Chapter 2 - The Photoshoot
That night I called my sister and started planning.
"I want it to be perfect," I told her. "Matching outfits, family photos in the park, and a little box he opens at the very end."
"Oh, he's going to come apart," she laughed. "In the best possible way."
"That's the idea."
The next morning I bought the outfits. Soft pink for me and the girls. Light blue for Nathan. And a tiny blue onesie that I buried in a drawer he'd never open.
Then I called Dale and invited him to come along.
I actually thought it might be good for them — a moment the two of them could share, something that might close the distance. News like this is meant to be passed around a family, I told myself.
I pictured the photographer catching the exact half-second Nathan understood. I ran that image so many times in my head that it started to feel like a memory instead of a plan.
"You're humming again," Nathan said, heading to bed.
"Am I?"
"You've been weird for days." He grinned at me. "What are you cooking up?"
"You'll find out Saturday."
Millbrook Park glowed that afternoon. Late sun came through the trees soft and gold, exactly the way I'd imagined it hanging on our walls. The girls spun in their pink dresses until they got dizzy. Nathan stood there in his blue shirt looking relaxed and handsome, his father's watch on his wrist for the occasion.
Dale sat on a bench by the photographer's gear, arms folded, wearing the flat expression he always wore. But when his eyes moved from our three girls in pink to Nathan standing apart in blue, something in his face sharpened. Like he'd figured out the punchline before anyone told the joke.
"Okay, let's bring everyone in," the photographer called. "Parents in the middle, girls up front."
We lined up the way I'd been picturing for weeks. My heart was slamming.
"You've been awfully mysterious about today," Nathan whispered.
"I have my reasons."
He laughed and kissed my temple. "You always do."
That was the last time all afternoon I saw him look completely happy.
The camera clicked through pose after pose. The girls giggled between shots. It was going exactly the way I'd dreamed.
"Last one," the photographer said. "Something special, I'm told."
That was my cue. My hands were shaking as I reached into my bag and pulled out the little box in its silver paper.
I put it in Nathan's hands.
"What's this?" he asked, still smiling.
"Just open it."
He turned it over, curious. Ella, our oldest, leaned in against his side to watch.
He lifted the lid and folded back the tissue. Then he drew out the tiny blue outfit and held it up in the fading light.
I waited for the joy.
The smile slid off his face like water. His fingers stopped moving. His eyes went from the little clothes to my stomach and back.
"It's a boy," I said, barely able to hold it in. "We're finally having a son."
"A son."
He glanced at his father. For one second, he looked scared.
"Nathan?"
He looked at the girls, then at me, and his voice dropped low and tight.
"Tell me you didn't tell the girls I wanted this."
The words hit me like a bucket of cold water.
"Wh— what?"
"Please," he said. "Tell me you didn't."
I could feel my face going red, right there in front of the photographer, embarrassment and hurt braided together.
"Nathan, you've talked about having a son for years," I said, my voice splitting. "Since the girls were babies. You joked about it. You dreamed about it out loud."
He shut his eyes like the sentence had a weight to it.
Then Dale laughed from behind the tripod. Warm, easy, completely wrong for the moment.
"Of course he has," he said, pushing himself up off the bench. "Every man wants a son. Somebody to carry the name, keep the traditions going."
I watched my husband go stiff from the shoulders down.
"Traditions," Nathan said. "Like fishing trips to Lake Tamarack."
May you like
The girls had gone quiet. Ella was looking back and forth between her father and her grandfather, her hands knotted in the front of her pink dress. Then she dropped her eyes to the grass.
And Nathan's face changed again. Whatever he was afraid of, she already knew a piece of it.
