T H I R T Y S I X
Two Years Later
"Maia, what are you looking for in the kitchen? You can't possibly be hungry again. I made you pancakes not even an hour ago." I inquired from my spot on the couch, hearing noises coming from the kitchen.
The girl was five years old but ate like a teenage boy. Which I must admit she took the ability to eat like that from me, something I'm grateful for because we have avoided picky eater phases so far.
Two curly hair space buns appeared in front of me, blocking my view of Gilmore Girls on the TV, followed by my daughter shoving a cold juice box in my face. "It will make you feel better. It helps me when I'm sick."
I smiled, taking the juice from her and setting it on the coffee table. "Thank you, bug. Now, you know what actually will help mommy feel better?" Maia shook her head, eagerly waiting for me to tell her. "If you would come here and lay with me." I raised the blanket I had over my legs and patted the space next to me.
Without telling her twice, she climbed on the sofa and cuddled up with me under the blanket.
Every time I looked at the little girl in front of me, I couldn't help but think of the day I helped bring her into this world. What happened to Lizzie broke my heart, but if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't have seen Maia grow into the beautiful and intelligent girl she had grown into.
I'm also grateful that Liam respected the fact that Evan and I adopted her, even though he had every right to try to fight for her considering he is the birth father and the system messed up by not digging harder when it came to contacting every possible person that Lizzie had some sort of relationship with.
As Maia has grown older, she's shown how much of a troublemaker she will be in a couple of years. Three days ago, she almost made her father go into cardiac arrest when she told him during bedtime that there was a boy at her daycare that was going to be her husband. The comment made Evan stay up all night, unable to process that it was just some silly preschool crush. He hasn't even let me send her back to daycare since that day.
"Momma, do you think auntie Jose watches us from heaven?" Maia asked, turning her head slightly to look at my face.
Taken aback by the question, I stayed quiet for a second, processing her words before I smiled, kissing her forehead. "Yes. I believe she watches over us every single day."
After reuniting with Jose's parents two years ago, they have been back in my life ever since.
The day I presented Maia to them, Jose's mom couldn't stop crying. I know she was emotional that I was now a mom, but part of me knew deep down that she was crying over the fact that her daughter got robbed from experiencing a stage in life she wanted to have badly someday.
Maia adores both José and Maria so much that she calls them her grandparents and loves spending time with them whenever they can.
Maia sighed in contentment, turning back to face the television. "I wish I could've met her. Auntie Maddie is always busy, Auntie Marjan is far away, and Auntie Zee is crazy."
I paused, my laugh caught in my throat. "Maia, don't call her that. Aunt Daisy is just energetic, but she loves you so much."
"I'm just saying what daddy calls her." She shrugged, raising her hands in defense before she continued watching the show with no care in the world.
I shook my head, chuckling silently. Maia was definitely going to cause Evan and me a headache the older she got.
After an hour of watching TV with Maia, we heard the garage door open and closed, followed by the noise of keys hitting the kitchen counter.
Maia squealed in excitement as she jumped off the sofa running towards Evan as he came into view in our new living room.
After all the nightmares we experienced at the other house, we decided to buy a new place where we could make new memories and make Maia feel safe again. Many therapy sessions later and sleepless nights, Maia finally slept alone and was no longer scared of being left alone.
"Daddy!" I watched as she raised her arms for Evan to pick her up, which he obliged after dropping his work duffle bag on the ground. "I missed you." She whisper-shouted, her little hands cupping her father's face.
The girl would literally die without her father. Every time he was on the day shift at the firehouse, she would want to call him every hour to tell him she missed him. If he doesn't answer the call, she starts crying.
"I missed you more." He said with the same enthusiasm, covering her face with kisses.
"Nuh-uh," Maia giggled.
"I missed you too, Mrs. Buckley." Evan said, all cheerful as he set Maia down on the floor, leaning over me on the sofa to kiss my lips.
"Hey," I smiled, reaching over to kiss him again. My body relaxed, knowing that he had made it home to us safely from another shift.
Now that we were married, we barely got shifts together, and when we did, I was strictly assigned as a paramedic. I found the whole thing stupid since neither he nor I were in a leadership role, but who was I to question the rules?
"You okay? You seem a little pale." Buck pressed the back of his hand against my forehead, feeling my temperature. I dismissively moved a hand, trying to reassure his panicked self that it wasn't serious.
I rested my head against the tower of pillows I had created earlier when I threw myself on the couch. Today I had no desire to do anything. Even the thought of getting out of my pajamas seemed too much for my exhausted brain.
"I'm not feeling so great, but it's because my energy is drained. You know I haven't been sleeping due to everything hurting. Then your daughter gave me a hard time this morning." I explained, taking the hand he had pressed against my forehead in mine and squeezing it.
Evan gave Maia a scolding look. In return, she smiled innocently.
