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When Rebecca gets the girls from school that afternoon, she knows something’s up.
It’s obvious from the second they amble into the backseat. Although they typically have pretty good days at school, the gleeful smiles on their faces are unusual. They’re nearly vibrating, too, both of them looking as if they’re about to bust at the seams.
About what, she’s not sure.
“Hi, darlings,” she greets with a curious smile of her own, twisted in her seat to look at them.
She gets twin echoes of “hi, mama” and “hi, mummy” in return as they work at buckling themselves in. Charlie’s hair is no longer in the braid she was sporting this morning, blonde strands in wild curls around her shoulders. Grace’s bangs are in similar disarray; the wind must have whipped them in every direction and they simply just stuck like that. Adorable.
With a quiet laugh, she turns back around.
“How was school?” she asks a bit leadingly, glancing at them in the rear view mirror as she pulls away from the curb.
The girls look at each other and giggle like they know something she doesn’t.
“Good,” Charlie says, diplomatically.
“Yeah, it was real good, mama,” Grace agrees with a sweet smile. “We had lots of fun in art class, we even—” Her sister shoots her a very pointed look, and she stops mid-sentence. Casually, she finishes by repeating: “We just had lots of fun.”
“That sounds lovely, baby,” she says. “I’m very happy you two had a nice day.”
Rebecca lets them have their secret for now, mostly because it’s clear they’re excited about something and not concealing some terrible event.
The whole way home it becomes even more evident that something is afoot. Quiet whispers, rummaging noises that tell her they’re checking in their school bags, the light tapping of Grace’s shoes against the mat at her feet as her knees bounce.
When they pull up to the house, the two of them dart from the car like it’s on fire. Rebecca has no sooner cut the engine before the back door’s flinging open and the girls are scrambling onto the pavement; they run up the path, their bookbags held in their arms rather than on their backs.
Ted’s home with Olive and, like most days when Rebecca does school pickup and he knows she’s usually got her arms full, he makes sure the front door is unlocked by the time they return. This means Charlie and Grace fly right inside, one tiny blonde speed racer right after the other.
By the time Rebecca joins them inside, they’re nowhere to be found. She does find Ted in the entryway, though, a soft smile on his face and amusement in the shine of his eyes.
“Did you happen to see two tornadoes pass through here?” she asks with a smirk as she steps into him for a chaste kiss.
He tilts his head as he pretends to think about it. “Now let’s see. About this tall,” he recounts, holding a hand perpendicular at roughly hip height, “identical, trackin’ water through the house but cute as buttons while doing it?”
Rebecca hums. “Those are the ones.”
“Yup, blew through here about three minutes ago. I asked how two of my favorite girls were doing and they didn’t even slow down. Just yelled, ‘no time, daddy!’, so… tryin’ not to take that personally.”
She laughs, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. “They’ve been suspiciously giddy since I picked them up. Something’s brewing.”
“Ooh, dangerous,” he says, voice full of faux fear. “Is this what happens when little girls turn eight? Secrets and scheming?”
Echoing something Keeley told her years ago, Rebecca shrugs and pats his arm sympathetically. “Little girls are mysterious.”
Uncurling herself from Ted’s side, she finally divests herself of her coat and unwraps her scarf from around her neck. She hangs both on their designated hook near the front door and then slips out of her heels, toeing them neatly (ish) against the wall to be brought upstairs later tonight.
“Speaking of little girls, it’s quite… quiet,” she says then, still hovering in the foyer. “Is Olive down for a nap?”
Ted nods. “Tired herself out playing dress up. Those little heels got ‘er good. She’s just like her mama, that one.”
With a pleased grin, Rebecca squeezes his arm. “While she sleeps, let’s go see if we can find out what our other two children are up to.”
They’re seeking the girls out, making their way through the hallway toward the kitchen, when they come barreling out of the opposite door.
They skid on the wood in their stocking-clad feet, wide smiles on their little faces. Grace makes a beeline for Rebecca, while Charlie slams into her father’s legs instead of trying to stop on her own. Her arms wrap around his hips and he brings a hand down to rest on her back.
“So now you’ve got time to hug your dear old dad?” he teases, bending to dust a kiss to her wild hair.
Charlie tips her head back to look up at him. “Sorry, daddy. We had important business.”
“Important business,” he repeats with a laugh.
“Uh huh,” Grace confirms from where she’s got both of her mother’s hands clutched in her own. “Very important business.”
Rebecca, not wanting to take her hand out of Grace’s, runs her thumbs back and forth along her skin instead. “Do we get to know what this very important business is or is it a secret?”
