Finding Cinderella Maybe Someday

MILES
Six years earlier
Lisa loves Clayton.
My dad loves Clayton.
Clayton fixes families.
He’s already my hero, and he’s only two days old.
Shortly after my dad and Lisa leave, Ian arrives. He says he
doesn’t want to hold Clayton, but Rachel makes him. He’s
uncomfortable, because he’s never held a baby before, but
he holds him.
“Thank God he looks like Rachel,” Ian says.
I agree with him.
Ian asks Rachel if I ever told her what I said to him after I
met her.
I don’t know what he’s talking about.
Ian laughs.
“After he walked you to class that first day, he took a picture
of you from his seat,” Ian tells her. “He texted it to me and
said, ‘She’s gonna have all my babies.’ ”
Rachel looks at me.

---

I shrug.
I’m embarrassed.
Rachel loves that I said that to Ian. I love that Ian told her
that.
The doctor comes in and tells us we can go home now. Ian
helps me take everything to the car and pull it up to the
exit.
Before I go back to Rachel’s room, Ian touches my shoulder.
I turn around and face him.
I get the feeling he wants to tell me congratulations, but
instead, he just hugs me.
It’s awkward, but it’s not. I like that he’s proud of me.
It makes me feel good. Like I’m doing this right.
Ian leaves.
So do we.
Me and Rachel and Clayton.
My family.
I want Rachel in the front seat with me, but I love that she’s
riding in the back with him. I love how much she loves him. I
love that I’m attracted to her even more now that she’s a
mom.
I want to kiss her. I want to tell her I love her again, but I
think I tell her way too much. I don’t ever want her to get
tired of hearing it.
“Thank you for this baby,” she says from the backseat.
“He’s beautiful.”
I laugh. “You’re responsible for the beautiful part, Rachel.
The only thing he got from me was his balls.”
She laughs. She laughs hard. “Oh, my God, I know,” she
says.
“They’re so big.”
We both laugh at our son’s big balls.
She sighs.
“Rest,” I tell her. “You haven’t slept in two days.”
I see her smile in the rearview mirror. “But I can’t stop
staring at him,” she whispers.

---

I can’t stop staring at you, Rachel.
But I do stop, because the oncoming traffic is brighter than
it should be.
My hands grip the steering wheel.
Too
bright.
I’ve always heard your life flashes before your eyes in the
moments before you die.
In a sense, that’s true.
However, it doesn’t come at you in sequence or even in
random order.
It’s just one picture that
STICKS
in your head and becomes 
everything
you feel and
everything
you see.
It’s not your 
actual
life that flashes before your eyes.
What flashes before your eyes are the people who 
are
your
life.
Rachel and Clayton.
All I see is the two of them—
my whole life
—flash before my
eyes.
The sound becomes everything.
Everything.
Inside me, outside me, through me, under me, over me.
RACHEL, 
RACHEL
,