Epilogue
MILLIE
One Year Later
The Porter backyard is chaos in the best possible way.
There are streamers taped to every surface because Harper insisted on doing the decorations herself, and nobody had the heart to tell her that covering every fence post, chair, and tree branch was maybe a bit much.
There's a banner that says HAPPY BIRTHDAY AVERY in glitter letters that are already peeling off and leaving a trail of sparkle across the lawn like a craft project exploded.
The yard is full of people. Hospital friends of Connor and Sarah's, some residents, a few nurses. I don't know most of them, but the energy is warm and easy, people laughing and talking, kids running around, plates of food being passed.
I've met a few of Sarah's friends by now.
Bea, her best friend, is an ER nurse at St. Aldric's.
She's bubbly and loud, the kind of person who could rival Joseph in volume, which is saying something.
We talked for a bit earlier, and she told me three stories in five minutes and didn't pause once for breath. I liked her immediately.
Avery is in her high chair. She's one today.
She has Sarah's brown hair and Connor's blue eyes and absolutely zero interest in the cake except as a medium for destruction.
There's frosting on her face, in her hair, on the tray, and she's slapping the surface with both hands and squealing with delight.
Connor is hovering three feet away, pretending he's not worried about the mess. He absolutely is.
Joseph is on the grass with Lucas on his lap. Our son. Seven months old. Dark hair, my blue eyes, Joseph's smile. He's at the age where everything within reach needs to be grabbed and examined and ideally put in his mouth.
Right now, he's got Joseph's nose in a death grip, and Joseph is making exaggerated faces every time he squeezes, and Lucas is doing that full-body baby laugh.
The one where his whole torso shakes and his face scrunches, and the sound of it makes every person within ten feet stop what they're doing and smile.
I watch them from the patio. My son and his father on the grass in the afternoon sun. Joseph says something to Lucas that I can't hear, and Lucas grabs his ear instead, and Joseph pretends to be devastated, and Lucas laughs harder.
Joseph glances up from the grass and finds me across the yard. He grins, that whole-face grin that has not dimmed once since we met.
Then, slow and clear and proud as anything, he lifts his hand and signs it. Pinky up, index up, thumb out, the rest tucked under. He holds it the extra second he always holds it, like he wants to make sure I see.
I love you.
I lift my hand and sign it back. Same shape. Same held beat.
Then he reaches for Lucas's tiny fingers and folds them into the same shape—pinky, index, thumb up, the others curled under—and waves Lucas's hand at me. Our son's first ASL, ghost-piloted by his father in late afternoon light.
Lucas, predictably, puts his hand in his mouth. But I saw it. The shape, before he chewed it. He doesn't know what it means yet. He will.
I was so scared when I was pregnant, scared he'd be like me.
Joseph told me it wouldn't matter, that we'd love him no matter what.
And I believed him. I did. But when Lucas came into the world, and the first sound he made was a cry, loud and full and angry, I sobbed so hard the nurses thought something was wrong.
Nothing was wrong. Everything was right. My son had a voice.
He laughs again. Loud. He has Joseph's laugh, and I will never get tired of hearing it.
Harper runs over to me and grabs my hand. "Auntie Millie, come look! Avery put frosting on Daddy's shirt and he doesn't know yet!"
She grabs my hand and pulls me toward the high chair like the frosting evidence might disappear if we don't get there fast enough. Sure enough, there's a perfect frosting handprint on the back of Connor's shirt. He hasn't noticed, and Sarah is across the yard, biting her lip, trying not to laugh.
Harper is like this with me. Has been since we met. She decided I was hers and that was that. She reminds me of Joseph. Both of them just decide to love you and don't wait for permission.
The afternoon stretches on. Kids run around.
Adults eat too much cake. Someone puts music on, and Harper tries to teach Lucas to dance even though he can't stand yet.
She holds his hands while he sits on the blanket and bobs, and she counts "one, two, three" like she's a professional choreographer.
Joseph films the whole thing on his phone.
As the sun gets lower, the crowd thins. People say goodbye, hug Sarah, tell Connor the food was great. The yard empties until it's just us. The four of us. Plus three kids, a pile of presents, and the wreckage of a first birthday party.
Sarah collapses into a lawn chair. Connor sits beside her and finally notices the frosting on his shirt. He stares at it. Glances at Avery in the playpen. Then at Sarah.
"How long has this been here?"
"Hours," Sarah says. "It was funnier not to tell you."
"Helpful. Thank you."
Joseph drops into the chair across from them. I sit beside him. The evening air is warm, and the yard is quiet now.
On the play mat, Harper is sitting cross-legged between Lucas and Avery, attempting to organize them into some kind of game that neither of them understands.
Avery keeps reaching for Lucas's hand, and Lucas keeps grabbing her fingers, and they babble at each other in a language only they seem to speak.
Harper narrates the whole thing like a nature documentary.
"And now Avery is sharing her block. Good sharing, Avery. Lucas, say thank you. Lucas. LUCAS."
Joseph watches them, then nudges me. "Mills. Look at that."
I look. Avery is holding Lucas's hand now. Two babies on a mat holding hands while Harper supervises.
"I don't want to alarm anyone," Joseph says. "But that right there? That's basically a proposal in baby language."
Sarah's eyes light up. "Oh, my god. If they end up together, we'd be actual family. In-laws!"
