Epilogue
“Everybody hurry up and get in here!” Arthur shouted from the living room, a happy Liam on his lap babbling and chewing on a plastic set of multicolored car keys.
Wren and his parents rushed in, holding glasses of champagne.
“Jeez, what’s the rush?” Wren said, settling in next to her boys on the couch.
“I don’t want to miss it, that’s all,” Arthur said, then, looking around: “I said everybody!”
And now here came Tristan and Charlie from the other room, in hideous holiday sweaters, red-faced and puffy from wine and too much of Arthur’s mom’s homemade charcuterie board.
“By the way, I have a few notes on the tattoo sketch,” Wren said to Charlie as they found their seats. “Since it’s my likeness, I feel like I should get a say.”
“We can workshop it,” Charlie said.
“OK, do we all have a drink?” Arthur said.
Everyone held up their glass.
“Do we all have someone to kiss?”
Each couple squeezed together.
“Does anyone have a poopy diapy?” Arthur asked, holding Liam up and giving him a quick sniff.
His dad raised a teasing hand, and his mom immediately pushed it down, taking the opportunity to lock their fingers together.
“Here we go, then,” Arthur said, pointing the remote at the TV and hitting a button.
On the screen, a cartoon New Year’s countdown began, with a band of jungle animals wearing party hats and dancing around with kazoos as a little jingle played.
I can’t believe
It’s New Year’s Eve
So much to do
So much to see
A brand New Year
Ready to begin
Let’s all stand up
And count from ten
The countdown began and the crew all shouted along, and when it hit zero, the living room erupted in cheers.
Arthur wiggled Liam in the air, held his fist and pumped it like the little dude was at a rock concert.
Then he handed him over to Wren, who laid a big fat kiss on him.
Liam’s face remained blank, his eyes wide and confused—Someone save me from these people.
It was 7:00 p.m.
Arthur and Wren excused themselves from the party to go into the next room, one of two—TWO!—bedrooms, and put Liam down in his crib.
They hadn’t moved far from their old place, after all.
The new apartment was still pretty shitty.
It had a few poorly patched holes in the wall, outdated appliances, grout in the shower that had seen better decades.
But it was slightly bigger and it had a pool and a playground, or as Wren was keen to call it whenever she wanted to feel fancy, a swim tennis.
It also had a real, live maintenance department that attempted to fix things and kept up with the regular bug treatment.
They were still throwing their money down the proverbial drain in rent every month, with very little hope of ever saving enough money for…
well, anything. But, for now, it was perfect.
And now, really, was all anyone ever had.
Liam was exhausted and went right to sleep, Arthur and Wren both giving him gentle kisses on the forehead—until they went to leave the room, sneaking out as quietly as possible. That’s when the cries started up.
“You go,” Wren said, “I’ll get him down.”
“You sure?” Arthur whispered back.
“Absolutely, I got this.”
Arthur wanted to protest, but Wren needed the win.
She took pride in being the only one who could get Liam to sleep, with a patented combination of humming punk songs and rubbing his belly.
Whenever Arthur tried, Liam cried and cried for Mommy, which sucked, but he didn’t take it personally.
She was soothing and sweet and beautiful. He didn’t blame Liam one bit.
He sat back down on the couch next to his parents, both nibbling on cheese and cured meats, and both thinking they were the only ones slipping bites to Ferdie, who was snuggled between them both.
It was going to be a gassy night, but Arthur figured their old boy deserved to live it up as long as he could.
“Doesn’t get any better than this,” his dad said.
“Can’t argue,” Arthur agreed. “How’s work?”
“You know, not bad. It’s amazing working with young people today, really feeling like I’m making a difference.”
“Dad. Tell the truth.”
“Oh, they’re all crazy. Completely incompetent. We’re all doomed.” He smiled. “But I’m doing my best.”
“We’re really glad we came, Arthur. It’s not every day that we get this kind of time with our only grandson,” Laura chimed in.
