April 11, 2018

"Let me get this straight," Morelli said once I'd outlined the details for him. "I can prevent a psychopath from hunting down Stephanie and Mabel Markowitz's granddaughter, and killing the ex-husband of said granddaughter by stopping a seven-year-old from going to a birthday party?"

We were sitting in his living room and Bob had his chin on my knee while I scratched his head. Why Julio thought cats were better than this was something I'd never understand.

"It sounds ridiculous, but yes," I said. "Annie Soder taking the medal from Abruzzi when she goes to his house for his daughter's birthday party is the catalyst for the entire ordeal. Things got so out of hand in my last life I ended up having to kill Abruzzi to protect Stephanie and Evelyn and Annie Soder."

Morelli raised an eyebrow. "You had to kill Abruzzi? As in defending yourself and others in the heat of the moment?"

"As in a staged suicide."

"Fuck me," Morelli muttered. "You won't do it again this time, will you? I don't want to have to arrest you."

"No. If all else fails, we just need to prevent Stephanie from getting involved with it. My hope is Mabel Markowitz won't think of asking her to help look for Evelyn. Stephanie hasn't been involved in high-profile cases, but there have been a few times people have approached her about looking into things because her grandmother tells everyone we provide private investigation services."

"You know what would be easier?"

"I'm handling it."

"Then why are we going this route?"

"Because it isn't just about Stephanie. I'd like to help keep Evelyn and Annie Soder from being targeted by Abruzzi. Evelyn has already been sexually assaulted by him when Soder lost the bar to him."

Morelli reclined on the couch and put his feet up on the coffee table. "Have you ever considered you can't save everyone?"

All the damn time. "I'm doing what I can, but the timing doesn't work in my favor. If you can't interfere with Annie on Saturday, I understand. Stephanie's involvement shouldn't factor in once I tell her the truth."

Our surrogate's scheduled C-section had been moved up from the sixteenth to the thirteenth, meaning I was no longer available to run interference on Annie Soder's attendance at Gabriella Abruzzi's birthday party on the fourteenth. Morelli had been telling me for several months that I should tell Stephanie the truth and after talking about it with Julio I had decided to do it. I had worked hard over the last six months to untangle my emotions from my past life. I could look back on my memories of my relationship with Stephanie more objectively. It had helped to smooth out some wrinkles in my current relationship with her and had helped to ease some of Julio's hostility towards her, though I never anticipated them being friends.

The company had been undergoing some restructuring in the last three months as I prepared for the birth of my baby and a shift in my priorities. The Atlanta office had been open for a year and was thriving as I knew it would under the supervision of Nick Bush. The Huntwell contract was also going well in its second year under the oversight of Pedro Torres. Pedro had been my branch manager in Boston in my last life and the timing had worked out that I received an application from him after the position had been posted. Tank had the Columbus office running smoothly and Rowan ran the Trenton office seamlessly. We were now providing security for several private schools in Georgia, New York, and New Jersey, and our contract with Muscogee County School District had just been renewed for another three years, which had meant giving Kendrick more support staff. I couldn't ask for a better management team, which was why I'd turned to them for ideas when it came to the restructuring.

The results of several meetings had been to name shift supervisors for the people in the field and to create a new client liaison role specifically to help with current clients who might have issues or wish to renegotiate their contracts. I was currently the person who got called when a client had a complaint and was the one addressing the issue ninety-five percent of the time. The goal of this new position was to reduce the need for my direct involvement. The client liaison would report directly to me so I could keep abreast of what issues were arising, but save me time on phone calls, meetings with clients, and travelling between offices. The entire management team had agreed Stephanie would be ideal for the position and that she should have first choice if she wanted to take the job. Because Morty Beyers had never died in this timeline, Stephanie didn't get much business from the bonds office. She was the only one from the office doing bond enforcement now and was only receiving a handful of cases every month. She spent most of the week doing office manager tasks and occasionally helped out in the field if she didn't have skips to pick up. As the office manager and my unofficial assistant, she had already been managing client complaints to a degree and had solved a few issues without needing to involve me. HR had sent me the finalized job description and proposed salary range, so now I was prepared to offer it to Stephanie. But before that could happen, I needed to tell her the truth.

"There's a meeting with you on my calendar at eleven," Stephanie said when I walked into the office. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No."

"Do I need my union rep?"

"You aren't in a union."

Stephanie shook her head like she was clearing it. "Right. My father always said never meet with management without asking for a union representative and I sort of panicked when I saw you'd put the meeting on there."

"You haven't done anything wrong," I assured her.

She breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. Your eight o'clock meeting got cancelled, so could we move up our meeting to now? I'm dying to know what it's about."

I gestured for her to follow me, and we shut ourselves in my office. I turned off the microphone so we couldn't be heard but left the camera on. I indicated we should sit on the sofa rather than across my desk. Stephanie sat on one end and I took the other. I put a file folder on the seat between us.

