Charlotte smiled up at Robert, silently promising to give him the life they had both always wished for. She would see to it that their home was forever a place filled with laughter and warmth and above all else, love.

Epilogue

Five Years Later

“It’s your turn.”

Agitated gurgling noises echo from the baby monitor and are growing louder by the second.

“No way,” I answer. “Those two belong to you and you alone until midnight.”

“I’ll give you a million dollars if you go instead.” Ryan’s words are barely audible with his face pushed down into the pillow like it is.

I pull the covers more snugly around me and turn the other way. “You already owe me twelve million.”

His hands slip around my waist, pulling me back until I’m flush against him. He breathes in deep along the side of my neck and I’m somehow able to smile through my exhausted haze.

“They like you better than me,” he says.

I flip onto my back. “Yeah, right. Mia is a daddy’s girl through and through.”

“She smiles more for you, though.”

“That’s because I stare and sing and talk to her all day. She only smiles at me to throw me a bone and to keep me from fully descending into insanity.”

“No, she loves you.” Ryan twists away and grabs the baby monitor screen from off the nightstand. “Tim is still passed out like a champ, though. Maybe if we wish really hard, Mia will go back to sleep.”

Ryan and I both close our eyes and ten seconds later, we have two ten-month-old babies crying at full blast.

I open my eyes and look over at my husband, fully defeated. “My wish didn’t come true.”

Ryan looks back at me with a drowsy but content smile. “Mine did.” He rolls over and kisses me before dragging himself out of bed.

I rub my eyes with one hand as I pick up my phone with the other to check the time. It’s only 9:46 p.m. but it feels like 4:00 in the morning. Parent sleep deprivation is so very real. I drop my phone back onto the nightstand with a groan.

Motherhood has, without a doubt, been the most earth-shatteringly wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, but it has also been the most physically and emotionally draining. When I found out I was pregnant, it was one of the happiest days of my life. When I found out that I was pregnant with twins, I almost fainted in terror.