EPILOGUE
FISH
“Set the hook!” I yelled from across the boat as I helped my granddaughter bait hers.
Carlon yanked his pole up and then cheered when the line started to spin as the fish tried to get away.
“I’ve got her,” Charlotte said as she picked up the toddler and set her in her lap.
I left her to it and hurried over to stand next to my youngest son as he worked hard to reel in the fish he’d hooked.
“Steady. Work with the flow of the fish. Tire him out before you tire yourself out.”
“He’s got a big one!” Braylen cheered as he slowly reeled in his own line.
“It’s gonna be huge !” Carlon yelled as he kept working to pull in the fish. “I’m gonna do it all by myself!”
“You can do it.”
“I wish Mom was here to see me,” Carlon complained, a little out of breath from all of his exertion.
“I’ll FaceTime her,” Mackenzie offered.
I was still crouched down behind my seven-year old when I heard my wife’s voice come over the speaker. Once Mackenzie explained what was going on, I heard Cat start cheering for him like the rest of us were doing.
Braylen, our eight-year old, pulled in his line and set the rod aside so he could concentrate on what his brother was doing, before he calmly offered, “If you need me to spell you, I’ll do it whenever you’re ready.”
“My arm is tired.”
“You hold the rod, and I’ll work the reel,” Braylen said as he got closer to his brother.
I stood up and stepped back to let them work, glad to see that they were such a great team. Soon, Mackenzie and Charlotte joined them, and I looked around to find my granddaughter curled up in the corner of the bench beneath a beach towel. As I watched, her eyes fluttered closed, and I smiled at how different she was from Magda when she’d been that age.
With her taken care of, I looked back at my family and watched them cheer each other on with plenty of input from my wife who had become quite the fisher in the ten years since we’d been together.
In that time, we’d weathered many storms, both from Mother Nature and life in general. Her dream of opening a bakery had finally come true when she had been pregnant with our second son. Since then, she’d expanded to include a deli that served our community.
The same community that had been so against a common criminal like me living in its midst now accepted me as one of their own, and I knew that had a lot to do with their respect for my wife and a healthy dose of fear of our grandmothers and Aunt Dodie.
That made it a great place to raise our children in the home we purchased next door to my grandmother and across the street from one of my sisters. With all of us so close together, life in our neighborhood was wild, crazy, and insane with small spurts of peace and quiet that usually only happened after the kids were in bed.
From hurricanes to calm waters, every minute with my Abbie-Cat had been better than the last. We’d built a family that would someday lean on us the way we depended on our grandmothers and my great aunt.
“Dad, Mom wants to talk to you,” Mackenzie said before she tossed the phone my way.
I plucked it out of the air and looked down to see my wife’s smiling face. “Hey, Abbie-Cat. How’s work?”
“Crazy busy, but I should be home at the usual time. I guess I know what we’re having for dinner.”
“We’ve already got enough to feed the whole crew, and if the fish Car pulls in is as big as I think it is, we’ll have enough to invite the rest of the family to join us.”
“I’ve got faith. I’ll send out a text and see what everyone wants to bring.”
“Send me a message and let me know if I need to get anything from the store.”
“You’re the only person I know who is crazy enough to take five kids into the grocery store and expect to come out of it with all of your hair and less than three hundred dollars worth of junk food.”
“I didn’t know I was supposed to try.”
Cat laughed before she said, “I love you, Chai. I can hear the kids screaming. Show me what’s going on.”
And with that, I flipped the camera view so she could watch our children with the same excitement I did.
After a life that wasn’t much to write home about, a stint in prison, and the opportunity to join a club that gave me brothers for life, I didn’t realize I was missing anything until I met Cat and our girls. What started out as just a job turned into the adventure of a lifetime, and I wouldn’t change a thing.
THE END
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