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“Whatcha doing, bug?” Frank asked his daughter, the almost four-year-old wandering around the living room, a pink plastic stethoscope hanging from her neck.
“Playing Mommy,” she says, placing the bell of her stethoscope on his leg and pretending to hear something.
Frank grins at her. She does this whenever she plays Doctor, deciding between playing Mommy or Daddy depending on the day. Her preschool teacher told them that when the kids first played family at recess, Evie was very confused when being the mommy involved caring for a baby doll and not treating pretend injuries.
Evie moves her stethoscope to his knee, and Frank reaches out, lifting her up into his lap so she can listen to his heart. She looks at him with her big brown eyes, smiling as she pretends to listen.
“What do you think, Doctor?” He asks her, “Am I going to be okay?”
Evie nods very seriously, still moving the stethoscope around. In the kitchen, he can hear Mel working on dinner. He had tried to talk her out of cooking tonight, but she had insisted on it, and he’s forever powerless against his wife.
“You’ll get better, Daddy,” Evie says as she wiggles off his lap, grabbing the rest of her toy doctor kit, and heading into the kitchen. Frank follows her, watching as she approaches Mel where she stands at the counter, chopping up vegetables for the sauce she’s working on.
She’s wearing one of his old Penn t-shirts, the fabric stretched tight across her growing bump. She’s six months along now, due in the spring with their fourth and final child. It's a boy this time, a fact that has left Tanner overjoyed.
“A brother!?” He had asked when they announced the news, grinning as Mel nodded. He had hugged them both tight that day, Mel especially, despite the fact that at eleven he’s rapidly approaching the age where being affectionate with his parents is uncool.
Evie walks over to her, placing her stethoscope on her mom's belly, smiling as she pretends to listen to her baby brother.
“How’s he sound, bug?” Mel asks her, pausing her chopping to glance at Frank in the doorway. She's smiling at him in that easy way that she only reserves for him. He loves her like this, hair down and features soft. It's the honor of his life that he gets to see her like this, gets to be the cause of her feeling like this, safe enough to let her guard down.
–
“Let me take care of you,” he used to say when it was just the two of them, laid up in bed with calls from his divorce lawyer piling up on his phone. His lips pressed kisses to the soft skin of her thigh, his breath smelling of the cigarettes he smoked on her balcony.
Her hands were threaded through his hair, pulling him closer. It was never close enough at the time, when he could only have her in the dark of their bedrooms and the occasional hospital supply closet.
He would suck hickeys into her skin back then, just because he could. He liked knowing that beneath her scrubs there was proof she was his. That hidden beneath the blood and bile, their love was held safe.
–
“He’s okay,” Evie tells her, moving the stethoscope around, listening as intently as she can manage. She reminds him of Mel here, focused as she completes a complicated procedure or intubates during a trauma.
“Here,” Mel says, taking one of Evie's hands and placing it on her bump, “he’s saying hi to you.”
Evie grins as she feels her brother kick. She has Frank's smile, all lopsided and genuine.
“When are you gonna get here?” she asks the bump, leaning in so she can be sure her brother can hear her. Above her head, Mel and Frank exchange a glance.
“Three more months,” Frank tells her as he crosses the room to join them, “He’ll be here around the fourth of July."
“With the fireworks?” Evie asks. Frank nods.
“Yeah, bug.” He says, “With the fireworks.”
Beside him, Mel smiles. He leans closer to her, pressing a long kiss to her cheek.
–
“Mel,” He says, his hand an inch from her hip, an inch from disaster. They're lying down on the park lawn, heads against the grass as they watch the fireworks.
Her body is warm and solid beside his, smelling of vanilla bodywash and antiseptic. Sometimes, he thinks he might love her.
“Frank,” She says, taking his hand where it hangs between them. Her thumb is on his wedding ring, pressing into the cool metal. Above them, the sky explodes into a thousand colors.
“They are so beautiful,” She says, squeezing his hand tight. The fireworks have painted her in a stunning hue, a prism of color dancing across her face.
“Yeah,” He says, eyes still on her, “They are.