"As you know we've been doing some restructuring so I can be home more after the baby's born. One of the changes we've made is to create a new position called Client Liaison. The job description is in here, but it would entail being a first line of support when clients have issues or are looking for changes on their contracts. There would also be an element of quality control involved and policy development that would mean working with multiple departments. The position reports directly to me but would work with the management team at all the branches. The goal is to reduce how much direct involvement I have with the problems that arise, so that I'm coming in as a final step rather than as the first response. You know what comes through and how much time I devote to it."

Stephanie picked up the folder and nodded her understanding while she read through it. "Okay, so do you want me to post the position on the internal network?"

"I'm offering it to you," I said. Her head snapped up in surprise.

"Really? Me? You think I could do this?" she asked, pointing at the paper.

"You're already doing some of it, and you'd be excellent in the role. The entire management team agreed that you should have the first option to take the position."

It was quiet for a few seconds except for the slight buzz of activity outside my office door. She seemed speechless, so I took the opportunity to push ahead.

"Before you make a decision, I need to talk to you about something. It's something I should have told you about a long time ago and I can only apologize for not doing so," I began. The change in tone brought her out of her stupor and she lowered the folder to her lap.

"What is it?" she asked.

I'd prepared what I wanted to say, but now that I was face-to-face with her, it felt wrong. Too rehearsed and cold for what it was. "Only three other people know this information. My grandmother, Julio, and Morelli. I have no intentions of telling anyone else after you. It's going to sound bizarre and you're probably going to question my sanity, but Morelli can back me up. He's seen the evidence."

Concern was etched across her face. "Now you're just scaring me."

"I was killed on Christmas Day 2023, and when I died I was given the chance to relive my life, which is what I've been doing since Christmas Day 2003," I said, registering the shock on her face at my words. "But more important than that is the reason why I came back in the first place. I came back for you."

Her eyebrows shot up and the dazed expression crossed her face again. "What do you mean you came back for me?"

"In my last life, you died on June 25, 2023 in a car accident. We were supposed to get married that day, and you were five weeks' pregnant when you died," I said. "I came back not just to save you from dying that day, but because I'd wanted to have a better relationship with you."

I spent the next twenty minutes going into our history and the evolution of our relationship from mentor/mentee to friends and occasional lovers to what we had been when she died. I told her about some of the events of her time in bond enforcement and how close she had gotten to death on multiple occasions. She watched me in stunned silence until I reached the part about Julio's wedding to Jasmine being the point where we decided to get more serious about our relationship.

"Hold on, Julio married a woman? What happened with the two of you?" she asked.

"Our relationship was a lot different. We never got serious in high school and things ended when we graduated. We moved on with our lives and never talked about our relationship until the weekend of his wedding," I replied. She took some time to process the information.

"So we didn't meet in college?"

"No."

"You came looking for me and made up that story about the transfer."

I nodded. "I didn't plan to talk to you when I came down there. I just wanted to see you. I'd missed you, and once I saw you, I couldn't help myself."

She glanced down at the file in her hands and took a few deep breaths.

"You told me you didn't want to be with me if I was seeing Josh because you had done that before, and it hadn't gone well. You were talking about me in your other life."

I nodded again.

She swallowed hard and a pained expression crossed her face. "So if I'd chosen you in college, would we still be together?"

"I don't know. I was in denial about my feelings for Julio back then. If I had been with you, I might have been able to stay in denial. Maybe the feelings would have gone away. I can't know for sure."

"You've been lying to me this whole time," she said after a moment. Angry tears were forming in her eyes, and color was rising in her cheeks.

"I just wanted to protect you."

"Then why didn't you tell me the truth from the beginning? Or at least when I showed up in your office two years ago."

"I wasn't sure how you would handle it, and I didn't know how much it might throw things off. I've done enough of that by accident."

She shook her head and stood up quickly. "You've been manipulating me and treating me like a child." She tossed the file folder on the couch and headed for the door. "I can't do this right now."

I had expected a response like this and couldn't blame her. I knew the reasons for my actions, but understood why she felt manipulated. Maybe I had been manipulating her. But it was done now. Now she knew the truth and I could be honest with her moving forward. If she stuck around.

I pulled up the internal monitors on my computer to see what Stephanie was doing. I couldn't find her for a few minutes, but eventually she appeared leaving the women's room on the fifth floor and walked back to her desk. She sat down at her computer and got to work. I shut off the monitors and got busy with my own tasks. I had less than two days left in the office until my parental leave started and had more to do than I had time in the day.