“It was a secret, but now you can know.”
At that, Grace starts tugging. “Come on,” she encourages, leading Rebecca toward the dining room.
Rebecca glances over at Ted and arches a brow. He’s following close behind, guided by Charlie.
Right as they get to the threshold, Grace stops short and turns around, holding out a palm. “Stop! You gotta close your eyes.”
“Oh, okay.”
She does as she’s told.
“Just your mama, or do I have to close my eyes, too?”
The girls look at each other, and then back. “You can look,” they decide.
It becomes clear that whatever the secrecy was for, whatever this surprise is, it’s for Rebecca. He gets a glimpse of said surprise as their girls lead them through the door and into the room.
Rebecca is helped in by Grace, who’s taking her job very seriously. “I got you, mama,” she says, focusing on their path to make sure she won’t knock into anything.
“I know you do, love.”
The smile on his face is involuntary as he takes in the display before them. He only just manages to hold in the emotional oh that nearly slips. He doesn’t want to ruin their surprise. But oh, she’s totally gonna cry. Of that he has no doubt.
“Okay, stay right there,” Grace instructs, guiding Rebecca into position at the head of the table.
“Can I open my eyes yet?”
There’s silence as they scurry over to the table, small hands fiddling with positioning and organization as if it isn’t already perfect, as if it wouldn’t be perfect if it was just thrown up there in one big pile.
But they are their mother’s daughters and they fix the things there until they deem it good enough.
And then:
“Okay, you can open them now, mummy.”
Rebecca opens her eyes to a sight that brings tears to her eyes. Her girls are leaning on either side of the table, practically folded over the surface. There are expectant, closed-mouth smiles on their faces, and between them is the most precious display of Valentine’s Day gifts.
“Surprise!”
“Happy Valentine’s Day, mama!”
“Oh, my loves,” she breathes, one hand raising to cover her mouth. Ted rubs the small of her back.
“Come look,” Charlie tells her, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
Rebecca steps forward then, fingertips tracing over the penmanship of one of the handmade cards. There are two, of course, unique to each of her girls; she’s holding Grace’s in her hand, she knows, can tell by the slant of her ‘A’ and the swirly tail on the ‘Y’, by the pink marker used.
It’s confirmed when she opens it and, in her loopy, crooked handwriting, finds:
Happy Valentine’s Day, Mama!
I love you this much | |
Love Grace
She chokes an emotional laugh as she picks up Charlie’s card. Purple marker, a straight tail to the ‘Y’ and two curved lines for her ‘H’.
Best mummy in the world
Happy Valentine’s Day !
xoxoxoxo (lots) Charlie
“These are beautiful,” Rebecca says, opening her arms. Both girls come easily, slotting perfectly on either side. She curls them in, cupping the backs of their heads as she leans to kiss each one. “I love you both so much. Thank you, darlings.”
“Love you, mama.”
Charlie’s “love you” is muffled where her face is tucked into her stomach.
Grace points to the table. “Look, do you like the balloon?” she asks, gesturing to a little heart shaped balloon, red in color and attached to a long white plastic stick.
With an amused sniffle, she nods. “I do. It’s very pretty.”
“There’s chocolate too,” Charlie says, no longer squished against her mother. “Different kinds, ‘cause we know you love chocolate.”
“Daddy too. It’s your chocolate but you can share if you want.”
They both laugh at that.
Rebecca cuts her gaze to Ted. “I’ll share with you,” she promises.
“That’s mighty kind of ya,” he muses. He looks from the spread to the twins. “You girls did real good, what beautiful gifts for your mama.”
“Like you didn’t know,” Rebecca tells him. “You three…”
“Uh uh. This was all them.” He waves his hand toward Charlie and Grace. “I had no part in this.”
A crease forms between her brows. “You didn’t give them money for this stuff?”
Ted shakes his head. “No, ma’am.”
“Girls,” she starts, glancing from one of them to the next. “How did you pay for this?”
“You gave us money,” Charlie says.
It takes her a moment, because she certainly doesn’t remember giving them money for this, but then it hits her.
“I gave you two money for lunch for tomorrow’s school trip,” she says. The girls’ class is going to the science museum; they typically eat off school grounds for trips, so she gave each of them a bit of money to get something.
But they just look at her like it’s not computing.
She asks, “This is incredibly sweet of you both, but how were you going to buy something for lunch tomorrow?”
Because if she hadn’t asked, they wouldn’t have told her that they used that money for her gifts.
Charlie shrugs. “We weren’t,” she says. Easy. “We’d ask daddy to make us lunch to take.”
