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“Yeah. In my experience, both times I’ve fallen in love have happened when I least expected it to. With Grace I was riding high at the pinnacle of my career. Who knew that something as simple as forgetting my toothbrush, could have led to me meeting and falling so deeply for Grace, leading to our wedding in a matter of weeks? During my time with my late wife, I thought there would never be anyone else who lived up to her… that she was the love of my life.”
I saw the interviewer’s eyes dart to Harper for a reaction, and I did the same. Harper sat passive in her seat, but when our eyes met, hers immediately softened and she gave me a small smile of reassurance. I knew my explanation didn’t hurt her because she got me. Taking her hand, I lifted it to my lips and kissed it.
“What this experience has taught me is not to compare. For a long time, I felt as if I couldn’t go on. Being honest, I didn’t want to live, but I couldn’t be that selfish because I had a tiny helpless baby who needed me. For the first year I didn’t really pay much attention to Harper. She was someone who’d taken the weight off me and provided awesome care for my daughter.”
“Are you saying you’re with Harper because it’s good for Layla?”
“Not at all. What I’m saying is grieving was a very long process for me, but I knew I had to keep going, and having Harper there for Layla meant I could take the time to find some normalcy in my otherwise sorrowful existence. Going back out on the road quite early on was a mistake. I had thought if Layla grew up with this arrangement, it would feel normal to her. Obviously, I was naïve and my daughter eventually demanded my attention.”
“Is that when you cancelled some of your tour?”
“Yeah, I was emotionally shut down, and it wasn’t until I burned out a couple of years ago, I realized I wasn’t compensating for losing Grace, I was allowing her death to consume me. I was also anxious about what was ahead for my daughter growing up without her mom.”
Clutching Harper’s hand tight, I brought it to my lips again. “Since then Harper and I have lived alongside each other with the single focus of making Layla as emotionally secure and protected as we could, given her loss. I wouldn’t have gotten through it if it wasn’t for this amazing woman.”
Harper responded to my comment by cupping my face in a tender gesture, completely forgetting where we were, and we had this split-second moment. Smiling warmly, I eventually broke eye contact with her and refocused my attention on the interviewer.
“People can say what they want about me. I really don’t care what they think,” Harper stated in a defiant but nonconfrontational tone. “Neither Cole nor I expected any of this to happen, but Layla thinks it’s fabulous, because according to her, the two people she loves the most, love each other.”
My heart swelled at her honest admission, and I was impressed by her ballsy attitude during her moment in the limelight. Some of the reports had been less than favorable about our relationship, but they had no understanding of how much Harper had helped me during those early days and how incredibly loyal she’d been toward me and Layla.
“Can you give our audience an exclusive… is marriage on the cards?”
“No plans for marriage,” Harper informed everyone quickly. “I don’t believe Cole needs that kind of pressure with what happened to Grace, and I’m not in any hurry to replace her as his wife. Our relationship doesn’t need labels because something has changed in our living arrangements. We’ve been together before in a different way, but apart from sharing a bed, nothing much else in our household has changed. We both still parent Layla, we all love each other, and we love spending time together.”
As Harper continued to talk, my heart pulsed affectionately in agreement because it was clear how much she understood us. The audience’s ripples of applause were an indication of their growing admiration for her.
I also realized the time Harper had been with us had given her the confidence to speak with some authority when managing people.
“Let’s bring out the little girl who brought you guys together,” the hostess said, and the show theme suddenly played as Layla was labeled the matchmaker.
Walking calmly toward us like she’d been taught to do, I saw her smile widen the closer she got to Harper and I. Both of us naturally parted on the sofa to make room for Layla to sit, and after hugging us both, she turned, sat politely, and faced the camera.
“Aren’t you a pretty girl?” the talk show host asked her.
“I guess,” Layla replied, looking bashful, and was rewarded by a ripple of laughter and an ‘aw’ chorus from the audience.
The host then asked some general questions, to which Layla gave a few more cute answers and then she asked Layla if she was looking forward to Christmas coming.
“Yep.” She nodded, enthusiastically with a beaming smile and this was followed by the question of what she wanted from Santa.
“Well, I’d like a baby, but Harper says I have to wait until I’m older,” my daughter replied in all seriousness.
The audience laughed again, and the hostess immediately jumped on her comment, while my reaction to this almost put my brain into meltdown. The thought of Harper becoming pregnant terrified me.
“Is there anything you’d like to tell us?” the talk show host asked Harper, amused by Layla’s comment.
“No… but if we do have children, it will be to our timelines and not at the pressure of the media,” Harper responded.
Sensing the question had knocked the wind out of me, because having another child was the last thing on my mind, Harper answered in the same vein as the previous question, and I somehow got through the remainder of the segment before the interview ended. I pushed the subject out of my mind and was beginning to feel settled again by the time we left to go home. It had been a big day for Layla, but once in the car on the way home, she brought up the subject again.
“How long does it take to make a baby?”
I felt my hands grip the sides of the seat. Fortunately, I was in the front beside Stuart, with Layla and Harper in the back.
“A long time,” Harper replied, curtly in an attempt to shut the conversation down. She knew it made me nervous.
“Is it long until Christmas?” her enquiring mind asked.
