“Holy shit!”
Eddie reprimanded me. “Watch the mouth.”
“You don’t get it! I just matched all the colors. It took me fifteen years.”
He seemed underwhelmed.
I had to tell Rana. Jumping off the bench, I ran inside of the house and found her in the bathroom with the door open.
“Baby, you’re never gonna believe this, I—”
“I’m pregnant.” She was holding a white stick.
“What?”
“I came inside to check the test. I had peed on it just before we went out front. I had a feeling it was going to be positive because I was late. I’m never late. I wanted to know for sure before I said anything…didn’t want to get your hopes up.”
My body was shaking with excitement. I had no words. This was the last thing I’d expected to hear. “We’re having a baby?”
“Yes!”
I took her in my arms and held her. Rana felt even warmer than usual, our contact never more electric now that I knew she was carrying my flesh and blood inside of her. The miscarriage had unfortunately taken away my ability to envision our baby just yet. I wouldn’t allow myself to go there prematurely, but I couldn’t help my excitement that this had finally happened for us again.
I whispered into her ear, “This is the happiest day of my life.”
“Is it weird that I’m afraid to tell Papa?”
We’d never told him about the previous pregnancy, so he never even knew we’d lost a baby. But we vowed that if it happened again, we would share it with him, because he seemed to have a direct line to the man upstairs, and Eddie’s prayers meant a lot to Rana.
“He’s gonna be ecstatic.” I smiled. “Actually, he’s gonna make a damn good live-in babysitter, too.” There was something I’d wanted to ask her. “Hey, if it’s a boy, I was thinking of the name Brandon. B for Beverly, R for Rana and then Landon…Brandon. Do you like it?”
“I love that. It’s brilliant. I think it has to be Brandon if it’s a boy.”
“Unfortunately, Lana is already taken if it’s a girl.”
She belted out in laughter. “That, it is.”
I rubbed her stomach. “If she’s a girl, we’ll have to come up with a name for our daughter that’s as beautiful and exotic as her mother.”
“What were you rushing in here to tell me anyway?”
“Oh.” I reached for the Rubik’s Cube that I’d left on the sink. “I did it. I matched all the colors. But it seems pretty insignificant now.”
“It’s a sign.” She took it and smiled. “Things are finally going our way.”
Life definitely wasn’t perfect. But there were moments in time that absolutely were. And this was one of them.
In many ways, our story was a lot like the Rubik’s Cube—colorful and complicated. It took years to work it out, but then suddenly like magic, on a random Sunday, everything all came together.