"Rome." I wait until he turns around. "You being happy is not something I need you to apologize for. You and Erin are the best thing I've ever seen. You know that. I would burn down anyone who threatened what you two have."
He studies me like he's checking for cracks I might be hiding under the surface. I let him look. I have nothing to hide on this particular subject.
"I wanted you to have everything," he says quietly. "I still do. Medical school, the career, all of it. Everything Mom and Dad didn't care enough to stick around for."
"I know."
"But I also know I pushed too hard because I was trying to give you the life I didn't get to have. I was making it about me, even when I told myself it wasn't."
He rubs the back of his neck, a gesture I've seen a thousand times when he's working through something he doesn't know how to say. "You deserve to choose your own life, Lily. Not the one I think you should have."
I slide off the counter and cross the kitchen and wrap my arms around him. He hugs me back, tight and solid.
"I will try and be better from now on," he mumbles.
"I love you," I say into his chest. "You're the best person I know and you did everything right. All of it. Every single thing."
He holds on for another second before letting go and clearing his throat. He goes back to the pasta, because he's Rome and emotions need to be followed by practical action or they'll just sit there being uncomfortable.
"You know what I'd really love?" I say, climbing back onto the counter.
"What?"
"Nieces. Nephews. Like, several. A whole crew of tiny Morelands running around."
He doesn't say anything right away, but I see the change in his shoulders. A loosening. A softening he would deny if I pointed it out.
"It's early," he says, and I have to physically stop myself from screaming with joy.
"Romie." I hear the squeal in my own voice and I don't even care. "Do you really mean that?"
He turns around, and the look on his face makes my whole heart expand. This man, this serious, grout-obsessed man, is smiling so big. A smile that makes him look like the twenty-something he should have been instead of the forty-year-old he's been pretending to be since he was eighteen.
"If it were up to me," he says, "we'd have started yesterday."
I press both hands over my mouth. "Shut up."
"But I'm not rushing her. She'll tell me when she's ready and I'll be there."
"Oh my God." My eyes are stinging and I don't even try to stop it. "You're going to be the best dad. You're going to be so annoying about it. You're going to build the kid a crib from scratch and inspect every daycare in a fifty-mile radius."
"I would build a crib, yes. That's normal."
"You'd build the crib and then build a second one because the first one didn't meet your standards."
"Safety standards exist for a reason, Lily."
But I am not buying it, and he shakes his head at me, but the smile hasn't gone anywhere. My brother wants babies. My brother wants babies with Erin, and one day there will be small people in this world who have a little bit of Rome and a little bit of Erin and they will be so loved it will be stupid.
I can already picture it. Dinners filled with laughter and small fights over who gets to set what on the table. Little hands reaching up for him. Erin glowing even brighter than she does now.
And me. Aunt Lily. Present for all of it. Loved and loving so hard I might actually burst with it.
Rome plates the pasta and sets mine in front of me on the counter because he knows I'm not getting down. He hands me a fork and stands across from me, and we eat the way we've eaten a thousand meals before, just the two of us.
"I trust you," he says, halfway through his plate. "Whatever you're doing, whatever you decide. I trust your judgment."
I focus on the taste of garlic and olive oil because focusing on anything else right now would crack me open.