Deacon
I was all alone in the house, sitting in my music room. It was for everyone, of course, but I spent more time in here than anyone else. Rayna had taken Daphne and Sadie out for a girls' afternoon and they were getting manicures and pedicures. Living in a house full of girls meant I knew more about that kind of thing now. I smiled to myself wondering what crazy color Sadie would pick. She usually came home from these adventures with something sparkly or pink. Or both.
I put down my guitar and sat back on the couch. I looked around the room at all the pictures of my girls. Some together, some separate. One of my favorites was a picture of Ray holding Sadie, right after she was born. And another one of her holding up the ultrasound picture when she was maybe four months pregnant, a huge smile on her face. We had all kinds of family pictures in here. So many variations of the girls, together and separate. Pictures of Rayna and me, and us with all our daughters. Wedding pictures – my wedding to Rayna and Maddie's to Jake. And then that picture of all of us in the waiting room at Maddie's wedding, none of us looking at the camera except Sadie, who was being her usual goofy self.
I got up and walked over to pick up the picture off the mantle. It was a great shot, although I still had moments of wanting to cut Teddy Conrad out of it. But I reminded myself we'd worked through all that and I needed to let it go. But that Sadie bug. I laughed to myself.
Sadie wasn't my favorite. I loved Maddie and Daphne the same as her. But Sadie was special, for a lot of reasons. I hadn't gotten to be with Rayna when she was pregnant with Maddie or gave birth to her. So being able to go through it all with Sadie had been special. We hadn't planned to have a baby. Never even talked about it. One morning Ray woke up sick as a dog and when she still felt bad three days later, she'd gone to the doctor. If anything, she looked even sicker when she came home and told me she was pregnant. At forty-three. We had both been a little shell-shocked. Just one little slip up, when we'd both gotten caught up in the moment.
But it had been an amazing time. Watching Sadie grow inside Ray, feeling her kicks and somersaults. Getting to be a part of all that from the start had been one of the best experiences of my life. And then Rayna was so incredibly sexy hot then. That didn't hurt. We had worried, of course, because Rayna was older, but Sadie was perfect. Somebody, I think it was Daphne, took some video of me holding Sadie right after she was born and I was crying like a baby. I was so happy she was here and that she was healthy, but I was also sad to have missed that with Maddie.
I put the picture down and wandered over to the windows that overlooked the pool. It had been about eight years since I'd found out Maddie was mine. She was thirteen, almost fourteen then. It had been a shock to her and to me. I'd been mad as hell at Rayna. I'd been sober for thirteen years, but that all went out the window that night. I tried not think about those four days. Four days when I was on pretty much a non-stop bender, when I lied to Coleman, when I avoided Rayna, when I came close to destroying everything in my whole life.
I closed my eyes and said the little prayer I said most every day, thanking God for not letting Rayna die in that accident. If she had, none of this would have been possible. I'm sure I would have lost Maddie forever. And I never would have finally married Ray and there never would have been Sadie. I felt a lump in my throat that I had to swallow hard over and tears pricked my eyes.
I shook my head to get rid of those morbid thoughts. Tried focusing on Maddie and her new husband. I wasn't sure that helped. I kind of hated thinking about my girl being married the way Ray and I were married. I didn't want to think about any of my girls doing the things their mama did to me. I didn't want to think about a man doing things to them that I did to their mama. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only daddy in the world that wanted to always think of his daughters as pure and untouched. But the reality was that I wanted all my daughters to be happy and loved, the way I loved their mama. Rayna Jaymes was the best thing that happened to me in my whole life and was so much more than I ever deserved, but I was so glad that I got to get in bed with her every night and talk to her every day and hold her in my arms pretty much whenever I wanted to. I hoped Maddie was as happy in her marriage as I was in mine.
I don't think I can honestly say I always wanted to be a husband and a dad. I think, like a lot of men, I did find a woman I wanted to be with and I didn't think much beyond that. I guess that instinctively I was afraid. I had the worst role models for marriage and family. Plus I had such a love affair with booze and pills that it was hard to focus on much else.
But I always wanted to be with Ray. She's my soul mate, my one true love. Even when she was married to Teddy or involved with Luke, even when I had other relationships, she was the one. We connected. We understood each other. Even in the very worst of times. I had always thought those times were the years I was a drunk, but after the accident was when it really got tested. Rayna told me that she had wanted to put me in a box and hide it on a shelf back then, that it was all too fragile.
But over time, I figured out what I wanted and what mattered. Learning how to be a dad to Maddie made me grow up in ways I hadn't thought possible. I had thought I'd learned to want those things before, watching Rayna be a wife and mama with someone else, but it wasn't until Maddie and I came together as a daddy and a daughter that I really knew I wanted that. And that I was ready for it. With Ray.
I don't like thinking about her with Luke, and all that went along with that, and so I don't. I just think about when she came to me and said she was ready. That she wanted all that with me now, a life and a family. And so that's what we did.
One night not long ago, Scarlett was over at the house. She and I were in the music room working on a song and she said, just randomly, that I'd had a damn good life once I'd figured out that staying sober was for me and not for anyone else. She told me that I needed to hang on to that, because it had given me that good life I always said I wanted and had not been able to make happen before. She also said I should get down on my knees every night and thank God, or somebody, for giving me that life.
She was right. I was sober for thirteen years. I got sober for Rayna and I stayed sober for Rayna, for thirteen years. But when the truth came out about Maddie, I'd felt like I'd never known her at all, and that I'd done all that, for thirteen years, for nothing. And that was when it didn't seem like I'd stayed sober for any good reason. And so I quit.
But when I got sober again, I finally realized that I had to do it for myself. And if I could do it for myself, then I could get all those things I really wanted in my life. Because of that, I finally married the only woman I ever really loved, and I knew we'd be together for the rest of our days. I finally had the family I wanted – two daughters that came from my blood and one daughter that came from my heart. I got to work with my wife every day in her business and got to play and sing whenever I wanted and wherever I wanted.
Now I can't imagine not being Rayna's husband and not being Maddie, Daphne and Sadie's daddy. I have everything I ever could have imagined having.
Every day I was thankful I got to live this life and have all my girls in it.
Just then I heard the back door open, followed immediately afterward by running feet in flip flops. "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, where are you?" came Sadie's sing-song voice.
I smiled at the sound of my five and a half year-old and walked out of the music room. "Come find me, Sadie bug!" I called out, and waited.
More running flip flops and then she burst around the corner. She paused for a half second, a smile lighting up her face, and then she ran the rest of the way and jumped into my waiting arms. She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me full on the mouth. "Daddy, I'm back! Did you miss me?" she cried.
I smiled at her. "I thought I was going to die from missing you, bug," I said. Then she squirmed out of my arms and raced off, me following behind her to find her mama. This is the best time of my life, I thought. Definitely a life that's good.