I was glad to see the report from the private investigator I hired in Idaho waiting for me in my email. I'd kept tabs on Orin ever since we left the Army and hired a P.I. at least once a year to get eyes on him and confirm his activities matched with what I read on paper. He had been sent to an inpatient treatment center in Boise after being discharged where he had stayed six months before being sent to live with his parents forty-five minutes away in Mountain Home, but he returned two months later after a failed suicide attempt left him with a brain injury and spent another six months in treatment. He had been arrested twice for DUIs, and once for stalking and subsequently hitting a woman with his car who had made the mistake of going on one date with him, realized he was insane, and had tried to avoid a second date. Luckily, she hadn't sustained major permanent injuries, so he had been given another six months in the psychiatric facility and two years of probation for the assault because of his mental status and because the Idaho Correctional System didn't want to foot the bill for his medications. His probation had recently ended, and I'd wanted to know what he was up to before welcoming my child into the world.

The investigator's report showed him working the graveyard shift at a truck stop in Mountain Home along I-84. He had gained a significant amount of weight after his discharge, probably a side effect of his medications, but the most recent photos showed he had lost some of the weight in the last year and looked healthier than he had for a while. He had stayed out of trouble and was still living with his parents. He wasn't allowed to drive because of his DUIs and the assault, so he either walked to work or his parents drove him. There were still fourteen more months until we would pass the point in which he came after me in my last life. I didn't like that he had sustained a brain injury, even if the circumstances were different. I'd keep closer tabs on him as we got closer to June 2019. But for now, he seemed to be as stable as he could be and I could go into my leave not wondering where he was and what he was doing.

I arrived back in my office two hours later during what would have been my original meeting with Stephanie and was surprised to find her waiting for me. She waited to speak until I was seated and had turned off the microphones.

"I would never do anything because you're married, and I know you wouldn't either," she began, her gazed focused on my keyboard. "But was it my imagination or just wishful thinking that there were these times where it felt like there was something more between us?"

I shook my head. "No, it wasn't. The last two years have been difficult and confusing at times. My feelings changed over the years because of Julio, but I still felt a connection with you. I still love you. Not romantically, but in a way I can't really explain. What I do know is that I am the man I am today because of you, and I'll always be grateful for that."

She put her elbows on the desk and put her head in her hands. I gave her the space to do what she needed to do. She leaned back a minute later and finally made eye contact.

"Thank you for being honest," she said. "And for not letting me think it was all in my head. Is that why Julio hates me so much?"

"I wouldn't say he hates you, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a factor. He's better than he used to be. Mostly he holds onto grudges about you hitting me with the car and the few times we've been in the field where something didn't go well."

"I didn't mean to hit you," she protested. I held up a hand to stop her.

"I know that, and he does too." I paused to consider my next words. "I am sorry for everything that's happened. Maybe I was manipulating you, but that was never my intention. When you showed up in the office that day, it upended everything. I've had to readjust and I've been able to help some people. I've kept you out of some hairy predicaments, but I've also made mistakes. My goal in telling you is not just to have complete honesty between us, but because I'm hoping to do better in the future. I may not be able to give you all the information about something, but all I ask is if I tell you something that you take it seriously. I don't want you to do the opposite out of spite because you think I'm trying to control you. I just want to keep you safe."

She leaned back in her seat and considered the edge of my desk. "I'll take the job," she said after a couple of minutes. "And I will take you seriously as long as you agree to do the same for me. Don't keep things from me because you don't think I can handle them. I'm not a child."

"I've always taken you seriously. But I won't keep things from you unless there's a valid reason for doing so. I do the same with Morelli. I give him information to prevent something from happening, but I can't always tell him everything. He can probably explain it to you better than I can."

"Oh, I'll definitely be talking to him about this," she said in a dangerous tone. I would give Morelli a heads up as soon as she left the office. "And I expect to start mid-range on that salary scale, plus another week of vacation time, an expense account, and a company car."

"You've got it," I said. I'd intended to give her most of that anyway, but let her feel like she was calling the shots. It was the least I could do.

She stood and turned to leave but paused before she opened the door. "It's going to take me a while to fully trust you again," she said.

"I understand." And I did.

April 13, 2018

The clock on my nightstand said it was two-fifteen and neither of us had managed to fall asleep, which was unfortunate because it was the last night of uninterrupted sleep we would have for the foreseeable future.

"Why am I so nervous?" Julio asked.

I chuckled and rolled over to face him. "Because we're going to be parents in about eight hours. That's a pretty big deal."

Our surrogate Kristy was scheduled for a C-section at ten that morning at the same hospital in Newark where I had been born, and my mother had worked as a nurse until ten years ago. The pregnancy had ended up being considered high risk after it was discovered during the second ultrasound that the placenta was sitting on top of Kristy's cervix, which increased the risks of pre-term labor. She had followed the doctor's orders to the letter and had been able to carry the baby to thirty-seven-weeks, which was the latest the doctor wanted to go. She surprised us last week when she called to say that she wanted one of us to be in the operating room with her instead of her husband. I'd insisted Julio do it because I could be more patient and felt like he needed that moment with our child after everything we'd been through.

