Page 173 of Reckless Hearts

Saskia puts on the purple hat while Joe reads the joke aloud. “What did the grape say when it got stepped on?”

“What?” Saskia asks.

“Nothing, it just let out a little wine,” Joe says with a grin, and Saskia laughs loudly.

Joe is so good for Saskia, balancing her intensity with his steady calm and meeting her sharp edges with soft understanding.

They didn’t have the smoothest start to their relationship, given they met when Joe was the social worker assigned to help Saskia, Marcus, and I navigate the surrogacy process.

Because New Zealand law bans commercial surrogacy and the child legally belongs to the surrogate mother until the adoption is finalized after birth, the surrogacy process is a complex legal and emotional journey.

When Saskia first offered to be an egg donor and surrogate for us, I’d been overwhelmed with emotion, stammering my thanks.

Saskia had responded by rolling her eyes. “Don’t be an idiot, Seb. I always thought it was something I’d like to do for you and for Marcus if either of you wanted to have kids. The fact you’re together just makes it easier for me, right?”

“I guess you could think of it as one of the perks,” I’d said, and she laughed.

We all liked Joe the moment we met him, but none of us had foreseen how close he and Saskia would become as he counseled her through the surrogacy process.

Of course, when Joe realized he had some nonprofessional feelings toward her, he immediately transferred our case to another social worker and distanced himself, which caused a lot of drama at the time.

Luckily, Saskia knew a good thing when she saw it and showed incredible patience to wait until enough time had passed before pursuing him.

“Well, it’s only fair that given I did something nice for you, I should get something nice in return, right?” she’d said on her wedding day as I was helping her adjust the veil.

I’d snorted a laugh. That logic was so Saskia. “Yes, I guess it’s only fair.”

After dessert,we head back outside so the kids can play in the paddling pool. Marley and Mia both look so cute running around with the water wings my parents gave them for Christmas, but George is more interested in trying to catch a cicada buzzing in the Pohutukawa tree, his tongue poking out in concentration as he maps out his capture strategy like a military operation.

When he finally catches it, he cups his hands together like he’s holding treasure and carries it carefully to where Marcus and I are sitting together on the deck.

“Daddy, Papa, look!” He opens his fingers just enough to give us a glimpse of iridescent wings. “Do you know that cicadas spend most of their lives underground?”

“Good god, now I’ve got scientific facts coming at me from all directions,” Marcus says, shooting me a smile.

“Don’t pretend you don’t love it,” I say, bending to examine the cicada more closely. George opens his hands so I can see it better.

“Do you see the patterns on its wings? Every species has its own unique design, like a fingerprint.”

George studies the cicada carefully, and he looks so much like Marcus when he’s reading a script for the first time that it almost stops my heart.

The sunny Christmasafternoon stretches on forever. We eat leftovers from Christmas lunch for dinner and don’t leave my parents’ house until eight p.m.

Mia falls asleep in the car. When we reach our house, Marcus gently lifts her out of her car seat, cradling her against his chest with the same gentle precision he used when she was a newborn. Her dark curls spill over his arm, and she burrows into his neck without waking, still clutching her new stuffed penguin she hasn’t let go of all day.

And I can’t help giving my husband a soft kiss, our daughter between us with her Christmas dress fanned out like fairy wings, before I’m on duty shepherding a sleepy George to change into his pajamas and brush his teeth.

George insists I put the dreamcatcher in his window, so I carefully hang it where the moonlight will catch its intricate web of threads and beads.

When I’ve finished, George regards the dreamcatcher with a rumpled forehead.

“Daddy, dreams can come true, right?” George asks.

Can dreams come true?

My mind flies back to fifteen-year-old me, standing in the kitchen, struck speechless by the appearance of my sister’s new friend, the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.

If I’d known then that one day he’d be my husband, best friend, and co-parent, I’m fairly sure I would have dropped more than a box of Froot Loops.

I don’t think I would have ever dared to dream about this future, where I spend nearly every day with my gorgeous husband, who is the bravest, most talented, kindest person I’ve ever met. Who has transformed his pain into purpose, his struggles into strength, and who shows our children every day what it means to be truly, authentically human.

“Dreams definitely can come true,” I tell George. “But sometimes life surprises you beyond anything you could ever imagine.”