“I’ll love you till my heart stops beating. Okay?” — R
“Why are you nervous, mo chuisle?” I hold my six-year-old daughter’s hand tight as we walk down the beach in search of her mother.
After years of countless attempts to get pregnant, luck was finally on our side and blessed us with our little piece of heaven.
Willow Emersyn.
A tiny girl who came to give us more love, magic, and laughter.
Looking down at my sweet girl, I give her all my attention as she moves her hands, explaining to me how she feels. We communicate through sign language whenever she doesn’t feel like using her voice.
Both Mila and I and everyone who’s part of Willow’s life have learned sign language. Not only do we love her, but we also want her to feel just how important she is. We would do anything to make life simpler for her.
I would move land, sea, and sky just to make the world better for her.
Make life less ugly.
Willow, alongside her mother, is my heartbeat.
My reasons for breathing.
My light in the dark.
Do you think that he or she will like me? She signs, and my heart instantly melts. That’s my kind-hearted little girl. She didn’t get anything from me. That sweetness is all her mother.
“Of course, they will, and if they don’t, I’ll drown them here in the ocean. Won’t that be fun?” I point toward the ocean, making her smile at me. Just like her mother in every fucking way, and I couldn’t be more proud or thankful. Willow looks like a replica of her mother except for the color of her hair, which instead of being a medium shade of blonde, is light brown like mine.
She has the same unruly curls just as her mother, framing her cherubic face and the same pouty lips.
Blue eyes that can light up my darkest days.
Just like her Mum.
That’s not nice, Daddy.
“I’m not nice, and no one hurts my girl.” I squeeze her tiny hand and watch, in amazement, as she taps her chest three times just like her mother, but out of nervousness and not out of fear like my wife did when I first met her.
Willow reminds me so much of both my wife and my Mum when she does it. Sometimes, I feel like my Mum is there in every little sweet thing Willow does for me. I choose to believe that.
A gentle squeeze of my hand interrupts my thoughts. Dropping to my knees and grabbing my daughter’s shoulders, I make her look at me. Unlike her mother, Willow can read people’s expressions with ease. She has a disability of her own, but it’s not the same as Mila. But they’re both perfect in every way. “There’s nothing to worry about, mo chuisle. Just be yourself, and you’ll have them eating out of the palm of your hand.” I poke her nose, trying to get her to smile at me the way I love– with her whole heart.
“I love you, Daddy.” My baby girl says in a cute voice, just slightly off-key. Willow has no hearing in her left ear, but luckily, she has some hearing in her right, almost one hundred percent. It made me adore her more, if possible.
“I love you, my pulse.” I sign the words at the same time I say them. She can speak, but she chooses who to share her voice with. As of now, she only speaks to her mother and me. But unlike her mum, she would never grow up thinking she should be ashamed of her disability or had to hide it. Mila was teaching her to be proud of exactly who she is. She’s ensuring that our baby girl never feels ashamed to be exactly who she is—without apology. Willow was shy and reserved like Mila, unlike her cousins, who were as loud as they came. Now, she has to adjust to another person who will be part of our home for a little while. After the doctors advised us that getting pregnant a second time could cause serious problems for Mila’s health and the baby’s, we chose the adoption route.
A journey I never thought about, just like, at one point, I thought having kids was not for me. Now, I would do absolutely anything to keep the smile on my butterfly’s face, and if a house full of kids is what she wants, then I’m all for it.
“Where’s mommy?” Willow whispers. “I’m here, angel girl,” Mila called as she appeared a few feet away us. I smiled at my wife as I watched her walk down the beach toward us. The wind blew those gorgeous curls in all directions. She looked beautiful as always, dressed in a floral blue dress. After I break away from the spell of her beauty, I notice her holding a little hand.
A smaller hand that belongs to a young boy with pale skin, dark as-night hair, and guarded green eyes.
Out of reflex, I hold my baby tighter now that I realize that it’s a boy and not a girl like I initially thought. My clever, sneaky wife forgot to mention that tiny detail.
Willow pulls on my pant leg, making me look down at her and away from my wife and the kid. He looks angry. My daughter sighs instead of speaking like she does when it’s just us.
“He’s just… shy, baby.” For the kid’s sake, I hope that’s all it is. Willow doesn’t look so sure. Same, angel girl.
When both kids remain quiet, Mila tries again.
“Willow girl, meet Madden.” My wife bends down, still clutching the boy’s hands. The kid is older than I thought. Tall and lanky. He must be around nine or ten years old.
“Madden, this is our daughter Willow.” Mila smiles warmly at this Madden kid. I notice he hasn’t let go of her hand.
I watch as the kid slowly turns his head away from the sea and looks at my girls. His eyes are empty, or so I think because I see something there.
Something I saw every day looking back at me in the mirror.
Tenderness.
Shit.
Then, my sweet girl steps forward and points her chubby finger at the boy’s shirt that’s a dark shade of green and signs.
I watch as my wife’s smile widens and her eyes soften while the kid looks down at her with an expression of boredom.
“She’s telling you that green is her favorite color.” My wife explains to the kid.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Fucking nothing, boy.” I bark, ready to tear the little asshole apart if he says something to hurt my daughter’s heart.
“Willa communicates through sign language. Nothing’s wrong with her.” Mila tells him with the patience of a saint. Even though Willow and I have a special bond, I know Mila and our daughter have a special one, too. My wife is not one to fight or hurt anyone’s feelings, but for our child, she’s willing to go to war with anyone who tries to hurt Willow.
“Will you teach me?” The young boy whispers this time at Mila instead of Willow.
“Teach you…?”
“To talk to her. Her language.”
That makes both my girls smile brightly.
I don’t trust this kid, not because he’s part of the foster system but because he is a boy.
