have I ever felt less alone? Or more loved?