“Sort of puts some things into perspective, doesn’t it?” she asked after a long period of quiet.

“Yeah. Not that our grief isn’t real and valid.” It had only been a few weeks since they’d lost their unborn child, and they were both still coming to terms with the loss.

“At least we’re adults and know how to deal with it,” she said. “For the most part. Those poor babies will never understand this.”

“Seamus and Carolina will help them through it.”

“They won’t remember much about her.” Maddie wiped away a tear. “They’re too young. It kills me to know that if something happened to me today, Thomas and Hailey wouldn’t remember me.”

“Don’t even say that.” The very thought of something happening to her was enough to send Mac into a full-on panic. “Please don’t even think it.”

“This is a big reminder that we need to talk about these things, Mac. We were just recently off the island for a couple of days. What if something had happened to us? We need guardians for the kids. Hell, we need a will.”

“I have a will. I leave everything to you.”

“That’s nice to know, but what if we both die at the same time? What happens to our kids?”

“Do we have to talk about this today when we’ve just come from the saddest thing I’ve seen in a really long time?”

“No, but we do need to talk about it. I want to make an appointment with Dan to go over this stuff.”

“Okay.”

“We have to decide who’d get the kids if something happens to us.”

“That’s easy. They’d go to my parents.”

“What about my parents?”

Mac glanced across at her, and the challenging expression on her face indicated this might not be as easy as he thought.

“You see? We need to have this conversation. What if your parents don’t want to raise their grandchildren?”

“Of course they would. If they couldn’t, Janey and Joe could.”

“Or Tiffany and Blaine.”

“Are we going to fight about this?”

“There’s a very good chance we will if you automatically assume they’re going to your family, as if mine doesn’t exist.”

“Point taken. And you’re right. We do need to talk about it. Just not today, okay?”

“Okay. I know you cared a lot about Lisa, and you love those boys.”

“I really do, and Shane and I were so happy to be building that house for someone who truly deserved the break. This whole thing is so unfair.”

“It’s made me extra thankful that I have you, because if anything happened to me, you’d be there for our kids.”

“I’d be a disaster without you, so please don’t let anything happen to you. For the sake of your children, you have to stick around.”