Page 86 of It Must Be Fate

“I am brave,” the girls answer in unison. “I am smart.”

“I am special,” Hayes says.

Thayer and I speak the words along with them, the same words we say every night before turning off the lights and leaving them to their dreams. We’re raising our girls to be confident in knowing how special they are so that no one ever makes them feel less than.

“I am kind,” Ivy adds.

“I am beautiful,” they say together. “I am compassionate.” The word gets garbled by Ivy’s missing baby teeth. “I am…”

They falter, both of them momentarily forgetting the next part as their eyes flutter shut, heavy with sleep.

“I am fearless,” Thayer and I fill in for them.

“I am fearless,” they repeat.

“And?” I prompt.

Thayer rolls her eyes.

“And no boy will ever deserve the air I breathe or the ground I walk on,” they parrot back to me.

“Keep going,” I say with an encouraging move of my hand.

“And if ever one of them is mean to me or tries something on with me, my Daddy will kill them and bury them in an unsparked grave,” they crow back happily as I mouth the words alongside them.

“Unmarkedgrave,” I correct, adding with a proud smile to my wife, “That’s my girls.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

She shakes her head but her words carry no heat.

“Goodnight, darlings,” she says, bending to kiss each of their cheeks.

“Night, Mummy.”

I give Ivy an Eskimo kiss. “Goodnight, little bow.”

She giggles. “Night, Daddy.”

Leaning over her, I give Hayes a butterfly kiss. “Goodnight, little cloud.”

She cups my face and kisses my cheek. “Bonne nuit,Daddy.” She’s been learning French at daycare to surprise her aunt Six and likes to practice when she can.

“Love you,” I call, as I put an arm around Thayer’s shoulders and turn the light off with my other hand.

“Love you, Daddy,” they answer together. It’s immediately followed by the sound of them burrowing deeper into their beds.

Thayer and I leave their room, closing the door softly behind us.

“Those two are Daddy’s little girls through and through,” she says, hooking her arms around my neck.

I hoist her into mine, wrapping her legs around my waist. “Definitely. But why don’t I remind you who my favorite girl is?”

She laughs as I carry her into our bedroom and kick the door closed behind us.

***

Twelve years after graduation

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