Connor's face goes through something complicated. He looks at Joseph. Then at Lucas. Then back at Joseph.
"No offense, Millie," Connor says slowly. "But the idea of a mini version of this man trying to date my daughter is genuinely the most terrifying thing I've ever imagined. And I've done open-heart surgery."
I laugh. I type and show him: To be fair, Lucas has my temperament. Thoughtful. You'd be lucky.
Joseph reads it over my shoulder. "Excuse me? He has MY smile. MY charm. He's going to be devastating."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Connor says.
"Connor, relax. They're babies. They can barely hold their own heads up," Sarah says, smiling.
"Harper couldn't hold her head up either, and now she runs my household."
Sarah pats his arm. "He's not wrong."
Joseph grins. I lean into his side.
"Speaking of family things," Sarah says. "Have you two set a date yet? For the wedding?"
Joseph looks at me. I look at him.
"We're thinking next year," he says. "Millie wants Lucas to be the ring bearer."
Sarah's hand goes to her chest. "Stop. That's the cutest thing I've ever heard. A tiny ring bearer!"
"The challenge is getting the ring to actually reach us. He'll start walking down the aisle, see a butterfly or someone's shoe or literally anything, and just take off in a completely different direction."
Sarah laughs. "That's even better."
"Connor, we might need Harper on standby. If Lucas goes rogue, she intercepts."
Connor nods seriously. "She's been training for this her whole life."
The evening winds down the way good ones do—slowly, without anyone noticing until the sky has gone soft and the yard is mostly shadow.
We help clean up, carrying plates inside, folding the blanket that somehow ended up across two chairs.
Harper is asleep on the couch, one arm dangling off the edge, still wearing her party shoes.
Avery has been out for over an hour, curled in her playpen with frosting still flaking from her hair.
We say goodnight at the door. Sarah pulls me into a hug and squeezes once before letting go. Connor shakes Joseph's hand and then pulls him into a hug that surprises no one—because Connor has gotten better at that over the years. Sarah takes credit.
We drive home. Lucas sleeps the entire way, his car seat facing backward, his mouth open, one sock missing because he kicks them off within minutes of having them put on. Every time.
We get in. I slip off my shoes. Joseph sets the diaper bag by the door. The apartment settles around us, familiar and quiet and ours.
I carry Lucas to the nursery, Joseph right behind me.
We do the routine, muscle memory by now.
Change, swaddle, lower him in gently. He stirs for a second, his face scrunching like he's about to protest, and we both freeze, holding our breath until he settles again.
Out cold. One arm escapes the swaddle because it always does.
Joseph whispers, "Every time. Every single time I think he's going to wake up, and every single time he doesn't. This kid sleeps like a rock."
I give him a look that says stop talking before you jinx it. He puts both hands up and backs away from the crib slowly, like he's defusing a bomb.
Tofu is already in her spot, the floor beside the crib.
She's been there since we brought him home from the hospital.
Every night. She sleeps by his crib like a small, white, fluffy guard with one deaf ear and an attitude problem.
She takes the job seriously. If Lucas cries, Tofu is at the door before either of us.
We step out and pull the door mostly closed. The hallway is dim, and Joseph stops with his hand on the doorframe, listening once more for Lucas. He does this every night, like he's confirming the world stayed exactly the way he left it.
"Mae texted me earlier," he says, low. "Viv's coming home for the long weekend. Her therapist signed off." He says it simply, like it's a small thing, but his eyes shine even in the dark. I touch his cheek with the back of my hand. He leans into it.
Tell her I'm proud of her, I sign.
He nods. "She'd cry."
Good.
He laughs, breathless, and his voice cracks on the word. "Yeah. Good."
He pulls me into him, and my head fits against his chest the way it always has.
I think about the woman who sat beside me on the audition bench three years ago and made me laugh when I was about to throw up.
The one who, when I told her I was mute, didn't blink—just kept the conversation going like it was the easiest thing in the world.
Joseph takes my hand, draws me toward him, and kisses me. Slow and warm, like neither of us has anywhere to be.
I pull back. I sign: What was that for?
He watches my hands. He's gotten good at reading me now. Not perfect. But good enough for the things that matter.
He grins. "I just missed you."
I smile. I sign: We've been together all day.
"I know. I still missed you."
I smile and kiss him back. His hands settle on my waist, and mine go to his chest. We stand in the hallway of our apartment kissing like we don't have a sleeping baby ten feet away and a cat judging us from the nursery doorway.
He pulls back and presses his forehead against mine.
"Thank you," he says.
I sign: For what?
"For Lucas. For choosing me even when I didn't deserve it. For being the best mother I've ever seen. For being my wife."
We're not married yet.
He laughs softly. "I would have married you last year, but I didn't want to rush things."
True. Pregnancy after the first date is already a record.
He laughs, breathy and low, trying not to wake the baby.
He pulls me into another kiss, longer this time, his arms tight around me, my hands in his hair. From the nursery, Tofu meows once—brief, judgmental. We both ignore her.
I think about where I started. A broken mug on a kitchen floor. An audition. An email with someone else's name on it. A dating app opened at one in the morning because I was looking for anything that didn't feel like losing.
If someone had told me a year and a half ago that a failed audition, three broken ribs, and a one-night stand with a stranger would lead me here, I would have laughed.
But somehow we found each other in the most chaotic, backward, out-of-order way two people have ever stumbled into love.
And I wouldn't change a single thing.