Grace nods in agreement. “Yeah.”
Her heart bursts in her chest, warmth spreading quickly through her system.
“Girls…”
Her girl frowns. “Mama, you’re important,” Grace says, her nose wrinkling.
“We don’t need a fancy lunch. ‘Sides, daddy’s lunches are way more fancy,” Charlie adds, getting a wet laugh from Ted.
He wipes at his eyes as he says, “Well, thank you for that, baby. I’ll make you both lunch whenever you want.”
“Tomorrow?” Grace asks then, hopeful green eyes trained on him now.
“We can give you more money for tomorrow, sweetheart,” he says. But they both shake their heads. “No? Well, alright then. Lunch tomorrow it is.”
They smile at him, and he gets two sweet, “thanks, daddy,” in response.
“Oh, come here,” Rebecca says, her throat burning from the emotion. They wrap themselves in her tight hug once more. “You’re both so beautiful. On the outside, but on the inside too. You know that?”
There are adorable flushes of pink on their cheeks, and she takes one palm to each of them.
“We wanted to make you happy,” Charlie says. “‘Cause we love you.”
“And ‘cause you make us happy.”
“Uh huh.”
Her eyes fill some more, tears threatening to spill over onto her cheeks. Her smile is wobbly but oh so content.
“My sweet, thoughtful girls,” she breathes. She can feel the mascara tingling at her waterline; she didn’t realize she should’ve worn waterproof today. “You both make me so happy. Every day.”
“Really?”
“Really,” she confirms emphatically, thumb pressing gently against the dimple that deepens on Grace’s cheek. “And you know what?”
“What?”
“I know your daddy feels the same way.”
“He sure does,” Ted seconds easily, stepping closer to the trio. His palm runs comforting lines along Rebecca’s back, traveling the length of her spine. “You make me the happiest man in the world every day, all four of ya. And the luckiest, too.”
Their pleased little faces are everything—the bright eyes, the round cheeks and toothy smiles.
“Mummy?”
She rubs her hand down Charlie’s hair. “Yeah, baby?”
“Can we have a piece of chocolate?” she asks.
Rebecca laughs, her head tipped back. “Yes, of course. Go wash your hands and you can both pick out which kind you’d like a piece of.”
The girls take off into the kitchen, leaving her alone with Ted. She shakes her head a little, amused and touched in equal measures; she wipes beneath her eyes, the smile on her face now soft.
“Christ, they sure know how to make their mother a weepy old mess,” she muses, glancing toward the ceiling as she blinks.
“Far from old, darlin’,” he corrects lightly, earning him a fond eye roll. “But ya know, it’s hard not to be weepy when we’ve got just about the sweetest little girls on the planet on our hands.”
Rebecca pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, her tongue darting out to soothe the area a moment later. He lifts his palms to her cheeks, thumbs brushing away the remainder of the tears. His hands descend then, trailing over her shoulders to press gently at her shoulder blades. She lets him tug her into a hug, and she basks in the warmth of him around her.
“All three of them.”
Because even as young as she is, Olive is a darling.
“All learnin’ from the best,” he says. Before she can protest or say something about how their kindness is mostly him, as she’s known to do, he raps his fingers against her back and continues: “The both of us.”
“Right,” she breathes.
She’s not ignorant to the fact that she’s at least half of the girls’ upbringing, nor to the fact that the girls were the most precious little things before Ted came into their lives. And while she’s certain they simply inherited much of his gentle nature, she knows she plays a role in how they interact with themselves and others.
She’s not perfect, though; she still has those moments of self-doubt, so it’s always nice to hear the reminder. And Ted doles it out frequently.
“You’re a fantastic mother, Rebecca. The lengths those girls go to show you just how much they love you is testament to that.”
Eyes watery again, she leans back to capture his mouth in a delicate kiss. Fingers now digging gently into his dimples, hidden behind the stubble she loves so much, she meets his gaze.
“Thank you,” she murmurs.
He smiles, but says: “Never have to thank me for tellin’ you the truth.”
“I’m thanking you anyway.” She presses another kiss to his lips, lingering a bit more now. “I love you.”
“I love you,” he says against the corner of her mouth. “Thank you.”
She looks at him, brows drawn. “For what?”
“Being you. Giving me those three girls. Lovin’ me the way you do. Take your pick.”
Rebecca crashes her mouth against his again, her tongue sliding against his while her hands travel along his jaw to tangle in his hair. One of his slips down to cup the curve of her ass, the other holding at the nape of her neck.
The light chatter of their girls as they finish up in the kitchen eventually pulls them apart.