“I heard the way you said only.” Arthur groaned.
His mom reached around and squeezed his shoulder. Just then, Wren reappeared and flopped down on the couch next to Arthur, squeezing her way in.
“I give up. You’re in.”
“That was fast.”
He could hear Liam wailing in the background.
“None of my techniques were working. I even hummed ‘Adam’s Song’ and he only cried more! I think we’re in a sleep regression or something.”
“Regression? He just started sleeping. How can he be regressing already?”
“There’s a new regression basically every couple of months. This is our life now.”
“Someone’s been reading up.”
“Quit stalling. You’re up, Papa.”
Arthur hoisted himself off the couch, not feeling overly optimistic. He slipped into the dark room, the cries almost deafening, and hurried over to Liam’s side.
“Shh. Hey, buddy. I’m here. Daddy’s here.”
He placed a hand on Liam’s chest and kept it there, felt his little body breathing.
The cries stopped. Liam grabbed at Arthur’s fingers, eventually settling in with a firm grip around his dad’s pinky.
Liam was fresh out of swaddling, sleeping with free arms for the first time in his life, and this was the first time that he had grabbed Arthur’s finger like this. It was amazing.
After what could have been five or fifty minutes hunched over the bassinet, Arthur was pretty sure Liam was asleep.
But when he went to tug his hand away, he felt his son’s grip tighten, and he decided to lie down on the floor—surely, a more comfortable position—until he was fully asleep, hand stuck through the side of the bassinet.
And that’s when everything went black.
Wren startled awake on the couch. The living room was dark, quiet. Someone had thrown a blanket over her, but it was clear that everyone else had long since headed back to their respective hotel rooms. The new apartment was bigger, but not big enough to accommodate a baby and multiple guests.
Wren came to and realized Arthur was sitting next to her; that’s what woke her up.
“What time is it?” she asked, rubbing at her eyes.
“Two a.m.” Arthur said. “I fell asleep in there. Clearly.”
“I fell asleep out here. I don’t remember the party ending.”
Arthur laughed.
“We’re pathetic.”
“I know.”
“We missed New Year’s.”
“Well,” she said, sitting up now, pushing through a yawn. “We’re awake now, aren’t we?”
“Wanna light off some fireworks? Take a few shots?”
“I want to go back to bed. Or a cup of coffee. I honestly can’t tell which.”
Arthur laughed and collapsed, laying his head in her lap. For his part, he fumbled around for the glass of water he’d left sitting out earlier and chugged it greedily before setting it back down.
Wren reached under the coffee table and produced a book, The Princeton Review GRE Premium Prep course. “Want this?”
“Ah, thanks,” he said, feeling guilty. He took the book and immediately placed it under his still-sweating glass.
In this apartment, they had decided, they would be coaster people.
“You always used to say the New Year was a blank canvas,” she said. “What do you see us painting on ours this year?”
“Honestly?”
“Yeah. Dream as big as you dare.”
“I have absolutely no clue,” Arthur said.
“Really?”
“Really. Do you?”
Wren thought about it. Nothing came to mind. “I don’t.” Then: “Are you sure about grad school? I really thought this year was gonna be the year.”
“I’m sure. I just want to enjoy life this year. Enjoy the kids in my classes. I have plenty of ideas for that, that don’t require me to work and study twenty-four-seven. I realized I don’t need to always be advancing. I can just be.”
“Well, if you’re happy, I’m happy. But if I’m being honest, as the financially responsible breadwinner of the family, grad school would have put a lot of pressure on me.”
“You haven’t even started yet.”
“And I’m already sick of it.”
Wren had been feeling herself since acing a Zoom interview for an assistant creative director role at a local agency. All while, in her words, being “more incontinent than Liam.” Arthur didn’t mind her gloating. She deserved it.
“We’ll just…try to survive,” Arthur said. “We’ll take it one day at a time and try not to die. And after that…”
He trailed off, but she knew exactly how to finish the sentence for him.
“…Anything’s possible.”