"So tell me about him."
Angela's eyes immediately met his, before she realized who he meant.
"Charlie's a great kid, warm, funny." Sadness was in her face. "Probably looks different now, older."
Knowing he wanted more, Angela let her worried mother's heart speak, and the father felt it in his gut, how much she loved her child.
"He's smart. So much that it makes me ashamed I'm so dumb, and I'm a doctor. He's loyal, hardworking, and cares about things like saving the whales. It's agony for me to not be with him after all that's happened. Sometimes a boy needs his mom, and sometimes a mom needs her boy."
Not wanting to let emotions get the best of her, Angela dug through her bag and tossed a yellow packet onto the blanket by his leg. "These are from his first birthday. I still love the clown outfit."
Marc looked up. "He was born on Halloween?"
"Yes, on 10/31, at 10:31 in the morning."
Her voice was rough, sexy, and he let his eyes go where they wanted while she wrote in her journal. "Is he special too?"
She tensed before giving a quick nod. She could trust Marc. "Yes. He'll be stronger than me."
"Is it because of being born on Halloween?" He inhaled as she shrugged, passed it back to her.
"I assume because he's male. Fate controls, not the moon and stars." She inhaled deeply again, closing her eyes against a sharp curl of smoke.
Marc thought about how erotic it would be to give her a shotgun. "You still believe in destiny and the great plan?"
Angela hesitated, not wanting to stir up that old argument, still not sure who would survive the encounter with her Marine. Marc was good, she'd seen that, but so was Kenny and her fear of that reunion was great.
"Yes and no. It's not a set plan. People miss their purpose in life and have to spend an eternity repeating it, looking for that one moment they've missed."
"And do they find it? Does fate give second chances?"
The implication was clear and while she didn't want to encourage him, she couldn't help it, couldn't lie. "Yes, almost always. Fate wants the world to be perfect, and each correct or corrected life, is a step on that road."
He met her eye, taking the joint back. "You know that for sure?"
She shook her head at his question. "No, but I look at the world around me and get my answer there. Everything on this planet dies, ends, and usually violently. If not war, maybe it would have been the plague or an asteroid. For some reason, it was all fated to die."