We gave up on sleep around four-thirty and started getting ready for the drive to Newark. Kristy had to be at the hospital at eight-thirty and we wanted to be there when she arrived. We triple-checked our bag for our clothes and other necessities, the baby's clothes and gear, copies of all the relevant legal documents, phone chargers, the car seat, and the black backpack we were using as a diaper bag. There were car seat bases installed in each of our cars and the nursery had been finished a month ago. A bassinet sat along the wall by my nightstand and a small table with baby supplies sat next to it, ready for whoever we brought home.

I drove to Newark because I didn't trust Julio's anxiety behind the wheel. He had been pacing and fidgeting so much before we left the house that I'd gotten him decaf coffee when we stopped at Dunkin'. His leg bounced the entire drive to Newark and even my hand on his knee didn't completely stop it. Our usual casual conversation in the car was gone as Julio picked at his cuticles and looked out the window.

"Babe, I don't think I've ever seen you so nervous," I said as we reached the Newark city limits.

"I've never had a kid before," Julio said. "Fuck, what if I'm bad at it?"

"You won't be."

"What if something goes wrong?"

"Nothing will go wrong."

"You don't know that. I read all kinds of stuff about what can go wrong during a C-section," he said.

"I told you to stop reading that stuff. Unless you've become an OBGYN and didn't tell me, there isn't anything you can do except stay calm and trust the doctor knows what she's doing."

"It's Friday the thirteenth, you know," he said.
"Since when are you superstitious?"

"Since I found out my baby is being born on Friday the thirteenth."

Another reason he needed to be in the operating room. He couldn't tolerate being in the lobby and not knowing what was happening. I would have come out of the operating room to find him in a straight-jacket and shot full of Ativan.

"Oh my God, you guys!" Kristy said when we arrived in her room. "I'm so excited!"

Kristy was thirty-two years old and one of the most upbeat people I'd ever met. She had three young kids of her own and this was her second time being a surrogate. We had been glad to find someone who had been through the process before and knew what to expect, especially since she was doing the hard part.

Kristy's husband John was in the room with her, along with another woman who was introduced as Kristy's mother, Mary Lou. We had heard about Mary Lou, who disapproved of the entire process, so we gave her a cordial nod and left it at that. We talked for a few minutes until a nurse and a social worker came in to walk us through what to expect during our stay. Kristy, Julio, and I would all have bracelets linking us to the baby as a safety precaution. Kristy's name would be on the baby's wrist band, but we were reassured that it was simply a protocol for keeping track of us as a group and that it didn't mean Kristy had any legal rights to the baby. Our legal paperwork had been completed well ahead of time so we would be identified as the parents as soon as the baby was born and would be the ones to complete the birth certificate information and take custody of the baby. We were shown to the room we would stay in with the baby. As long as there weren't any complications, we could expect to be discharged on Sunday morning.

The obstetrician came to Kristy's room at nine-thirty to do her last-minute assessment and walked Kristy through the procedure. I could tell Julio's anxiety was increasing by the slight tremble in his hands. I pulled him aside before the nurses came to wheel Kristy back to surgery.

"Babe, relax. It's going to be okay," I told him. "Take some deep breaths."

"I'm trying," he said. "God, I'm so fucking scared."

I gave him a quick hug and kiss as the nurses arrived. "You're scared because you're a good man who wants to be a father. Everything is going to be okay."

Kristy and Julio were taken back into the surgical center a minute later while John, Mary Lou, and I were shown to the nearby waiting area. A quiet five-second lullaby played from speakers overhead as we made our way down the hall.

"The next time you hear that played, it'll be for your baby," the nurse informed me. "No one else will be delivering before then."

John and Mary Lou sat down across the room from me and talked quietly about the Campbells' three kids and the preparations needed for the family's move to California while Kristy recovered from the C-section. I focused on the rise and fall of my diaphragm as my normally calm mind threatened mutiny. A jumble of memories and the accompanying emotions from both lifetimes were fighting to come to the surface, but I kept them at bay as I waited for the sound of a lullaby.

Letting go of my emotional connection to Julie Martine had been more difficult than with Stephanie, and while I couldn't say I had been quite as successful, I was confident enough that it wouldn't hold me back from being what this baby needed me to be. Julio had pushed for the name Julie if the baby was a girl and after months of consideration, I'd finally agreed to it last week. Just as I thought he needed to be in the operating room to see the baby be born and hold it first, he believed I needed a Julie. We would know the real reason behind the name, everyone else would just think we named her after him. If the baby was a boy, his name would be Lucas, which Julio swore to me wasn't for George Lucas, but his love of Star Wars left me unconvinced.

I used the wait time to log onto my work email and responded to an email Matt had sent out to those of us in management. I got a reply from Kim two minutes later.

Don't make me tell Matt to lock you out of the system. Stop working and focus on your baby! (But send me a picture when you can)

The soft sound of the lullaby played over the speakers of the obstetrics unit half an hour later, causing me to release a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. I glanced at the time. Ten-thirty-four. Julio and I were parents now, and I wanted nothing more than to be with him and our baby. After the longest fifteen minutes of my life (and that included those three days being tortured in Colombia), a nurse came out to the waiting room.

