Epilogue #2
Sass hugs me and smooths a nonexistent wrinkle with the air of a mother who has helped all her boys survive big days without fainting. “You’re ready,” she whispers. “This feels like a good ending and a better beginning.”
“It is,” I say, and the words lodge in my throat.
The brothers filter in—Red, Crunch, Pretty Boy, Dad and Mom, and all the Haywood’s Landing Hellions. Even some of the clubs ride in from other parts of the state. The women settle, the music finds a volume that makes hearts swing but neighbors forget to complain.
Then the gate opens and Jenni walks through in a black dress, cheeks flushed, eyes bright. She points two fingers at her own eyes and then at mine. She will always be watching me. Behind her, Crunch offers an arm like she’s royalty. She will always be his queen.
And then—
Jami.
Barefoot in the grass, red dress instead of white that moves like it remembers the ocean, hair braided with little white wildflowers that look like they grew just to prove grace is possible. She looks terrified and brave and happy and stunned, which is to say she looks like herself.
I forget to breathe until she reaches me. Somewhere in the blur I take her hands. They’re warm and shaking and so are mine.
Tonka, the club chaplain, retired Navy Chaplain, steps up between us with a little black book he didn’t need to bring.
“No one here requires ceremony to know what this is,” he begins, voice pitched for the small crowd, the large sky.
“But there’s something right about words that stand in front of witnesses.
So we say what we mean. And we put it in the air together.
That’s family. That’s how the Hellions ride. ”
He nods to me. My turn.
I swallow. The paper in my pocket feels dumb. I don’t want clean spoken lines. I want the truth direct from me to her.
“Jami,” I begin, and my voice finds me. “You know most of this, because you lived it. But I’ll say it out loud for the folks and the wind.
I loved you before I knew where to put the word.
I loved you in rooms I couldn’t get through and I’ll carry you out of doors I swore were locked.
I loved you when the light hit you wrong and when the dark wouldn’t leave.
I love you sober and scared and laughing and loud.
I love you then, now, and forever, Tiny. ”
Her eyes overflow slow. She squeezes my fingers. I keep going.
“I promise to tell the truth even when it costs us an easy afternoon. I promise to keep the bike gassed and the porch light on. I promise to show up hungry for your burned dinners and remain stubborn against your ghosts. I’ll carry the heavy when you need, and I’ll hand it back when you’re strong enough to lift.
I will be your family on the days you forget you have one.
This is the only ride I want. I’ll take every mile you’ll give me. ”
I stop because if I say one more word I’ll embarrass myself and Doll will never let me live it down. Tonka nods to her.
She breathes once, then twice. She doesn’t need paper either.
“Tommy,” she starts, “I thought my life ended twice. Once when I was a too young to sort myself and once when I was a grown woman who should’ve known better.
Both times you were the one who carried me out of the fire, who kept showing up with soup and soft words and a back big enough to carry the weight of my world.
You came for me. And then, when I ran, you waited with love that had patience. ”
She glances at the ring, then back at me.
“I can’t promise to never be afraid. I do promise to tell you when I am.
I can’t promise the world won’t try to take what we build.
I do promise I’ll fight like hell with you to keep it.
I’ll be your peace when you think you don’t deserve any.
I’ll be your loud when you go quiet. I chose you then.
I choose you now. I’ll keep choosing you until we’re old and rude and someone has to tell us to get off the porch. ”
Everyone laughs and then gets quiet again.
Tonka looks out over the heads we love and the tree and the sky we borrow. “By the power vested in me by nothing but this family and a county clerk who doesn’t ask too many questions—kiss your wife.”
I don’t need to be told twice.
It’s not the movie kind. It’s better. It’s a press and a breath and the kind of relief that makes your knees threaten betrayal. The crowd celebrates like they invented joy.
Somebody turns the music up and the whole place shifts from ceremony to celebration in one beat.
There’s barbecue on paper plates, lemonade in Mason jars, old stories aired like quilts across the yard.
I dance with my mother. Jami dances with Jenni.
I dance with Jami—slow, barefoot, forehead to forehead, the baby between us like the gift she is.
At sunset, Pretty Boy taps the arbor and the lights wake up all at once.
The yard glows. Faces look carved out of honey.
For a second I see all the rides we’ve taken stacked on top of each other like pages.
The brutal ones, the beautiful ones, the ones where we thought we wouldn’t make it through. But we did. We made it.
Later, when the noise goes warm and soft, Tripp finds me with two plates and a look. “You okay, married man?”
“Whole,” I tell him the truth, surprising myself with how fast I know it.
He nods. “You look it.”
“Thank you,” I express my gratitude.
He shrugs. “Family, son.”
My mom passes out the cake because she was born knowing how to transfer slices without them falling.
Doll makes a speech that starts with “I’m not gonna cry” and ends in tears.
Crunch pulls me into a bear hug that cracks my spine and says in my ear, “You earned this.” Red shakes my hand like we’re closing the best deal we’ll ever make and then slips a small envelope into my pocket. “No arguments.”
When the night thins and the last brother swears he’ll get his plate tomorrow, when the music winds down to a hum and the chairs clack in careful stacks, when the lights over the arbor burn steady and the oak holds all our vows in its bark, I take my wife’s hand and we walk back into our house.
She leans against the doorjamb, hand on her belly, eyes on me like she’s memorizing something she forgot she’d need later. “Hey, husband.”
I swear that word could fix roads.
“Hey, wife,” I say, and kiss her as if the world didn’t try to keep us from this.
We retreat to our bathroom and then our bed. After making love gently we settle in against each other and I feel like everything is right in the whole world.
I close my eyes and say a thank you I don’t address to anyone in particular. Then I sleep like a man who knows the ride he’s on and the road he’ll take to get where he’s going.
From brutal to beauty.
We’re moving. And for once, it’s not running. It’s arriving. And we’re going to be right on time.
The End
Until the next ride …