miracle | tayley

i'll dive back in

Taylor carries all of their various and sundry beach items down the wooden steps to the sandy shoreline, while Hayley carries Rowan and her ever-present white backpack. As soon as they're settled he jogs over to the gazebo to change into the swim trunks he'd snagged from his duffel bag. When he returns, it's just in time to see Hayley, her back to him, removing her outer-wear to reveal a dark blue two-piece bathing suit.

She's roughly the same size she used to be as far as he can tell, but as she turns to face him, following their daughter's energetic movements and attempting to tug a tiny rash guard and matching bathing suit bottoms on over her pull-up, he can see that her slight weight is distributed somewhat differently now. Her limbs are slimmer, having lost some of their previous definition, and her hips and breasts are slightly fuller, no doubt changes left over from birthing and nursing a child. The differences are very slight though, and overall, she looks remarkably the same. In fact, he thinks few outside of himself and maybe her mother would really notice the changes at all.

     Hayley tugs the hem of Rowan's floral patterned rash guard into place and glances up at Taylor to find him watching her intently. He's staring at her midriff and she suddenly becomes self-conscious that her, thankfully, somewhat sparse stretch marks are more visible than she'd thought in the glare of the late afternoon sun. She hasn't been out in a bathing suit much since giving birth to Rowan, except here at the cottage with just her family and Brian for company.

     She wraps an arm across her middle, unconsciously, which prompts his eyes to fly up to meet hers, guiltily.

     "What?" She asks, laughing nervously to cover her embarrassment. She shouldn't be embarrassed, she knows. She'd earned those few pale lines doing the best thing she's ever managed to do in her life, but still... The last time Taylor had seen this much of her skin she'd been younger, her pale skin unmarred by the scars of child bearing, and maybe not thinner, per se, but definitely more toned.

     She takes in his appearance in comparison. Despite the lack of direction in his life at one point while she'd been gone, he'd clearly found his way back to the gym okay.

     Of course, he would have to look perfect now, wouldn't he, she frets.

     "Nothing," he shrugs, feeling caught his eyes instead seeking out the sight of their daughter, already happily digging in the sand with one tiny butt cheek peeking out of her striped swimsuit bottoms, making him laugh.

     Hayley's eyes follow his and she barks out a sudden and genuine laugh when she notices what he's been looking at.

    His eyes move back to hers and he knows he's grinning like an idiot, but it's been years since he last heard that laugh. It's the one he'd pull from her unexpectedly during those ridiculous games they used to have to play for the cameras, or late at night in the tiny bunk of a moving tour bus, when she'd be so deliriously tired that some inane quip he made to her would send her into a fit of barely controlled hysterics.

     He remembers her head resting on a scratchy travel pillow, his fingers resting gently against her lips, her cheeks pink with exertion as tears of laughter spilled from her eyes. God he misses those days.

     Her laugh just now was all of those things... And better, he thinks, as he watches her move forward and re-adjust their daughter's bathing suit, her eyes full of amusement and a love so obvious it practically radiates from her.

     He shifts back onto the sand. He could lie here and watch them all afternoon, he thinks, and so he settles in to do just that. He watches as Hayley crouches in the sand, helping Rowan move tiny shovelfuls of sand into her red, plastic beach bucket until it overflows, and then emptying it into a large pile until they have a sand mountain nearly as tall as Rowan, herself.