“I can’t wait to give you your present,” she exhales, their breaths mingling as their foreheads rest against each other.
“You already gave me your present.”
This morning, after they watched Charlie and Grace’s wide-eyed, elated reactions to the Valentine’s Day spread they’d set up for them—
After the girls went to bed the previous night, they got to work setting up their stuff. They draped the small tea table in the play room with a sheer pink cover and tied a few Valentine’s themed balloons to their baskets to keep them in place.
Inside each girl’s basket is a soft, heart-shaped purse; a fuzzy heart-shaped notebook with a tiny gold lock and a pen with a matching fluffy pink heart coming out the top that bobbles when it moves; a cute zipper makeup bag (for their chapsticks, lipsticks, and the kiddie sized blushes they have now) with “C” and “G” embroidered on the front; a pair of pajamas with a precious red heart design; and a charm bracelet.
In the morning they placed the carton of chocolate covered strawberries in the middle of the table, along with the other chocolate for the girls to share.
“Mama, I love it,” Grace breathes, rifling carefully through the large basket of goodies. “Charlie, look!”
She pulls out the charm bracelet and holds it up with a quiet, awed, “wow.”
Charlie finds hers and leans in to her sister so they can compare. “They’re so pretty,” she says, her voice still adorably scratchy with sleep. “Daddy, can you put it on me?”
Ted puts both the girls’ bracelets on for them while Rebecca watches on, a sleepy Olive on her hip. She has her own basket in the living room, a few cute Valentine’s themed toys and clothes, and she looks forward to watching her open it in between the girls going off to school and her heading off to the club.
“Thank you, mama, thank you, daddy.”
Mouth full of chocolate covered strawberry — breakfast of champions today, of course — Charlie turns those big eyes of hers on her parents and nods her thank you.
Rebecca smiles, her heart light. Seeing her girls happy and grateful is all she could ever ask for. Olive tucks her face into her neck just as Ted presses a kiss to her temple.
“You’re welcome, my loves.”
—Rebecca also gave Ted a small basket of chocolates, a card, and a new water bottle to replace the one he’d lost out on the pitch last week.
“No, I gave you a child-friendly placeholder,” she corrects, palm flat against his chest. “I have something special for you to unwrap tonight.”
His eyes flash, but before he can comment the girls come padding back into the room. He catches Rebecca’s gaze as she begins to tend to them, hand on Grace’s upper back as she guides her over toward the chocolates.
“Cruel,” he mouths.
She smirks, a dangerous lift of her lips.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, daddy,” Charlie’s voice brings him back, a small piece of milk chocolate outstretched in offering.
He smiles as he takes it. “Thank you kindly,” he says. “Happy Valentine’s Day, sweet pea.”
When he looks up, Rebecca’s popping her own square of dark chocolate into her mouth. She isn’t looking at him, her attention solely on helping Grace split another piece, so she isn’t trying to play with him when she brings her thumb to her lips and sucks on it.
Not until she feels his attention on her and lifts her eyes to his, that is, and then she snorts at the blush on the apples of his cheeks. She does it again, not even trying to be seductive but instead teasingly, and he laughs.
“What’s funny?” Grace asks.
With a glint in her eye, Rebecca cocks her head. “Yeah, daddy, what’s funny?”
“Nothing, darlin’,” he tells her, stealing another piece of chocolate. “Just… thought of something.”
“What?”
Rebecca brings a hand up, fingers steepled over her mouth to hide her amusement. Because she knows exactly what he was thinking of.
“An old joke your Uncle Beard told me,” he lies.
They both look at him funny. Charlie is the one to speak. “You’re weird sometimes, daddy,” she says, cheeks puffed out as she chews. There’s a smudge of chocolate at the corner of her mouth.
He laughs, a loud thing, Rebecca’s not far behind. She covers her mouth fully then.
“Thank you, honey,” he pats her on the shoulder. “You’ve got a little…”
He takes a napkin and wipes at the chocolate, his chest warm with the giggle she lets out.
“Don't worry,” Grace assures him as he does, earnest eyes trained upward. “We love you even when you're weird, okay?”
Ted chuckles. “I appreciate the reassurance.”
As they distract themselves again, pleading with their mama for one more piece as she tells them they can have more of their own chocolate after dinner, Ted thinks it’s true. Surrounded by this welcomed chaos, a table full of gifts straight from the heart, a third little girl he can hear beginning to stir upstairs, and the promise of getting to show Rebecca just how much he loves her tonight, he really is the luckiest man in the world.
When Rebecca peers at him over their girls' heads, the tender look on her face tells him she's thinking the same thing.