Dropping the Ball

Ten Years from Now…

Kaitlyn

“ARE YOU READY FOR this?” I ask as I straighten Micah’s tie.

“Not sure it’s the kind of thing you can be ready for,” he says.

“It’s so well deserv—” I break off as we hear a whoop followed by a loud thump through the door of the adjoining hotel room.

Before we can reach it, Tori pops her head through. “Nothing to worry about, y’all. Frankie was showing me a trick and it went sideways. Literally. She flipped right off the bed, but she landed on her feet.”

My mother-in-law moves out of the way as our six-year-old, Frankie, wiggles through the opening into our room.

“I was showing Grandma my tumbling, but I got mixed up,” she says. She’s dressed in her favorite pajamas, a pair Tori bought her for Christmas with Daisy’s face printed all over them.

“Did you hurt yourself?” I ask as she comes over for a hug.

“No. Can’t I go with you and Daddy?” She rests her head against my stomach, and I smooth her flyaway wisps of hair.

“Sure,” I tell her. “But you’ll need to be very quiet. You have to sit at the table all night without wiggling and be so polite while you listen to all the adults talk about business.”

“Or you can stay with Grandma in the room,” Micah says. “Mom, didn’t you say something about ordering hot fudge sundaes from room service while you watch a movie?”

Another tousled head appears as our three-year-old, Alex slips past Tori. He heads straight for Micah who swoops him up without a second thought for the dress shirt he’s wearing beneath his black suit jacket.

Alex pats his dad’s cheek. “Ice cweam?”

“I don’t think so,” Micah says. “It sounds like you’d rather come sit at our boring grownup dinner.”

Frankie straightens and stiffens. “We do not. We want ice cream.”

Micah frowns. “Are you sure? There’s going to be lots of long speeches, and we get peas with our dinner. It sounds delicious.”

Alex wrinkles his nose and gives Frankie a disgruntled look. “Ice cweam.”

“Ice cream,” Frankie confirms.

“You can’t just change your mind like that,” I tell her. “Grandma is all ready for a nice, quiet evening by herself now. You have to convince her.”

Tori has been leaning against the doorway, watching her grandkids with amusement. “I do like the idea of having the ice cream all to myself.”

Frankie abandons me to fling her arms around her grandmother’s waist. “Please can we stay with you, Grandma?”

Alex watches with big eyes to see how this is going to go.

Tori hugs Frankie to her. “I’ll make you a deal. You can stay and have ice cream with me on one condition. You’re going to have to show me more of your tumbling. Do we have a deal?”

“Deal!” Frankie shouts.

Alex looks at Micah. “Ice cweam?”

Micah boops his nose and confirms, “Ice cream, little man.”

Alex wiggles to be put down and walks over to Tori. “Stay wif Gwandma.”

“I’ll try not to take it personally that he’s really choosing ice cream and not me,” Tori says, winking at me.

Tori has become one of my favorite people. When I got pregnant with Frankie, Micah had a long talk with his mom. Several, over a few weeks, actually. The result was that we built a casita for her on our property, and she moved in. She watches the kids for us and works on different art projects when she’s not. First, it was watching Frankie full-time, but Alex came along as Frankie started preschool, and then it was him full-time. When he starts preschool in a couple of months, Tori is going to art school, watching the kids when they get home from school.

When my dad retired last year, I took over as the CEO of Armstrong Industries, and he and my mom often swoop in and steal the kids from Tori for grandparent time. Between these two and Madison’s three, my dad might be nearly as busy as he was as CEO. At least, that’s the joke he makes often.

Tori shepherds Frankie and Alex back to her room, and Micah slips an arm around my waist. “You were right; it was a great idea to bring them all for this.”

We’re in Minneapolis for an architecture conference. Or at least Micah is. The rest of us tagged along because he’s receiving an award for North American Contemporary Building of the Year for a new museum that opened in San Antonio last fall. It’s a three-level masterpiece that showcases the best in sustainable engineering, but its breathtaking design has been winning fans and admirers all over the world.

It’s so well-deserved, and while he has been receiving regular job offers from some of the premiere architecture firms in the US, he’s perfectly happy becoming a named partner at Aster, Gervis, and Croft. His old neighbor, Arturo, bought the Montopolis house and the salvage business from him, working with another high school buddy of theirs, Ty—the one who rescued us from the elevator—who leases the garage as his workshop and continues to run Remix. Micah was sorry to let his custom furniture business go, but weekends are for Frankie’s soccer matches in the fall and tee ball games in the spring. He still makes and places a couple of pieces in Remix every year, working on them for months at a time as his hobby.

“We should get going,” I say. “The dinner is starting soon.”

He slips his arm from my waist and takes my hand, spinning me in a twirl. “You look gorgeous.”

“You already told me that,” I say, laughing as he pulls me against his chest.

“Can’t say it enough,” he murmurs, nuzzling his nose in the hollow beneath my ear, his warm breath skimming the skin of my neck.

“Ooh, careful there,” I tell him. “This is how we ended up with three kids.”

“No regr—”

I smile as he freezes before lifting his head to meet my eyes. He blinks at me twice, taking in my smile. “Three?” he repeats.

“Surprise.”

“I’m—you’re—we’re…”

“Having another baby,” I confirm. “In February.”

“You’re smiling,” he says. His tone is cautious. “You’re happy about it?”

I understand his hesitation. I’d been clear that since we didn’t start our family until I was thirty-one, two kids felt right to me. Micah would have happily gone along with more—and more often—but he’d been clear that he supported my choice.

“I’m thrilled,” I tell him. “I only took the test this morning before we flew out, so it hasn’t sunk in completely, but whoever this baby is, it definitely wanted to be a Croft, so who am I to be bummed that it wants to join our party?”

His face breaks into the grin I’d sensed him holding back until he was absolutely sure how I felt about it. “Three! Think of that. Another baby.”

“Another baby,” I confirm. “If your mom can start college at fifty-seven, I can handle another kid at thirty-seven.”

He lifts me and spins me while I laugh and protest. “Three! Oh, but art school—”

“No worrying,” I say, kissing him and wiping away the red lipstick I leave behind. “Tori doesn’t need to quit art school. We’ll figure out what works for us. Madison has a great nanny-finder.”

“And I could work from home more…”

“Seriously, don’t worry. We really will figure out what makes all of us happiest. Tonight is a night for celebration, and I wanted to give you one more thing to celebrate.”

“This is way better than a plaque,” he says. “When can we tell our parents? And the kids?”

“You remember how many times Alex asked how many sleeps until Mini-Apples?” I ask, using Alex’s cutest mispronunciation so far. With apologies to Minnesota, its largest city is Mini-Apples in our house forever now.

Micah grimaces. Alex had been relentless. “So never?”

“I figure when one of them starts asking who’s the baby hanging out at our house all the time, we’ll let them in on it.”

“Excellent plan.” Micah rests his forehead against mine. “I’m so happy. And I love you so much.”

“Love you more,” I tell him.

He drops a kiss on my forehead. “It’s so cute you think you can ever win this competition. Now come on. America’s current Architect of the Year has an award to collect and a pregnant wife to feed.”

And with that, we head down to the ballroom, hands tight, hearts full, and future bright.