One that is not blood-related to us and that has put those little stars in my baby’s eyes.
Shit.
As if on cue, with my sudden change in mood, thunder sounds, and the sky darkens.
It’s about to rain.
“Let’s head home.” I move to pick Willow up, but she shakes her wild curls at me and latches onto Madden instead.
It’s starting.
Fuck, it’s happening.
Boys.
“It’s good for her. It’s good for both of them.” My wife grabs my arm and hugs my side.
My gaze moves between my wife and the kids. “I don’t think this is a good idea, butterfly. I’m mad. You never said it was a boy.”
“You would have said no.”
I wouldn’t have said no. I could never say no to them.
“He’s one of them.”
“On of what?” She frowns and takes a second to realize what I mean. She laughs. “A boy, you mean?”
“It’s not funny.”
Suddenly, I feel my daughter put her hand on mine. Ready?
And just like that, my mood brightens.
As we walked toward the beach house, I held my girls tighter and started thinking of ways to make this work with the kid. He has no one. From what Mila told me about the kid, he comes from a dark background and has been in the system from the time he was three years old until now.
That makes me ease up on the kid for now.
Every child deserves a chance at a happy life. It all starts with a happy home, and there’s no happier place than with my girls.
Our life.
Our home.
My baby girl pokes my leg, catching my attention, and then she signs with a soft smile.
I laugh and shake my head. “How did Daddy meet Mommy? You wanna hear that story again?” Mila asks Willow, and our daughter nods her head.
Squeezing Mila’s hand, I say, “When I met Mommy the second time, she was running from a bad guy who ended up at the end of my gun’s barrel.”
“Riagan!” Mila laughs happily.
“You killed the bad man?” This comes from Madden. Mila and Willow nodded their heads. I never hid who I was, and I never will. My girls know there is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep them safe and with me. Nothing. Murder included.
Tell us all of it. Willow signs.
And I do exactly that all the way to the gates of our home.
I enter the digits on the gate’s keypad and wait for it to buzz open, and when it does, I usher my family inside. The kid, Madden, looks up at our beach home unimpressed before he says, “I don’t believe in fairytales or love.” He says in a dry tone.
I stare at him, trying to figure him out.
One second, he’s hardened and cold, and the next, I get a glimpse of the young boy inside.
“Oh, it’s funny that you think you have a choice, boy,” I tell him as he finally steps foot inside the gate with his eyes trained on the back of my daughter’s head.
Yeah, I don’t like this shit one bit.
Perhaps this wasn’t one of Mila’s best ideas.
But then my girls turn around while holding each other’s hands, looking at me with those beautiful faces of pure happiness that make my heart stop inside my chest and then come back to life, one heartbeat at a time, filling me with a new purpose every time.
And right now, the kid standing stoically next to me has a part in that happiness, so I suck it up and hope for the fucking best because bad idea or not…only time will tell.
Willow runs back to Madden and grabs his hand, pointing toward the back area of the house. The kid looks back at us and raises an eyebrow. He’s a little asshole, I see. “She’s asking if you would like to see the butterflies.” Mila translates for our daughter, sounding way too damn happy about that.
Madden looks down at my girl and shrugs, and she takes it as a yes.
We stand back watching them walk toward the garden where my old man is sitting on the gazebo, next to the woman who brought him back to life– looking as healthy as ever after battling stage four lung cancer and coming out victorious. All I can do is hope that this decision doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass. Because I really don’t want to add to my long list of crimes.
“Oh, look at how cute they look, Riagan!” Mila beams next to me. She just sees two kids with the potential of becoming great friends or forming a familial bond but I know better.
It’s troublesome.
“Yeah, real cute,” I mumble, trying to sound as positive as she does but failing. I’ve done a lot of hard shit in my life, but becoming a father has been the hardest job. The most rewarding, yes, but hard all the same. Because right now, I get to watch half of my heart walk hand in hand with a kid with a chip on his shoulder who looks like something out of a Tim Burton movie. No father wants to deal with boys and heartbreaks. Especially when their daughters are this young. Shit.
“It’s all going to be okay, my gentle giant.” I laugh at her cute attempt at giving me a nickname.
“Keep working on it, baby.” Gentle giant, my ass.
Mila’s hand presses on my back, and I catch her cue to lean down and press a kiss on her lips. When I pulled away, it was to see her breathless, looking at me with that look that disarms me. I love the way she can’t help but stare at my lips. I love her eyes on me, but even all these years she still has trouble maintaining eye contact, and I don’t mind it one bit.
I love how she looks at every part of me and how it feels like she’s penetrating my soul with just one look. “You were and still are my best idea, Riagan O’Sullivan,” Mila whispers close to my mouth, breathing life into me, just like every time we’re this close.
Grabbing her face, I pull her closer until our foreheads touch.
“And you, Mrs. Sullivan, have given me the best days and a great fucking life.”
She laughs, and I close my eyes and let the sweet sound wash over me.
“Tell me a fun fact, Riagan?” She whispers with a smile on her face.
I don’t think twice before saying: “I fucking love you.”
And that’s a fact I’ll keep reminding her of every day of our lives until my heart stops beating, and even then, I’ll find a way to remind her because deep down in my soul, I know that the love I feel for this woman transcends time and space. It’s infinite. Never dying.
Rubbing my thumb over the clover tattoo on the inside of her wrist that matches mine, I smile because she’s alive and mine. Meeting those blue eyes that melt me every time they meet mine even for only a second, I say, “Okay, butterfly?”
She rises on her tippy toes, and I meet her halfway until our lips are mere inches away. “More than okay, Riagan.”
And that’s that.
Luck was on my side, and as long as I have her, there won’t ever be a single bad day.
Just the best days with my best girl.
My only.
My wife.