"Dr. Ronson wanted me to tell you the C-section went perfectly. She should be done with Kristy in about ten minutes, and then Mr. Campbell can join her in recovery. Mr. Manoso, your husband and the baby are in a separate recovery area. I'll take you back there."

John congratulated me and Mary Lou ignored me as I followed the nurse. She badged us through a door, and we walked past the main recovery room, which was currently empty. Further down the hall and past a nurses' station were rooms with sliding glass doors and privacy curtains. I was led to the second room on the left, where the privacy curtain was pulled halfway. I could see a hospital bassinet and the back of a nurse in dark blue scrubs as the door was opened. Julio was sitting on a loveseat talking to the nurse, his blue scrub top slung over one end. He had the baby held to his bare chest, and a blanket had been placed over top them. A tiny head covered in a white knit hat contrasted against Julio's light brown skin. His eyes were red from crying, but he beamed when he saw me enter the room.

"It's a girl," he said excitedly.

"And she's just gorgeous," the nurse added. She straightened up and turned to face me. "I'm Jen. I'll be your baby's nurse in postpartum. We're still in what we call the golden hour right now, so you two can stay in here with her. We'll come in later and do more assessments. But right now you should both do skin-to-skin contact with her. It'll help her regulate her body temperature and heart rate and help you bond. If you need something, hit the button. The doctor should be in after a while to talk to you."

Once Jen was gone, I sat down next to Julio and got my first real glimpse of my daughter. Dark hair peeked out from under the cap and her big dark eyes were wide in wonder. I slipped a hand under the blanket to rub her tiny arm.

"Hi, Julie," I whispered, as she instinctually wrapped her hand around my index finger. I spent a minute taking her in before I sat up and pulled Julio into a kiss. He still looked like he couldn't quite believe what was happening. I couldn't blame him. It didn't quite feel real to me either.

"She's perfect," I said as I rubbed her back.

"One of the nurses recorded her being born," Julio said, trying to pull his phone out of his pocket without jarring the baby.

I took it and pulled up the video. It had been taken from an angle behind Kristy and Julio where only the heads of the surgeon and a couple of nurses were visible beyond the surgical drapes. About ten seconds into the video, the doctor announced that she was ready to deliver the baby. Julie's tiny body was held up over the curtain a few seconds later.

"It's a girl," the surgeon informed Julio as the baby's cries filled the room. Julio started crying, and I watched for a couple of minutes as she disappeared below the curtain and was eventually brought around to Julio and Kristy. The video continued as Kristy was allowed to see the baby for a second before she insisted that she be given to Julio, who sobbed even harder as she was placed in his arms. The video went on for another minute while Julio held the baby and tried to pull himself together before it ended.

"I don't know what I expected, but that was amazing," he said, emotion filling his voice again. "I wish you could have been there too."

I leaned over and kissed him again, putting an arm around his bare shoulders. "Me too. But I'm glad she got to meet you first. I think you needed it."

He hadn't talked about it since we'd started the IVF process, but I suspected there was a part of Julio still mourning the fact that he would never be the biological father to any of our children. Being related to them through Nadine helped him significantly, but I wasn't sure if it would ever completely heal that wound.

"I'm okay," he assured me as he smiled down at her. "Nadine being our egg donor helps a lot. It doesn't really matter, but I like knowing that there's a piece of me that's connected to her. Not as much as you, but I can live with that. I wouldn't change a thing about her."

We took turns with skin-to-skin contact and took pictures until we were escorted back to our room at noon. There was a hospital bed, a pullout couch, and a rocking chair for us to use over the next two days. Jen spent the next half an hour instructing us on feeding, diaper changes, and safe sleeping practices. She gave us the lunch menu and I ordered our food while Julio fed the baby her first bottle. Kristy texted to see how we were doing and assured us she was doing well. We had agreed prior to the delivery that Kristy could see Julie as much as she wanted while we were in the hospital, but we wouldn't insist if she decided she needed the space. She promised to come by before we were discharged and congratulated us on becoming parents.

Our lunch arrived after Julie had finished her bottle and the nurse came in to give her a bath while we ate. Prior to moving to Norway in January, Nadine had given us a pale green onesie with the words I Have the World's Best Aunt written in white script. All she asked was that we send the baby's first pictures to everyone wearing that outfit. We took pictures that would be sent out to relatives and checked the time in Norway.

"It's almost six in Oslo," Julio said. "She'll be home from work by now. I'll message her."

We'd agreed that Nadine was our first call once the baby was born. It was the least we could do after what she had done for us. Julio messaged her asking for a video call and received her reply ten minutes later.

If all I have to see is your ugly face and not a baby, then I'm not interested.

Julio rolled his eyes and came to sit next to me while I held the baby. He called Nadine on Facetime and she answered a few seconds later.

