Page 82 of Bringing Home the Bacon
“Cookie?” He looks deep into my eyes. “We’re golden. That wasn’t because of you. I, uh—I saw my father last night.”
“What? Are you serious? How did that happen? How did it go? How do you feel?”
He chuckles. “Slow down, sister. Trent encouraged me to reach out. He said a lot of people have unresolved feelings rise up about their childhoods when they become parents. I didn’t want any of my… stuff to affect you and the kids. He’d been sending me messages on and off for years, so I finally responded. Long story short, he didn’t get my voicemails, but he saw an article about the restaurant and just showed up.”
“And how was it?”
“It was… fine. Finally talking to him and seeing him face-to-face… released all this tension I didn’t realize I’d been holding.” He strokes our son’s tiny head. “I don’t have to forgive him or let him be a grandfather to our bacon bits. But who knows? We left the door open. So maybe one day—if we find our footing—he can be their weird uncle or something.”
“Like they don’t already have enough of those,” I laugh.
“True,” he says. “Well, time will tell, I guess.”
“But you feel better?” I ask. “That’s all that matters.”
He sighs. “I do. I do feel better.”
“Knock, knock,” Gran’s singsong voice wafts into the room. “Have room for a few visitors?”
“We sure do,” I singsong back.
Ethan, Lia, Alex, Molly, Sam, and Diane all file in quietly behind Gran and gather around us.
“Come in, everybody. Come meet Cassandra Jane and Daniel James.”
Ethan speaks first. “Cassandra as in?—?”
“Sandra. Yeah,” I say. “We wanted to honor Mom while still giving little Cassie her own name. And her middle name Jane is for Bacon’s mom.”
Gran smiles. “Beautiful, sweetheart. Just beautiful.”
“And Daniel?” Sam gets choked up with emotion, a rarity for him.
“That one’s for you, buddy. We wanted to honor the man who taught me how to twin, the babies’ awesome Uncle Sam-Dan.”
Without a word, Sam rushes to my side and rests his head on my shoulder.
I pat him on the cheek. “Love you, brudder.”
“Love you too, Collie,” he whispers back. “Thank you.”
“And his middle name, James…” I continue.
“…is for Dad,” Alex says.
“Thank you for honoring my Jimmy,” Gran says.
“You bet, Gran,” I say. “Thank you for being you.”
Epilogue
Colleen
“A blindfold? Are you serious right now?” I say as I timidly shuffle-step toward what I think is the restaurant's back entrance with a handkerchief tied across my eyes. Bacon leads me by the hand, wearing one-week-old Cassie and Danny strapped to his chest in our fancy new double carrier. “You do realize I’ve seen what the restaurant looks like before,” I joke.
“Yes, but you haven’t seen the improvements the staff and I made over the past week while the babies were still in the hospital.”
Since the babies were born at thirty-five-and-a-half weeks—a tad earlier than twins are expected—the doctors thought it best that they stay under observation until it was deemed safe to discharge them. I’ve basically been by their sides nonstop, even showering and sleeping at the hospital.
