The door opened behind us, and a doctor walked in whom I had seen earlier with Harlow.

“I’m Dr. Gavins. I’m the pediatrician on call tonight, and I did a check on Harlow earlier. We have some concerns. There was a heart murmur detected, and while this may not prove to be anything more than just that, we need to run some more tests. I’m having her moved to the NICU. She needs to be monitored by the proper equipment.”

Emily

Kiro held my hand in both of his as the latest update on Harlow was delivered. I had been released from the hospital yesterday, so Kiro had obtained a room for us to use while Harlow was still here. I couldn’t leave her. I refused to. She needed us.

“She was blue,” Kiro said slowly, as if it was just sinking in.

There was excessive blood flow from the left side to the right side of her little heart. She was having difficulty breathing. I inhaled deeply, as if I could breathe for her. I had been breathing for her for nine months now. I wanted her back inside me, where she was safe. Protected.

“She’s going to be OK,” I repeated, to calm him and remind myself. God would not give us this baby girl to love and then snatch her away like that. I just didn’t believe he was that cruel.

“Cardiac catheterization sounds scary as fuck, Emmy. Why can’t we hold her? She’s gotta be sacred.”

I didn’t know what to tell him. I was waiting patiently for my mother to get here. She had planned on coming once I brought Harlow home so she could help me. But I wanted my momma. Kiro had paid for her plane ticket and was bringing her to me.

“She knows we love her. She can feel it.” I had to believe that, too. I needed her to know I loved her.

“She’s so fucking tiny. If this doesn’t work, they want to . . . to . . . fuck, I can’t even say it.”

If this didn’t work, Harlow would have to have surgery. Possibly the first of several before she was even three years old. They had told us everything over the past few days. We got to wear scrubs and masks and go back and see her three times a day. Each time we had to leave her again, I had cried.

Kiro held me, and we waited until we could go see her again.

“She is a Manning. She’s strong. She’s stubborn. And she is loved. She’ll be fine.” I said the words out loud. I needed that to be so. I believed it. I claimed it, and I would not let it not be true.

January 1995

Emily

I watched as my little girl walked toward me. She wasn’t perfectly balanced, but she was walking. Something she wasn’t supposed to be doing yet. The doctors said she would develop later than other kids her age, yet she’d walked at nine months. Nothing they said would happen to her had happened. Harlow was tiny for her age, but she appeared healthy.

“Where’re my girls?” Kiro’s voice boomed through the house, and Harlow started clapping at the sound of it. I wasn’t sure who worshipped whom more, Kiro or Harlow.

“There they are,” Kiro said, walking into the room and bending down to catch Harlow as she waddled toward him as fast as she could. He scooped her up and kissed her tummy, making her giggle, as they sank down on the sofa beside me. “Hello, angel,” he said, kissing me like he hadn’t seen me in a week.

“Daddadaddadda,” Harlow started chanting, wanting his attention.

Giggling, I broke our kiss and grinned at our daughter, who was now laying sloppy open-mouthed kisses on her father’s face.

“Life is sweet when you can come home to all this kind of loving,” Kiro said, as he kissed Harlow under the neck, making her squeal with delight.

“I think she missed you,” I said, reaching out to wrap one of her dark curls around my finger. She had the silkiest hair.

“I missed her, too. And I missed her momma. I missed her momma a fuck of a lot. I can’t wait to get her momma naked later. I got plans for that pu—” I covered his mouth with my hand before he could continue. Kiro may have been the world’s greatest dad, but he still forgot that cursing and talking about my private parts weren’t OK in front of Harlow.

He nipped at my fingers, and I moved my hand. “Keep it clean,” I said, smirking.

“I just missed you,” he said, with a pout that was supposed to make it all better.

“I missed you, too. And tonight we can spend some time together.”

Harlow put her little hand on Kiro’s face like I had, and he pretended to bite her fingers, too, making her giggle.

Next week, we would be keeping Mase while Mary Ann went on her honeymoon. We couldn’t travel yet with Harlow, so we would miss the wedding, but my mother was going to fly out and bring Mase to stay with us. I was looking forward to having us all together as a family. Mase was almost five now, and I never wanted him to think he didn’t fit into our family. I loved that little boy like he was my own.

“I’m going to be extra needy this week, since we’re gonna have both kids next week. Having Mase here, too, always keeps us busy. And I miss my pus—” I covered his mouth again before he could say it.

Harlow started clapping again. We had said the magic word: Mase. She loved her older brother. Luckily, he returned the affection. When she was a baby and fragile, he used to sing her songs and tell her stories as he sat on the floor beside her crib. He worried about her, and he would call and talk to Kiro and me often to see if she was OK.

Now that she was able to play, he gave her his undivided attention when he was here. And she adored him.

“I said Mase, didn’t I?” Kiro said with a grin.

I nodded. “Yep,” I replied.

Harlow was looking around the room as if in search of Mase.

I laughed and leaned over to Kiro. “I love you,” I told him. Although I had told him that twice already today. Once this morning in bed and then again on the phone later.

“Love you more,” he replied, and kissed my head. “Always love you more.”

December 2014

Kiro

In every lifetime, I believe that each soul is given one mate. Don’t get me wrong, I think that a person can fall in love more than one time. But finding your soul mate is a different matter altogether. You don’t just love that person, you adore him or her. That person is your world. Your reason for living. The one thing in this life that will make everything OK. When you find your soul mate, you’ve found your purpose. To love that one person. To experience life with that one person.

Problem with all this is, what happens when you lose your soul mate? When that one person you will love for fucking eternity is taken from you? It destroys you. It shatters you. It takes a part of you that you will never get back. No one can heal you. No one can take your soul mate’s place. That person will forever be your other half. Your one true love.

My life started out hard. My childhood sucked. But I made it through the rough times and managed to make the world believe I was a rock star. I was lost, even though I had more money than any one person needed. I had fame that not many people experience. But I was lost.

Until Emily.

She changed me. She showed me the color in life. She gave me a reason to love this life I was given. She loved me in a way no one has ever loved me. Emily is my soul mate. In this life and in the next, she will be the one soul who completes me.

The day I got the call that she’d been in a car accident, I didn’t think I would manage to survive. How could I survive when the woman I was destined to spend my life with was gone?