"Will you relax?" Sophie says as I fidget with the curly ends of my hair. "Everett will be here any minute. I'm sure he's just stuck in traffic."
"What if he isn't?"
"Jesus Christ...you are the most anxious independent woman I have ever known. He'll be here."
As I inspect myself in the mirror, again, I flatten the hips of my gown down against my body and shake my head. "I look horrible."
Sophie gives me an I-want-to-slap-you look. "You are being ridiculous. You look beautiful."
"There she is..." Ana Maria says when she walks in. She kisses me on the cheek before performing a quick Sign of the Cross, blessing me with the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Even though I'm not a practicing Catholic, it feels nice to receive her blessing.
"Your mother would have been so proud of you," she says with her hand over her mouth. "Ramon can't keep still...he is smoking a cigarette with Isaac outside."
Sophie purses her lips. "I hate when Isaac smokes."
"Ay Sophie, he only smokes when he is nervous, like your father."
"He's been smoking a lot these days. He's got some project at work that's driving him nuts. He's been stressing out about it for almost two weeks."
"So let him smoke a cigarette or two if it helps him relax," I say.
"I know. I just hope he doesn't develop a habit. You know...he did help me pack up my apartment this week...maybe that's what's got him nervous. Maybe he's having second thoughts about us moving in together."
I cross my arms and cock my neck. "Who's being the anxious independent woman now?"
"It's different. Everett's proven himself to you. He's already told you he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you. We're just now starting to really take things seriously. Maybe he thinks we're going too fast. You had to see his face last night when I sealed off the last box. He was so nervous...like he was about to throw up."
I chuckle and glance at Ana Maria. She and I know that the reason Isaac was nervous last night, and has been nervous for the past few weeks, was because he was planning on proposing to Sophie. He called Everett immediately after he left Sophie last night to tell him he chickened out. The next attempt will be tomorrow night when Sophie finally moves all of her belongings into Isaac's apartment.
"Ay, Sophie...who cares about you? This is Jubilee's big day." Ana Maria says after pulling a strand of hair back away from my face. She winks at me again and we both smile.
"You're right, Ma. I'm sorry, girl."
"Oh please...I would love to focus on anything other than why Everett isn't here yet." I raise my eyebrows at Sophie and she nods. She pulls out her phone and dials.
"Where the hell are you?" she says into the phone.
I take a deep breath.
"Are you kidding me?" Sophie shouts into the phone.
I take a more profound breath. Ana Maria moves closer to me and rubs my back.
"No...she's fine, just nervous...yes...good, because if not...I know people who know how to make things look like an accident. Remember, we're Colombian, we know people like that."
I hear Everett laugh through the phone. Ana Maria exhales loudly, as if she too was holding her breath. Sophie chuckles once more before hanging up. A warm smile spreads across her face and her voice softens. "He'll be here soon. He said he had to get you something first, and that took longer than he expected."
My tears break through and I blink violently, trying to avoid looking like a crying mess.
"She's just nervous," Ana Maria says while handing me a box of tissues.
Sophie points to herself. "I'm nervous. Jubilee's an emotional time bomb."
After we all have a good laugh, and I wipe my face dry of all the uncontrollable tears that streaked my cheeks, I ask Sophie to call Isaac so that I could speak to Aryana. Sophie and her mom give me a little privacy while I talk to my little girl.
"Hi, Mommy," Aryana says in her angelic voice.
"Hi, Baby, did you eat the bagel Isaac bought you?"
"Yeah, and a chocolate chip muffin. We got one for you because I know they're your favorite. We're outside waiting for Everett."
My eyes well up again. I instantly remember the day Aryana was born, when I first held her in my arms. She was the size of a football, and now she is seven, over four feet tall, and buying me a muffin simply because she knew I would like one.
"Did you have the baby yet?" she asks in a rush. "Am I a big sister yet?"
"Not yet. I'm still here with baby in the belly."
"What's taking so long?"
"The baby's not ready to come out yet," I say just before I have another contraction. The machine hooked up to the sticky buttons placed around my torso goes crazy, scribbling long lines back and forth on a large sheet of paper, as if I told a huge lie during a lie detector test.
What was that...five minutes?
I sit down on the hospital bed, refusing to lie down because I know I won't want to get up if I do. "But it's not too long now," I say after grunting.
"Mommy, Everett's here!"
I hear shuffling.
"Babe, I'm so sorry," Everett says out of breath. "We're coming up right now."
When Everett walks into my private maternity room, he hands me a huge bouquet of calla lilies, grabs my head and plants a fat kiss on my lips. He lifts Aryana to the bed next to me. She squeezes me with all her might. Sophie, Isaac, Ana Maria, and Ramon file into the room.
All these years Sophie has been the only other person in my life I considered family. As I see Ana Maria and Ramon bickering about how he should not be smoking at his age, and how smoking leads to heart attacks and strokes, I see what my parents would have been like if things had been different. Just as Sophie is the closest I'll ever come to a sister, Ana Maria and Ramon are the closest I'll ever come to having my parents around...they are the closest Aryana will ever come to grandparents.
"Excuse me," my obstetrician says after she looks at the readout from one of the machines. She asks everyone else to leave the room so that she could give me one last exam.
She nods. "It's time."
"Can I have just one second?" Everett asks. The doctor nods. Everett runs out of the room and returns with Aryana and lifts her onto the bed.
"Aryana and I have something to ask you."
I smile. "What is it?"
Aryana interlocks her fingers and looks at me with the cutest "serious face" she can muster. I hold back my laughter.
"You go," Aryana says to Everett.
"Well, you know how we haven't exactly decided on a name for the baby?"