"I swear to God, if I don't see a baby I'm hanging up," Nadine said. The phone was propped up against something while she was standing in her kitchen chopping vegetables. Julio flipped to the rear-facing camera and Julie appeared on screen. Nadine gasped and dropped her knife.

"I didn't think you'd actually have the baby!" she shrieked. "I thought it wasn't due until later in the month. Oh my God! Boy or girl?"

"Girl. Meet Julie Nadine Manoso," Julio said as the star of the show opened her eyes and stretched.

Tears streamed down Nadine's cheeks, and she put a hand over her mouth. "Oh, you guys," she said, wiping her eyes. "She's so pretty. She clearly gets it from me."

I heard Anders in the background and Nadine told him to come over to see the baby.

"Congratulations!" he said, smiling. "She's beautiful."

"Thanks," I said. "We'll never be able to thank you enough for this, Nadine."

"I'll never be mean to you again, sis," Julio said.

"You said that when I donated my eggs, then you spent ten minutes flicking pomegranate seeds at my head when we had dinner at Layla's two weeks later."

"Well, I really mean it this time."

Nadine rolled her eyes. "I'll believe that when I see it," she said. "But I'm so happy for you guys. And for me. Because I get to watch her grow up and spoil her and you two get to do all the diapers and feedings and throw up stuff while I sip margaritas in Barcelona."

"Just remember we still have to live with her," I said. "You can't create a monster and then fly back to Europe."

Nadine placed a hand on her chest and gave me a wounded look. "I would never!" Which was a complete lie. We'd seen her do just that with the rest of her nieces and nephews.

We had a few hours until other people would be home from work, so we used the time between feedings to get some sleep, though I suspected Julie and I were the only ones actually sleeping since every time I opened my eyes Julio was awake watching her from the bed. She woke up at two-thirty and Julio told me to go back to sleep while he made up her bottle with one hand and held her in the other arm. I was impressed as I watched him work and realized he had probably been practicing at home. I went back to sleep and woke up an hour later to find him sitting in the rocking chair still holding her. She had one hand wrapped around his ring finger while he watched her sleep. There was a small smile on his lips, and I noticed tears occasionally fall down his cheeks, but he never moved his hand to wipe them away. I discreetly took a picture while I watched them, laying still so I could keep watching Julio's obvious adoration of our daughter. He eventually looked up and saw that I was awake.

"I still can't believe she's ours," he whispered. He rubbed the bridge of her nose with his index finger. "I keep thinking about all the stuff that had to go a certain way to get us here, and how one change could have messed it all up."

"Welcome to the last thirteen years of my life," I said.

He chuckled softly. "I don't know how you do it. This is just one thing, and I'm all fucked up trying to go backwards to figure out where it all started. But I think for me it was the first day of middle school when I decided to sit next to Marshawn Foster on the bus. He was the one who hooked me up with the guys I got in trouble with. If I hadn't sat next to him, I probably wouldn't have met the other guys. Without them I wouldn't have been part of the robbery, which led to me going to juvie, then to Miami, where I met you."

"It'll be fun explaining to her someday that her fathers met because they were both juvenile delinquents."

"We just have to keep her from becoming one," he said. "She's genetically predisposed."

"At least we know what to look for and how to handle things. Our parents weren't prepared for kids like us."

Julio nodded. "And she'll never know what it's like to have her parents turn their backs on her. I don't care if she becomes a serial killer. I'll still love her."

I thought about my family as I continued to watch them, recalling the memories of my parents' reactions to my relationship with Julio, their apologies and the anguished looks on their faces when I turned them away. Memories of them from my past life twisted a knot in my chest as I remembered family gatherings and my mother's support after Stephanie died. I prayed that I would never hurt Julie, but if I ever did that she could find it in her to forgive me. The idea of not seeing her for years on end felt like it might rip my heart in two, and I'd only known her for a few hours. She didn't even have a personality yet.

We called Amira and Lamar first, who were getting ready to go out to dinner with friends. Amira's shriek had been identical to Nadine's and she spent the next twenty minutes asking us every possible question she could think of and ending every other sentence with I love her so much, she's so perfect. They were living just south of Baltimore, putting them almost exactly halfway between us in New Jersey and Layla in Virginia. It put them close enough to visit for a day while not being so close we saw them all the time. Amira told us she would request time off work for the last week of the month, and that if they refused to give it to her, she would just quit. Lamar had looked mildly concerned about that possibility, but wisely said nothing.

We called Grandma after we ate dinner. Julio was sitting on the hospital bed with Julie propped up on his legs. He started the call with the rear facing camera focused on Julie so she would be the first one Grandma saw when she answered.

Grandma gasped excitedly when she answered and proceeded to drop her phone. Julio and I laughed while we took in a momentary view of her kitchen ceiling. She picked up the phone and brought it close to her face.

"Oh, she's a precious girl," Grandma said as she examined the baby. "Oh, mijos. Congratulations."

"We never said it's a girl. How did you know?" Julio asked.

"I just knew it was going to be a girl," Grandma said. "I felt it. What's her name?"

