“I think my dad Jasper is going to be kind of like Snuffleupagus,” Annelise had told Eden thoughtfully.
“FromSesame Street? That big furry elephant-type beast?”
“Yeah. Only Big Bird can see him. And he’s kind of funny looking, and hairy, but he’s nice, you don’t see him very often, but when you do it’s fun. And then he’s gone again.”
Sesame Streetwas indeed educational programming.
She was pretty sure Jasper’s role in their lives would get a little more complicated than that as Annelise got older.
For now, it suited all of them. And Jasper was clearly pretty wary of getting on the wrong side of Gabe, so there was that.
So for the past several months, happiness wasn’t an emotional state so much as it was the weather they moved through every day of their lives.
An hour or so later the three of them were heading up to Firelight Falls for that long delayed, longed-for picnic, a backpack loaded with a picnic lunch.
Annelise was taking the opportunity to pretend to be a horse. She galloped ahead of them, tossing her head and whinnying, pausing to pretend to eat a thistle.
“Baby, you might want to pace yourself. It’s about a forty-five minute hike.”
Little did Annelise know, but Gabe and Eden had already looked into getting a horse for her eleventh birthday. A patient one, with a few years on it.
“Hey, Leesy, you know how you can get the best view of the canyon from here?” Gabe asked.
“Stand on your toes?” Leesy asked.
“Guess again.”
“Go up to the tippy top of Whiplash Peak?”
“Nope. Liiiiiiike...this.”
Annelise gave a happy little shriek when he swooped down, scooped her up, and planted her atop his shoulders.
“Don’t kick or grab my ears and we’ll be good.”
Eden laughed at them. If she were to make a totem pole of the loves of her life, it would look a lot like that one.
“Hey, I’m taller than you now, Mom,” Annelise called down.
“Well, that was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“HIYA, Thunder! Giddyup!” Leesy commanded.
“I amsocalling you Thunder from now on,” Eden told Gabe.
He shot her a quick smoldery glance that told her he was actually kind of looking forward to the circumstances under which that might occur.
“Pretend I’m more like a plow horse, Leesy,” Gabe said. “The sturdy kind. Maybe a little hard of hearing. I’m gonna plod. Don’t kick. We’ll get there.”
She settled in happily.
And as they made their way up the trail to the falls, Gabe steadied Annelise with one hand and reached for Eden’s hand with the other.
And for a few moments all was just sun, and trees, and rightness, and Annelise pivoting her head to and fro, gulping in the view, awestruck. “Wow, Mom, I can totally see forever!”
Eden and Gabe exchanged a glance that was pure contentment, happily possessive, all passion and promise.
“Me, too, baby,” she said.