"Yes!" I shout in pain as the strongest contraction yet hits me. I push tiny bursts of air out my mouth for the next ten seconds. "Okay...I'm good...go on."
"Well, Aryana mentioned one yesterday, and I told her I would ask you. But then I forgot. And then you went into labor this morning and I-"
"What is it?" I ask, cutting him off abruptly.
Aryana smiles. "Since you and Everett don't have your mommies with you, I thought it would be nice to name the baby after your mommies."
"Olivia Rose." Everett says. "Your mom gets top billing. I really didn't like the sound of Rose Olivia, but Olivia Rose sound nice."
"It was my idea, Mommy. Olivia...Rose." She says while her arms spread out slowly, as if she's displaying the name on a billboard.
I start crying again. The thought of using my mom's name crossed my mind a while ago, but not having my mom around is hard enough let alone saying her name all the time, so I never mentioned it to Everett. Now, as the name is spoken by the sweetest, most innocent and purest voice in the entire world, it sounds perfect.
"She doesn't like it," Aryana whispers loudly in Everett's ear as I wipe my eyes.
"No...she loves it. I can tell. See...she's smiling under those tears."
A nurse comes in. "It's time. Say goodbye to Mommy. Daddy, follow me."
Aryana gives me one giant hug. "Chipmunk, you've picked a beautiful name for your baby sister."
Aryana whispers "Yes!" with an elbow jerking motion, as if she just scored a touchdown. She gives Everett a high-five and runs out of the room.
Everett kisses me on the forehead. "Well, now that the whole giving birth thing is winding down..." The nurse pushing my bed bursts out a chuckle. "There's something I need to ask you."
I shout...another contraction. The bed rolls to a stop in the middle of the hallway.
"Come on, Daddy. You can't go inside the room until you scrub up," the nurse says.
"One more second," he begs.
"What is it?" I ask, and moan as the contraction finally subsided.
"Marry me."
"What?"
"Forget about everything that bugs you about being married and just know that I love you. I love you and Aryana and Olivia and any other children we may have. You are my family. You are my life. You all are my life."
His eyes get red and I stare right into them in utter disbelief. It's as if the entire birthing staff froze in place, not a beeping sound is heard, not a footstep, and no one is urging Everett to get prepped.
We've had this discussion before, several times, and it usually ends in him being angry at my stubbornness and claiming that I was still comparing him to Luke, although I wasn't. I never compare Everett to Luke, he is far superior that my ex-husband in every way. I just associate the whole system of matrimony to being married to my ex-husband. After Luke, marriage didn't mean anything to me anymore. For Everett, however, it means a great deal more. This became evident almost immediately after we started taking things seriously.
Everett was staying over so often that he moved in just six months after that first crazy weekend. We integrated our day-to-day routines seamlessly, as if we both had been made for each other. Even Aryana loved him. They became thick as thieves, partners in crime, calling each other by code names, such as Aryana calling Everett Batman and Everett's calling her Robin. After living together for a month, Everett asked me how I felt about getting married again.
"Never," I said flatly. "We're together, we're happy, Aryana is happy...why change anything?"
"Don't you want to eventually buy a house, maybe give Aryana a brother or sister?"
"Yes, but we can do that without having to get married."
"What?" Everett looked at me like I had two heads.
"I don't want to get married. We can buy a house, we can have children, and we can live the rest of our lives together. I just don't feel the desire to get married. Not again."
"I'm not Luke, Jubilee."
Everett's voice grew angry, I got defensive, and after another minute a fight broke out. We made up later that evening and went to sleep a little edgy, but eventually we got past it. Every now and then, however, Everett would bring it up. That is, until nine months ago.
Last year we bought a house together in Forest Hills. After we moved in we started talking about having a baby. Of course, I was hesitant. Part of me wanted to give Aryana a sibling, and part of me was scared that a sibling would make Aryana feel left out, replaced, or neglected. It frightened me to think I could hurt Aryana like that. After reading tons of studies on the benefits of having siblings, and Aryana asking me if she could have a baby brother or sister, I decided to go for it. Everett was ecstatic.
"I have one condition," I said, after I told Everett that I wanted to have a baby. I had just put Aryana to sleep and we were nestled in our bed. "You can't talk about getting married ever again."
"Fine," Everett said quickly and started kissing my neck, lifting my shirt above my breasts.
"I'm serious."
"So am I. I promise I'll never, ever, bring it up again."
And he never did, until today, right now, as I'm being wheeled into a birthing room at St. John's hospital. Except...this time it's different, I'm different. I'm not a single mother recovering from a bad marriage and starting a promising relationship. Everett has proven his love and fidelity to me and Aryana time and time again. I'm not struggling to get by on minimal selfishness and a never-ending sense of working-mom guilt. Everett is amazing, he is a wonderful role-model in Aryana's life, and he takes care of her as if she was his own. He's become my best friend, my soul mate, and now we are about to have a daughter together.
Everett has given me so much. He moved out of his beautiful Upper East Side apartment to buy a home with me in Forest Hill, a neighborhood he knew nothing about, simply because Aryana and I love it here. Now we're having a baby together, fulfilling my dream of giving Aryana a family, a real sister to call her own.
"Just marry me," Everett whispers once more just as my obstetrician appears by his side. The nurse brings my doctor up to date.
"This is all very romantic, but we have to get started," my doctor says. The nurse nudges Everett down the hallway.
"Just say yes," he shouts, and it sounds like he's being shoved into another room.
"Yes," I whisper, smiling, crying, laughing, wincing at the worst contraction so far, and possibly pooping.
"She said yes!" the doctor shouts down the hallway. She rolls my bed into the birthing room. "Congratulations. Now that the engagement is winding down...are you ready to have this baby or what?"