Sunshine & Ink

Epilogue （Raker）

I sit on the bank and watch my 12-month-old son Songmaker play in the water. He has dark hair like me, but tiny golden freckles like his mother’s across his nose. This part of the stream is shallow, good for children to play in.

But I’m there anyway, right behind him, watching like a desert hawk to make sure he doesn’t toddle too far in.

This area is nice and safe, but I am protective and cautious.

My happy family is too hard-won for me ever to be complacent about protecting them.

Sunni is behind me unwrapping lunch from a big picnic basket. She’s wearing a huge white hat and wrinkles her nose happily at me. There’s a touch of sunburn on it, and my stomach clenches with the familiar stab of desire I always feel when I look at my wife, but for now I settle for tightening my grip on her ankle and smiling at her, my fingers careful to avoid the fresh new tattoo on her leg. Our son’s name.

It’s been a hot summer, but for the first time in decades the land hasn’t been wracked with drought. Lush streams now cut across what used to be a dry, parched basin.

The Elders are gone and my brothers and I will make sure they don’t come back.

Teacher is fishing further down the stream, while Builder and Amira sit in lawn chairs with cold drinks.

Everyone else in the Saints MC is scattered along the banks, enjoying the flowing water.

Willow and Elise are working on making little bark boats for Songmaker, using little bits of bark from our scrubby trees, yellow grasses, and petals of the new growth that has sprung up with the recovery of our water source.

Willow has almost fully recovered from her injuries, as have Elise and Sunni.

But I haven’t. I see it when I go to sleep, and I revisit it in my nightmares sometimes. The terror of racing home, knowing there was an intruder there, the sight of seeing Sunni’s eye nearly swollen shut from where Apostle hit her.

I’d love to dig his miserable corpse up and kill him again but apparently that’s frowned upon.

I haven’t touched another woman since I got out of jail. The desire to stick my dick in every available wet pussy has totally left me. I know what it cost me to get Sunni’s love back and I don’t want to risk it again.

I may not exactly be a devotee of the Goddess, but I sure as fuck don’t regret running the Elders out of town on a rail.

Adherence to the Old Ways hasn’t gone away, of course. But nobody gives me shit about marrying who I want to now and claiming my son.

I pull Songmaker out of the water and carry him carefully back to the picnic blanket where Sunni has spread tuna salad, burgers, fruit, fried pickles, deviled eggs, and cupcakes for our son’s birthday.

“Happy birthday big boy,” she laughs. “I love how much fun you’re having with daddy.”

“I love him so much,” I tell her, putting Songmaker down between us and handing him a few strawberries. “And I love you .”

She looks up at me and my heart pounds with pride in her, with a pleasure so intense to see the love finally back in her eyes too. I’ll never risk losing that again.

“I love you too, Raker,” she says, and I feel Songmaker’s chubby fist grip my thumb as I kiss her soft lips.

He is named for hope and love and the joy that bursts from my heart like a song every time I see my beautiful family. Then we sit beside the water and have our picnic.

THANK YOU FOR READING!