Epilogue
CASSIAN
“ I f you use the side of your foot, like this, you’ll kick it better.” Heidi manhandled her much wished for younger brother, trying to teach him how to kick a football into a goal.
I watched while I retied my bootlace, aware that while my four-year-old son was having unasked for lessons off his sister, my six-year-old son was about to kick off for his first ever football game.
“Heidi, can you bring Dylan over to your mum?”
She nodded, helping him kick the ball into the goal and cheering along with him. She was a great big sister when she wasn’t being obsessed with football. Her ambition was to be a player for a Women’s Super League team and play professionally, her back up plan to be an actress, something else she excelled at. She was a good kid, apart from taking too long in the bathroom getting ready.
Mia was already standing with Romy, less interested in playing football, more interested in books and things to do with psychology, particularly trauma and criminality, which surprised no one. Cara was still incarcerated and Mia chose to see her once a year for reasons she didn’t share with us. Stan had been back out a couple of times and he had met with Mia, being nothing but charming and setting up a trust fund for her, which was all shades of morally grey.
Romy and I had gotten married at Easter after our engagement, determined not to waste any time as you never knew how much you had left. We’d waited another six months before starting to try to have a baby, and Macsen was born a year later. Dylan had come as a bit of surprise, and we still weren’t sure exactly how the contraception had failed, but he’d been that good a baby, we’d barely known he was there.
The girls were now fourteen, relatively independent, good company. The boys were growing up wild for now, just like the girls had been able to.
We were still in the schoolhouse which we’d bought, a joint commitment. I was still headteacher, my sons both at the school too now, and Romy had worked her way up the ladder some more.
Puffin Bay was filled with a whole new generation that would keep my school and teachers busy for a long time, and kept Mavis busy, with her long running commentary on the youth of today.
The game kicked off as Heidi, me and Dylan reached Romy and Mia. Mac was ridiculously excited as he ran around after the ball, every sense of tactics leaving his six-year-old brain.
I didn’t have to be a side line coach, because we had Heidi for that, shouting instructions at him and a couple of the other kids.
“We should invoice for her services,” I muttered to Romy, who was glaring at her firstborn when she got over-excited at the chance of Mac scoring.
“Probably.” Romy slipped her hand into mine. “The dog needs a bath when you get home. He found fox poo.”
“Great.” I grinned, unbothered by this. Scooby was a great dog, his one failing was that he couldn’t resist fox poo. Both the boys seemed to have the same instinct, which was apparently something they’d picked up from Heidi.
“I’ll wash the dog, you can sort out your sons.” I could see out of the corner of my eye that Dylan had found a very interesting pile of mud. He was rarely clean, despite being introduced to soap and water at least twice a day. He was the reason we’d had to buy a second washing machine.
“I’m not sure who’s got the better deal.” She smiled at me. “I think you could hose the three of them down at the same time.”
“They’d probably enjoy that.” Mia appeared next to me. “Can I get a hot dog, Dad?
I handed over my wallet. “Get me one too. Thank you.”
She’d been calling me dad since Romy and I had gotten married, even before Heidi had. There’d been no discussion about it, it’d just started and we’d never discussed it since, although I was fully aware that she would’ve thought long and hard about it many times since.
She had talked to Heidi about calling Romy mum before that’d happened, because Heidi had told us. Mia had asked if it would be okay. Heidi apparently had laughed and was fine with it, because that was her. Little Miss Sunshine, probably going to get red carded by the ref for shouting too much at the players.
We left her to it.
“This is my life for the next twelve years, isn’t it? Watching football every Saturday morning.” Romy shook her head at me. “I blame you.”
“Why twelve years?”
“You’ll have stopped playing by then.” She squeezed my hand. “You’ll be too old.”
“We’ll see.” I wouldn’t be. “You enjoy it though. Don’t pretend you don’t.”
She turned round to face me, wrapping her arms around my waist. “I wouldn’t change anything, and I’m grateful for every moment. You know that.”
“I do. Because I am too.” I kissed her, tugging the tie out of her ponytail, which earned me a soft slap and a giggle.
I’d pay for that later.
I couldn’t wait.
The End