Page 131 of Promise

Mirabelle is oblivious to all of this in her honor, peacefully sleeping through her morning nap, while I’ve been a wreck. I don’t think I slept at all last night.

Dart chuckles, and I notice that I’m scowling at myself.

“Think they’ll say no,” I whisper, when it’s not really a fear. Cassidy Lane said it’s very cut and dry. Some forms. A judge. A photograph.

Afterward, there will be a party in the yard.

Dart laughs harder. “Not a chance.” He kisses the side of my neck.

“Do I look like a mother?” I ask him, smoothing my hand over my belly for some reason.

“Yes. You look like Mirabelle’s mom.” He smiles at my reflection over my shoulder. “And I have something to make it official.”

He scoops his arm around me and dangles something from his fingers.

A long chain with a delicate pendant.

“It’s called Mother and Child,” he explains of the larger figure with circular arms, extended toward a smaller one. I’ve seen it countless times. Wanted one for so long.

“I’ve been holding onto this for years.”

Our eyes meet in the mirror.

A dozen years. Three angel babies. Gone but never forgotten.

And yet we have a new angel to guard.

“Dart,” I whisper, tears filling my eyes as I watch him open the clasp and fasten the chain around my neck. He straightens the latch, and I hold the pendant in my hand, staring at myself once more in the mirror.

“Now, you really look like a mother,” he says, lowering his voice and his head toward my ear. “One hot momma.”

I laugh through the tears, blinking them away.

This man. His ridiculousness.

“Thank you,” I whisper. “For everything.”

He sets his chin on the top of my shoulder. “Forever.” He winks at me. “And we should get going.”

I’m wearing a dress. Dart has on tan slacks and a button-down shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows. It’s the most dressed up he’s been in years. And Mirabelle, she’s in a sweet pink dress that matches mine.

We ride to the courthouse, just the three of us. We don’t need the fanfare of family and friends. We’re saving that for the backyard. For now, I want this moment to be private, monumental.

And it is, especially as the judge holds out a pen to Dart.

“What?” He stares at the form in front of him. A legal request to change Mirabelle’s rather generic birth certificate.

My name is in the box designated for mother.

And Dart’s name fills the one marked Father.

“Trin?” He looks up at me, surprised, shocked really, but so full of hope.

Before we talked about Dart being Mirabelle’s dad, I knew I’d put him on the birth certificate.

He is Mirabelle’s father.

But Dart wasn’t present when the social worker walked me through the final paperwork, and I asked her if there was a way to surprise him.