"Julie," I said.

"What a lovely way to honor her. She looks so much like you, Carlos. Did your other Julie resemble you?"

I nodded. "She looks almost exactly like her."

"How are you handling that?" Grandma asked. She was the only person who could truly understand the situation I was in, and she had gone through it with multiple children.

"I'm okay."

"Have you told everyone else?" she asked.

"Not yet. They're getting a picture in a group text," Julio said. "Nadine got to see her first for obvious reasons. My mother got to see her because she's my mother, and you get to see her because you've always been our biggest supporter."

Grandma wiped at her eyes. "Thank you. I'm honored to be one of the first people to meet her, even if it is over the phone."

"Just don't tell anyone else we're in Newark," I said. "We don't want visitors."

"I understand," she replied. "But I thought you said she wasn't due until the end of the month. Was she born early?"

We'd kept the high-risk part of the pregnancy to ourselves to avoid constant questions and check-ins from the family. We got enough of those when they believed everything was perfectly normal.

"I'm glad you didn't tell me. I would have worried," Grandma admitted once we filled her in. "That's what Alicia had with Miguel, and he was born ten weeks early."

I knew my cousin had been born prematurely but hadn't remembered the reason why. I was glad to have forgotten about that. I'd been worried enough without that floating around in my head. And if Julio had known, he might have moved in with the Campbells so Kristy didn't have to move a muscle until the baby was born.

I listened to Julio and Grandma talk about Jaime as I started preparing Julie's next bottle, knowing she would wake up at any time ready to eat. Julio was talking about how he couldn't fathom ever turning his back on her and wondered how his father could do it. We hadn't told Grandma about Jaime's sexuality, so she didn't know the additional reasons behind everything.

"Babies have a way of healing old wounds sometimes," Grandma said. "Maybe Julie can work her magic."

As though offended by the idea, Julie started crying and we said goodbye to Grandma. I laid out a fresh diaper and pajamas while the bottle was warming and walked over to the bed where Julio was talking to her while he rubbed the sole of one foot with his thumb. He held out his hand for the bottle, but I shook my head and held out both arms.

"I'll feed her and get her ready for bed," I said. "You've been awake for almost forty-eight hours, and you need some sleep. You're exhausted."

"I'm fine," he said. "I'll do it."

"I want to do it," I told him.

Julio held the baby closer and leaned away from me. "No, go get your own," he said.

"I did get my own," I said, indicating the crying baby. "You have to share her."

"But I don't want to. Besides, she looks just like you, so I should get to hold her more to make up for that."

"You'll get to spend more time with her than I will. So I should get to hold her more while I'm on leave."

He wanted to argue but wasn't finding solid ground to stand on. I reached over and removed Julie from his reluctant arms. He glared at me as I took her back to the couch. "Besides, I can tell you're exhausted because you're getting ridiculous. I just heard you call her 'Julie bean'."

"Yeah, because I was telling her earlier how the first time we saw her on the ultrasound she looked like a jellybean, and I realized her name fits. Julie sounds like jelly. Julie-bean," he said as he gathered up supplies for a shower.

I looked down at the baby, who was sucking down her bottle like she'd never eaten before and shook my head. "I'm sorry about him," I told her. "He used to be a lot cooler than that."

Julio gave me the finger before he disappeared into the bathroom.

As I rocked Julie to sleep after her four-a.m. bottle, I let my thoughts wander back to my parents. They'd only seen Julie Martine a handful of times. They sent birthday and Christmas gifts, and Rachel sent school pictures, but they'd never really had a relationship with her. Both Rachel's and Ron's parents had divorced and remarried, so Julie Martine had never been at a loss for grandparents to dote on her. Julie Manoso would only ever have two sets of grandparents, and she was already going to be deprived of a relationship with Jaime. She would have Amira and Lamar, who would be a far better grandfather to her than Jaime could be if he tried, and she would have Grandma for at least a few more years. But was that all I was willing to give her?

My parents lived only three miles away from the hospital, and I had never wanted to see them more. I loved and missed them. And most importantly, I loved my daughter and wanted to do right by her. They had screwed up and were genuinely sorry about it. I had been the one refusing to move on, and if Julie missed out on a relationship with them, it would be my fault. This life was supposed to be about doing things differently and making things better where I could. I would never have the relationship with them in this life that I had in my last one, and I needed to let that go. Just as I had Stephanie and Julie Martine, I needed to bury that version of my parents and face the reality of what was in front of me.

Julio leapt out of bed when Julie started crying at six-fifteen, giving me a stern look like he was daring me to say something. Neither of us had gotten much sleep between Julie waking up every two hours to eat and the nurse coming in to check on her, but he did look more rested and seemed less punch-drunk than the night before. I showered and got dressed for the day and looked over the breakfast menu. I couldn't stomach another hospital meal and told Julio as much. He suggested takeout from a Cuban café near my parents' house, and I took that as a nudge from the universe.

