When we reached Reid, Everett took my hand and placed it in his nephew’s.
“Take care of her.”
Reid nodded.
“I will.”
Everett narrowed his eyes.
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
Everyone laughed.
After the ceremony, Brielle wrapped her arms around Reid.
“So does this mean I finally get to call you Dad?”
Reid knelt beside her.
“Only if that’s what you want.”
She hugged him tighter.
“I already decided.”
I cried harder at that moment than during the vows.
We eventually moved to Charlotte because of Reid’s work, but we returned to Raleigh often.
Brielle spent school breaks with Everett.
They kept playing chess.
Worked in the garden.
He secretly gave her chocolate and claimed it was his constitutional right as a grandfather.
Slowly, my own life expanded too.
Everett encouraged me to return to school after learning I’d once dreamed of becoming an elementary teacher.
“Why are you treating your dream like it expired?” he asked.
“Because I’m thirty-eight.”
He stared at me.
“I rebuilt my entire life in my seventies. Try a better excuse.”
So I enrolled.
Several years later, I graduated.
Everett cried harder than anyone.
## The Child Who Carried His Name
A year after marrying Reid, I learned I was pregnant.
That evening, I placed a tiny pair of baby shoes inside a box.
Reid opened it.
He stared at them.
Then at me.
“Are you serious?”
I nodded.
“Very.”
His eyes immediately filled.
“I’m going to be a dad?”
“You already are.”
That made him cry even more.
Brielle desperately wanted a little brother.
She got one.