"Mommy is sick. I told her to drink nước cam as Ba said, but she is not drinking it." she said, ignoring the part of what I said and her father's stare.
"Nu—what?"
"Momma, it's orange juice in Vietnamese, duh." She explained.
Since she was little, Cara taught Maia Vietnamese just like dad and I taught her Spanish. Now she has an entire mess of languages and used it to her advantage to get sassy with us.
"Yeah, babe, duh." Evan rolled his eyes at me, earning a weak kick on his thigh from me. "Maybear, mommy and I got something for you."
"A present? Why?" She asked, sounding confused yet excited.
"Yes, a present." Evan disappeared into the kitchen for a couple of seconds before coming back with two boxes.
If I were a cartoon, my eyes would've turned into heart shape emojis after immediately recognizing the pink boxes in his hand. I sat up straight quickly, almost causing myself a whiplash, ready to devour the contents inside of them.
Maia observed as her father sat next to me, putting one of the boxes on the coffee table in front of us before opening the other and showing her what was inside. I smiled as I watched her brown eyes grow bigger
"Chocolate cupcakes!" she exclaimed excitedly.
"Do you know what the cupcakes say?" Evan asked, and she shook her head no.
"It says that you are going to be a big sister." I explained, waiting to get a reaction out of her. Maia's head tilted in confusion staring between Evan and me. "A baby sister or brother is growing inside my tummy."
We waited until we got the clear from my doctor that this baby was not considered high-risk anymore before sharing the news with Maia. The chances of me losing this baby were still there due to the injuries I obtained in the car accident, but they were not as high as before.
Evan and I have tried getting pregnant since we got married, but we always ended up with our hearts broken following all the negative tests and early miscarriages. We were ready to take a different route in order to have a baby when out of nowhere, it just happened.
I ended up taking six home pregnancy tests before getting the blood one done just to make sure my eyes were not deceiving me. I didn't even tell Evan, scared that I would end up losing the baby at any time, but the longer the time passed, the more I felt in my heart that this baby would happen for us.
The day I told Evan, he cried for a straight hour and called everyone in the middle of the night to tell them the news. It has been almost four months, and he still walks out from every appointment with tears in his eyes, telling me how much he loves me.
"The baby is inside your tummy?" Maia asked curiously, patting her stomach as she looked at mine. "Do I have a baby in my tummy too?"
I chuckled, shaking my head at her. "No, bug. Only adults can have babies in their tummies."
"How did the baby get inside your tummy?" She inquired, peeking under my LAFD hoodie and poking at my small bump.
Evan started coughing next to me, and I elbowed him on the ribs, giving him a look. He was such a guy. "Oh-um, well, when two parents love each other very much, they make a baby." Evan tried to explain.
Maia blinked, quietly staring at us. "Was I in your tummy too, momma? How did I get out?"
Buck and I looked at each other. I was more than ready for the million questions she was going to ask about the baby, but I was not expecting this sort of question. I had thought a lot about when we were going to sit her down to talk about her being adopted, but I didn't think we would have to do it anytime soon.
"Bug, how about you change out of your pajamas so you can have a cupcake before we go to dance class." I suggested, trying to get ourselves out of this conversation until I could have some time to discuss it with Evan. Maia nodded and left for her room like she didn't ask such an intense question.
Evan stayed quiet until she got upstairs to her room. "I must say that I saw this going two different ways in my head. I thought she was either going to be super excited about the baby or upset about it. I was not expecting her to ask that innocently."
"Maia is growing older, Evan. She is starting to notice things. The other day when I was getting her ready for daycare, she asked me why her skin color looked more like May's than ours. She is not that little anymore, and sooner or later, she will put things together. I rather have her find out about it through us than her finding it out herself. I'm not saying that we have to tell her right away, she's just five, but we have to start getting ourselves ready for that conversation."
As much as I wanted to protect her from knowing the truth about Lizzie and even Liam, I couldn't hide the truth forever. Sooner or later, she will start to question more things that Evan and I won't be able to avoid answering with distractions. On top of it all, she will start regular school soon, and kids can be terrible little terrors that could be telling her things that would eventually crush her if we aren't honest with her.
"Yeah, you are right." He agreed, reaching for the other pink box and setting it on my lap. "In the meantime, open the box and look at what I got you."
I didn't have to open the box to know what was inside. I could smell it since he brought the box to the living room. "I would marry you all over again if I could," I told him, opening the box and taking a long whiff of the cinnamon rolls like some crazy person.
Without wasting another precious second, I grabbed one out of the box and took a big bite. I let out a content sigh before I realized something.
"What are you laughing at?"
"At the fact that years later, I'm eating cinnamon rolls from this bakery while actually pregnant with your child." I explained with my mouth full, putting my free hand on my stomach.
Evan laughed, putting an arm around me, and kissing my temple. "Good thing we were not on a date back then."
"It was definitely not a date, Buckley."