"Can we make an exception to the no-visitors rule?" I asked as I pulled on my shoes.

He had Julie laid out on the bed changing her clothes and looked surprised by my question. "Who?"

"My parents."

His eyes widened in surprise and he reached for his phone. He looked at the display and put it back on the bed. "I figured there would be a push alert when hell froze over," he said with a grin.

"Funny. Are you on board?"

"Hell yeah. Just don't take too long getting back with breakfast."

I pulled up to the curb in front of my parents' house fifteen minutes later and took a deep breath before I climbed out of the car. I was about to walk up the front porch when I heard voices from around the side of the house. I headed up the driveway instead and found my parents standing in the garage. My father was looking under the hood of my mother's car and kept shaking his head at everything she said. He looked up from the car to say something to my mother and spotted me. He froze for a beat, then stepped away from the car, walked around my confused mother, and made his way towards me in a few long strides. He threw his arms around me and hugged me tightly.

"Oh, Carlos!" my mother said as she hurried over. She pushed my father out of the way and wrapped her arms around me. I felt my throat tighten as she started to cry into my shoulder and my father wiped at his eyes.

"Why are you here?" my mother asked once she had pulled away. "Is there something wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Mom," I said. "It's time I move on from what happened. I've missed both of you, and I'd like you to come to the hospital to meet my daughter."

My mother gasped and covered her mouth with both hands. "Your baby's here?"

"Her name is Julie. She was born yesterday at University Hospital. Do you want to see her?"

"Of course we want to see her!" my mother said. "When?"

"Whenever you want. We'll be discharged in the morning. I'm on my way to Omar's to pick up breakfast and wanted to stop by to see you."

"Call in your order and we'll get ready. We can follow you over there," my mother said.

I called in the order to Omar's while my mother hurried inside to get ready. My father gestured for me to follow him into the garage and pulled a box from a high shelf where I knew he stored his Cuban cigars. He pulled two out of the box along with a silver lighter. We lit up and smoked while we waited for my mother.

"Don't tell Julio I smoked this," I said after a few drags. "He gave up smoking a few months ago and has been missing it."

"I didn't see you smoke anything," he replied. "You just stood out here with me while I smoked."

We leaned against my mother's car and continued to smoke in silence. That had always been the nice thing about my relationship with my father as an adult. We didn't have to say what we were feeling out loud to know it. My mother emerged from the house ten minutes later wearing an outfit that was more appropriate for a fancy dinner than a trip to the baby unit.

"She's a baby, Lola," my father commented. "She's just gonna spit up on you."

"I don't care. I still want to look nice," she said indignantly. "Are you going to wear that?"

My father glanced down at his jeans and flannel shirt. "What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing's wrong with it," I said, guiding my mother towards the street. "You can ride with me, Mom."

We picked up the food and headed back to the hospital, my father following behind us in his truck. My mother held the food in her lap and looked as if she'd just won the lottery.

"I can't believe this is really happening," she said. "I didn't think you'd ever want us around."

"I was holding Julie last night and realized the only thing keeping us apart was me. I can't do that to her, and I don't want to keep doing it to myself either."

She reached over and squeezed my arm. "Are you going to be able to forgive Sofia?"

"I did forgive her."

"You've barely talked to her for the last two years."

I shrugged. "I've been busy. And even though I wasn't happy with her, I did forgive her. But I'll talk to her."

It was almost nine when we arrived at the room. I could hear Julie crying through the door and Julio was making a bottle one-handed while he bounced her in his arm.

"It's about time," he said. "I'm starving. And so is she."

My parents rubbed sanitizer into their hands while I took the baby from Julio so he could make the bottle faster.

"She looks just like you," my mother said as she came to stand next to me. "Can I feed her while you eat?"

"Sure," I said. I passed her the baby and Julio passed along the bottle. Julie quieted a second later and my mother sat down on the couch with her. My father sat beside them, and they spent the next few minutes talking to her and being amazed by every little thing she did.

We spent the next two hours catching up with my parents while they took turns holding Julie. It was disconcerting how easily we fell into comfortable conversation, as though the last six-and-a-half years hadn't happened. I had wondered if things would be awkward, but it never was. My parents hugged and congratulated both of us as they left. We made plans for them to come to the house the following weekend to visit. My mother insisted on cooking dinner for us and my father joked that they'd probably need to rent a moving truck for all the things she would have bought for the baby by then.

I stretched out on the bed to get some sleep while Julio rocked the baby. He climbed into the bed with me after putting Julie back in the bassinet, even though the bed was not equipped for two grown men. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck as he placed a soft kiss there and snaked an arm around my chest. Just as I was about to drift off to sleep again, I heard him whisper in my ear.

"I'm proud of you," he said. "And I can tell you smoked a cigar, you son of a bitch."

A/N: If it isn't clear by the frequent posting, I'm off work for a few days. Hopefully I'll be able to put out another chapter or two before I go back after the first of the year.