To Their Deepest Desire

My cousin had just had a baby and I finally got to meet her. My parents stopped fighting long enough for us to go to her house to see the baby. She was the tiniest, sweetest thing I had ever seen and it was very exciting. I didn't have any siblings and it was very cool to see a newborn.

After getting home that afternoon, I sat on the tire swing in my backyard as the sun began to set. Cosmo and Wanda sat on a tree branch next to me. Their hands were interlaced, her head rested on his shoulder, and he kissed her forehead lovingly. I loved seeing them like this. They always seemed so at peace with each other even when they were just sitting there quietly.

But today they didn't seem as happy as they usually were. Ever since we had gotten back from my cousins house, I noticed they seemed a little sad and I just couldn't figure out what it was. They were happy that morning, but they didn't seem to be as energetic and happy as they usually were.

The sun was starting to go down and I was swinging as high as I could pretending that I could fly as high as they could and touch the sky. As I was swinging I wondered about something I had been dying to know all day.

Cosmo and Wanda had told me they had been married for 5,000 years. Most couples had children after being married for a year or two. My cousin had been married for two years before she and her husband had the baby, even though they didn't seem to be any happier together than my parents were. My godparents clearly loved each other, why didn't they have one?

I tried to picture what their baby would look like. Maybe swirly pink hair and and green eyes? Or maybe long green hair and pink eyes? No matter what I knew it would be the cutest baby in the world.

"Cosmo, Wanda," I said.

"Yeah sweetie?" Wanda said.

"Why won't you have a baby?"

Wanda looked surprised by the question and her cheeks turned red. Cosmo looked confused.

"Are you trying to ask us where babies come from?" he asked.

I shook my head. "No." Besides, I had already seen them have sex, I knew where babies came from. "But you've been married for 7,000 years. Why haven't you had a baby yet?"

The two of them exchanged a look that seemed to contain a bit of the sadness I had seen in their eyes since we had left my cousins house. They turned back to me. "We want to have a baby," Wanda said.

"But we can't," Cosmo finished.

I was surprised to hear that. Now I was even more curious. "Why not?"

"Because fairy babies are illegal," Wanda said.

My eyes got wide. I wasn't expecting that answer. "Why?"

"They were outlawed after I was born," Cosmo said.

"Fairy baby's magic is too unpredictable," Wanda explained. "And fairies never die so they thought fairies shouldn't have any or Fairy World will be overpopulated. So no one is allowed to have one."

"That's not fair. If you want a baby you should be able to have one," I said.

"I agree," Wanda said. She was looking ahead at nothing in particular, her eyes filled with longing. Now I knew why she had looked so sad today. Seeing my newborn baby cousin was just a reminder of what she could never have.

Cosmo noticed the sadness in her eyes and quickly wrapped his arms around her and kissed her cheek comfortingly. "If they ever get rid of the law we'll have a baby."

I'd always thought Cosmo and Wanda had everything. Now I knew that there was one thing they wanted more than anything. "You would be really good parents."

They would be. They were a better mother and father than my parents ever were and I was sure they were to every godchild they'd had before me that they treated just like their own child that they so desperately wanted. I hoped one day the fairy baby law would be gone so they could have a baby of their own.