Coraline Sorrento Guzzi came into the world at six-oh-two in the evening with matted black curls stuck to her little head which they quickly covered with a knitted pink cap to keep her warm. She had ten fingers, ten toes, and two hazy blue eyes that found Ginevra’s the moment she was put to her mother’s breast. Her daddies cried. It was too much; she didn’t realize how instantaneous the overwhelming love would be for her baby until she was put in her arms.
They already had a life. Too much love to go around, really. In that moment, though, with her first breath, their daughter made them into something else.
A family.
CHRISTOPHER & VALERIA: PART 2
10.
Chris
“I can’t be late!”
“You’re not going to be late,” Chris assured Maria as he set her up on the kitchen island. She shoved a quarter of a piece of jam toast into her mouth like it was the last thing she was going to eat for the rest of her life. Really, she was just rushing unnecessarily. Like her mother, however, he found that he couldn’t tell the girl her anxieties were for nothing without causing a bigger issue. So, he opted to just do his duties and get her out the door and into his car for school. “We’re not running late, Maria.”
“Ten minutes later than yesterday!”
She had a point.
Frankly, Chris needed the extra ten minutes of snooze time that morning and still didn’t regret hitting that button earlier. Would he need to go ten over the limit the whole way to Maria’s private Catholic school?
Likely.
Still worth it.
Rounding the island so that he came behind Maria on the other side, Chris already had a brush and elastic ready. She finished destroying her toast while he pulled her long, dark black hair into the high pony she liked. A few sweeps of the brush to smooth everything down, and he easily slipped the elastic down the tail of her hair to keep it in place.
Chris checked the clock.
Two minutes.
Not bad at all.
“Come on, Daddy,” Maria muttered, not even bothering to wait for Chris to come around the counter to help her down before she jumped all on her own. “We gotta go now.”
“Maria,” he murmured, coming around the island again to stand in front of her. Well, he kneeled to be mostly eye-level with his daughter. He still thought it was ignorant and arrogant of adults to talk over kids when they would get far better results talking with them. “We’re not going to be late, baby. I promise.”
She let out a sigh, put one hand to her little hip, and those dark eyes of hers nailed right into his. It was only the browns of her eyes that sometimes made people pause when he introduced her as his daughter. Even those who didn’t know them, or the situation of how he had come to be with Valeria and in the process, adopted her daughter as his own—unofficially, at first, and then properly on paper later.
The browns of their eyes made people wonder—was she his? They looked so much alike that even the gold flakes in her gaze matched his own.
Not that it mattered.
Blood didn’t always make a family.
But like this, with her little hand on her hip while she stared at him as though he was being entirely ridiculous and she just couldn’t believe it, Maria looked the most like her mother. Chris kind of loved that, too.
“Okay,” Maria said, “but listen, Daddy, I finally learned how to sing the Canadian anthem in French, and I don’t want to miss singing it with the rest of my class when they do morning notes on the speakers. So, we have to leave. Right now.”
“You won’t miss it.”
She gave him another look, and pursed her pink lips. “Promise?”
Chris held out his pinky for her to take with his own because it was still the very best way for Maria to trust any promise he made her. “Pinky promise.”
Maria hooked their fingers and shook on it. “I gotta go get my book bag.”
“I’ll meet you at the front door.”
“Got it!”
She yelled that over her shoulder as she headed for the kitchen entryway, passing her oncoming mother on the way. The sparkly pink running shoes were a stark contrast to the pleated skirt, high black socks that reached her little knees, and the white shirt with a bow at the collar the school used as a uniform.
But, the kids were allowed to wear whatever shoes they wanted, and Maria always had to have something that stood out from the rest. Even if they didn’t match her outfit.
“What was that all about?” Val asked, grinning as she crossed the kitchen.
Standing, Chris met his wife of almost five months—two weeks before they hit that milestone—with a smile that matched her own. Before answering her question, he dragged her close for a quick, burning kiss that he hadn’t been able to get from her that morning because she’d been too busy running for the shower while he attempted to get Maria ready for school.
Life with a kid was chaotic.
Chris wouldn’t change it.
Not for anything.
Slowing his kiss so that he could just enjoy the way Valeria’s lips moved in tandem with his own, he pressed his forehead to hers and took a moment to have her there with him. Present. Safe. And entirely happy.
Also, his.
“Nothing,” he assured her. “She just wants to get to school. I think the French tutor has helped to make her ... more comfortable, you know? So many kids in that school are bilingual, and she knows it makes her different that she can’t talk like they do.”
Val huffed. “Maybe they should learn her second language.”
“I’m in the process of donating enough that they’ll have a year-round class of Spanish and a summer program. In the meantime, French will be her third language. What’s wrong with that?”
“Well ...”
He gave her a look.
Val only rolled her eyes. “Thank you.”
“Never thank me for loving you two, yeah?”
“I know. Still will.”
Probably.
He’d still remind her that she didn’t have to.
“Thanks for taking her this morning,” Val added. “I can’t believe they changed the time of my doctor’s appointment that late last night.”
“It’s fine. I got it. And the doctor ... that’s all standard stuff, right?”
“Just getting the IUD removed and switching to the shot once everything settles.”
Chris cleared his throat. “Do you want to change birth controls, or ...”
“We need something.”
“Do we?”
Val stilled. “Are you asking me not to get a new birth control?”
“I’m saying we didn’t really talk about it, and maybe I would like to. Or perhaps you would, but since we didn’t take a minute to sit down and chat, neither of us know what the other wants. That’s all.”
“When do we have time?” she shot back, grinning.
Chris laughed. “Point taken. But I’m taking the time now.”
“Yeah, right now when you’re late taking our daughter to school, and I have forty-five minutes to get to the city for this damn appointment. Probably not the best time, Chris.”
“Maybe I’m giving you forty-five minutes to think about what you want, then.”