Purposefully Accidental

Epilogue

After the cancer recurrence scare and the miscarriage of a baby that would never be, it wasn't easy to want her—I still fear that a recurrence will happen, and sometimes I feel like that fear won't make me a good mother. But now that she's here, I just can't believe that I spent sleepless nights thinking that I wouldn't want this. That I wouldn't want her, that I wouldn't want to protect her with my whole life, that I thought I would be too scared to love her.

My resolve to have her only grew stronger the moment I saw the look in Jonah's eyes when I told him that I was pregnant. I knew he would've still loved me, would've still stayed and grown old with me if it had been only the two of us, but I always thought that he would've loved to be a father. I saw the gentleness every time Lucy clung to him, the effortlessness in caring for her. And he only proved me right when he took care of me all throughout the pregnancy, how he impossibly made me love him even more than I thought I ever could.

I finally tear my eyes away from my baby, only to find Jonah's eyes already locked on me as Lucy snuggles deeper under his chin. His eyes still sparkle with love and wonder, something I'll never get tired of seeing.

What I didn't expect to happen during the pregnancy was Lucy becoming attached to Daisy before she was even born. She started off very curious about my ever-growing belly every time I came to visit, and while I was nervous about her getting upset that everyone's focus was shifting away from her to the new addition to our family, we quickly realized that she was as excited as we were for Daisy's arrival.

And then the questions came: Mama, will Daisy be my sister? I never seriously gave it a thought before, but since that day, Jonah and I started discussing about formally adopting her. My parents are getting older—too old to be raising a hyperactive five-year-old despite how much they've reassured me that they were happy to take care of her, and my sister is very firm with her childfree lifestyle.

She's already calling me Mama anyway—which doesn't really freak me out anymore, not like how it used to. In fact, I've started to really love it. To be carrying Daisy in my belly while Lucy was looking up at me with those big, trusting brown eyes—I swear sometimes it made my eyes tear up. Plus, with Lucy already seeing Daisy as her own sister, it only seems right to make it official.

I thought it would take time to get used to, but I found that our little four-unit family is perfect. Just before we got married last year, I bought a house located two hours away from my parents' placewith the money from the divorce settlement, and Lucy already stayed with us often, though we didn't plan for it to be permanent until recently.

We've settled nicely in a considerably quieter city. I started teaching here, and absolutely loving what I do. Jonah still owns The River back in LA, but he's hired someone to manage the restaurant so he doesn't have to be on stand-by. He's also pulled back from the entertainment side of his job, and now he's focusing more on writing his cookbooks... and working as head cook at Rochelle's, Reimagined.

Yes, you heard that right. My sweet, incredible, thoughtful husband bought our family's once abandoned, near-dilapidated restaurant that Dad had once sold to an investor who basically forgot its existence—and brought it back to life. Some parts of the old diner couldn't be salvaged, but we managed to return it almost to its former glory. Although fully retired now, Dad still hangs out daily at the diner. He's given Jonah full control of the business despite my husband only buying it back solely for him. Jonah doesn't really mind the commute and seems to enjoy this role more than I thought he would—even though this is a clear downgrade from an LA-based restaurateur.

"Why are you staring at me?" Jonah asks in a humming tune, a happy smile on his beautiful face.

"Is it a crime?" I quip back. "You have a good face. I enjoy looking at it."