Epilogue
Five years later
If you thought a girl who made me run seven miles after a moving vehicle would say I had to stick around for a year and not mean it, think again. But stuck around I have, and Tammy married me. We’re on year four of our marriage, and have gathered on an open field for an Easter egg hunt.
My daughter, Leah, sits on my hip while the girls tap on their phones, texting other girls on the Easter egg hunt.
“Melany,” Reagan says and tucks her phone in the back pocket of her jeans. “Don’t text Jenna.”
“Why not?”
“Jenna is the enemy until the hunt is over.”
Reagan extends a fist, and I bump it, then survey the layout. Open field, lots of trees. The eggs are likely not in places I’d have put them to actually hide something, like digging up a grave in Mexico and hiding a Mafia boss’s money. I know most people are normal and won’t think the way I think.
Other parents come closer to us, and I put Leah down, glaring at one dad. He moves back into his previous position. Mm-hm.
Leah tugs on my hand. At three years old, she’s wearing lip gloss and seven bows in her hair, courtesy of Melany, who thinks of Leah as her living doll. “I want to find at least thirteen eggs, Daddy.”
“Got it.” Target: thirteen eggs.
“You think I can find that many?”
“Yes.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I’ve got the layout of the land, and a plan.” When you have small kids, lots of things don’t go as planned. I hatch out a plan only to have it completely demolished by a three-year-old when she spills something all over her clothes.
Having kids is like commanding soldiers who don’t particularly feel the need to fall in line. Nobody really listens to me, but I love pretending I’m running the house.
I check my watch and note it’s two minutes to eleven.
“Okay, Team MacLoyd, gather in.” I clap my hands, and the girls huddle around me.
Crouching, I lock eyes with each of them.
They look determined. This is great. “Target is thirteen eggs. You will call out each egg so we can all count. Reagan, take the bushes. Melany, the trees. Leah, you run point and collect. Clear?”
“Clear, Dad!” they shout.
Hurrah. I’m pumped. Let’s do this.
The pastor walks over to the front of the line, and the families gather. I’m counting kids. Lots of kids means my girls are gonna have to be fast and ruthless.
The pastor thanks everyone for coming, and when he goes into the significance of Easter, I check my watch, tap my foot, and lock eyes with Tammy, who’s at my nine o’clock resting on the grass. She’s nine months pregnant, with swollen feet, and can’t do much standing right now.
Still, she can smile. Tammy can always smile, and probably at my expression. She knows all my expressions, especially this murderous one, because if the pastor doesn’t blow the whistle soon, I’ll gag him and take charge of the hunt.
Five minutes later, and Fucking A, he’s still talking.
I check my watch. Ten past eleven. A glance at Dawson tells me he’s as irritated as I am, standing at my three o’clock, glaring at the pastor.
Finally, the talking stops, and I let go of Leah’s hand and crouch again. “Stay focused. On point. Kick anyone who’s compromising your mission.”
Leah nods, curls bouncing off her shoulder.
The whistle blows, and Reagan takes off for the bushes like a bullet, practically tackling a boy in her way. Yup. My chest puffs out, and I walk to sit behind Tammy so she can lean on my body. I press a hand over her belly and rub to see if I can get a kick. When I don’t get one, I poke her belly.
Tammy groans. “Stop poking.”
“You like being poked.”
She twists, looks up, and nibbles my chin.
I’m hard now and wanna fuck her again. The baby needs to come, and the good doctor said we can try having sex more often to induce labor.
I took that as a mission, so I’m sure Tammy’s pussy is sore.
Still no baby. But I can’t complain if I don’t complete the mission for a few more days, because I won’t see that pussy for the next month or more.
As I listen to my girls call out the count, I try not to think about Tammy’s labor and what I saw when she was delivering Leah. This time around, I’m not gonna watch as closely. I saw her pussy stretch and spit out a baby. Nope, I’m good with standing behind her this time.
A leg kicks out, and I poke it back. A leg kicks out again. Aww, life is good.
“That’s a great idea,” Tammy says and moves to get her phone, but she’s so heavy that she topples over my leg and stays there, laughing, arms outstretched, reaching for her purse.
I hand her the purse so she can dig out her phone. She does, and I drag her back up to lean on me, watching while she pulls up the notes app and starts the furious thumb typing.
Tammy quit the diner and writes books full time.
She has a lot of these ideas popping into her head.
Last time she had an idea, she spent the night in her office and wrote ten thousand words.
Meanwhile, the last thing I wrote this month was mine on a take-out box.
If you don’t claim it, it’s gone, and sometimes, even when I do claim it, it’s gone.
“Eleven,” Reagan shouts, and I hear her curse and run around. Leah’s trying to catch up to her to put the eleventh egg in the basket, but Regan is fast, zipping through the crowds like a ricochet. Most kids have given up already.
My girls are still searching, though, because they know all things worth having take effort, and when most give up, the hard girls get moving.
Two minutes later and still missing two eggs, I’m getting a bit nervous I’ll have to give them the failure-as-motivation speech, but Leah screeches at the top of her lungs and holds up one egg. “Twelve!”
“Wohoo,” I cheer from the sidelines. “One more for Team MacLoyd. Come on.”
Leah throws the egg in the basket and crawls into bushes. Cuts, cuts, cuts. Shit. “Baby, watch your eyes,” I holler, then prop myself up, taking Tammy with me.
She drops her phone and turns up her face. “Stay down, Reed.”
“There’s gonna be cuts on her.” I’m such a pussy when it comes to my girls. If it were my team, I’d tell them no pain, no gain but I don’t say that to my girls.
When Leah doesn’t come out, I stand and take Tammy with me, then go around her. I’m gonna get my kid out of the bushes when she says, “My water broke.”
You can’t plan this shit. None of it, and girl number four is coming. (We haven’t decided on a name yet.)
“Team MacLoyd, we gotta go,” I shout. We’re too loud. People are giving me dirty looks, but fuck ’em.
“One more, Dad,” Reagan shouts back.
“No more. The water broke.”
“Gimme a minute,” she counters.
Christ. Bent over, Tammy’s walking toward the car, so I know she’s having contractions, and Reagan won’t give up.
She can’t. She can smell the final egg. A bloodhound, that one, like her daddy, which is me in all the ways but one, but that one doesn’t count in our book. I’m a father, not a sperm donor.
I walk to the bushes and find Leah standing over an egg that’s definitely not an Easter egg. It must’ve fallen from the tree.
“Pick it up, baby. It’s your lucky egg.”
“Will it count?”
“Sure it will.”
Leah hands me the egg and the basket and crawls out. Reagan and Melany meet us at the bushes, and we all jog to the car and get in. I turn and count my kids as I peel off, gunning the minivan toward the hospital.
“Reed, we need to stop by the house,” Tammy says between labored breaths.
“Why?”
“I need the bag.”
“Got the bag, baby.” I side-eye her. “You okay?” Inwardly, I’m praying she’ll make it because I do not wanna deliver the baby. Labor and delivery staff are heroes.
Tammy’s looking at me all emotional, and there’s tears in her eyes. I’m gonna melt if she continues, so I watch the road.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Reed. Did I ever tell you that?”
I melt in my seat. Also, I clear my throat, a little uncomfortable with all the melting I’m feeling. “Thank you, baby. Did we settle on the name yet?”
“Sparrow,” Leah says from the back.
“Oh,” Tammy turns. “That’s…that’s really nice. Reed?”
“Whatever you want, Tammy." I squeeze her knee. "I’m with you.”
***
Hi, Milana here. I just loved writing Reed. I swear up and down everyone needs a Reed in their life. Thanks so much for reading. Next up, Blake, the Suit.