Epilogue #3
“See, now, you just have a type!” Alice said, pointing to herself and then Brock.
“Kind of crazy, but also super hot. Great combination in my humble opinion. So what kind of crazy are you, Smoky McHotpants? Judging by that posture… PTSD? Mix in a little major depression? Maybe some anxiety and panic?”
“You’re good,” he said, nodding.
“I know. If I could keep my own ass on the straight-and-narrow for long enough, I would probably make a great head shrinker. Oh, is that the Chinese you were talking about?” she asked, hearing a buzz on the intercom.
“I’ll go grab it,” she said, rushing out to do just that before either of us could object.
“She’s a lot, but she’s amazing,” I told him because he looked a little bit shell-shocked.
“No, yeah, I can see that. I was just thinking…”
“Yeah?”
“Maybe you should consider having her on the staff of your nonprofit,” he said.
I might not have actually needed to go to the mental health facility when I’d been forced there. But there were many people, like Alice, like Brock, who benefited from them.
That said, what I believed the world really needed was more help before things got to the institutional level. More community help. Places for people to turn when they were struggling where they could receive professional help without breaking the bank.
That was what I wanted to focus the second part of my life to.
I’d done the ‘success’ thing.
That was never going to go away.
Now I wanted to do the ‘finding meaning’ thing instead.
“That is actually a great idea,” I said, nodding.
No, I didn’t know Alice that well.
And, yes, her own mental health could mean she might be unavailable at times, but having someone like her, a ‘veteran’ of the current mental healthcare world, would be a really valuable asset.
“Hey, there’s only two spring rolls,” Alice said, coming back in. “I’m calling dibs on one. What?” she asked, looking between us.
“I have a proposition for you,” I said.
Her gaze moved between the two of us.
“I mean, you’re both smoking hot, don’t get me wrong. But you’re gonna have to catch me on my slutty manic stage to be your third. And, as much as I’m sure it would be sweaty-good fun, I’m trying not to go manic right now.”
Oh, Alice was going to be fun to have on my team for the nonprofit.
Brock - 11 months
What do you get as a birthday present for a woman who could literally buy herself anything in the world that she wanted?
Well, you had to get inventive.
“She’s going to know what it is if they don’t hush,” Cam said, eyeing the box I’d put in his lap after picking him up from the train.
I’d been mildly worried about that since I’d picked them up from the breeder. It was why I was going to do a quick re-packaging, if you will, before we went into the house for the party.
I had a padded basket in the back that I hoped would keep them cozier and quieter.
“She’s going to love them,” Cam told me, picking up on my anxiety.
“I hope so,” I agreed.
I mean, this was a woman who had entire collection of coffee mugs with ducks on them.
Real life little ducklings sounded like a safe bet.
Something she would never get for herself, but would absolutely adore.
“Where’s that boyfriend of yours?” I asked.
“He’s driving down,” Cam told me, a tentative smile tugging at his lips. “We are going to head down to Cape May for the weekend.”
Cam had just recently started dating again after dedicating his entire life to work and therapy for the past almost year.
But he just so happened to hit it off with another head of a tech company a few weeks ago, and was finally giving in to everyone’s gentle encouragement to put himself out there again.
“That will be nice. Next trip, you can go to the villa,” I suggested.
“We’re not there yet,” Cam insisted. “But maybe someday,” he added with a wistful little smile. “Alright. Take these. I will go distract the birthday girl while you wrap them.”
That was just what I did, arranging the three little ducklings with their fat bodies, tiny wings, and big beaks into a basket with a promise of some mealworm treats later if they were quiet for their unboxing.
“You didn’t have to get me anything,” Miranda insisted a few minutes later, shaking her head as I walked in. “You’ve already given me everything I could have wanted,” she added in a lower voice as I got closer.
And, fuck, to hear that from the woman you loved? Yeah, that was a good feeling.
“You have to hurry up and open it.”
“What? Is it going to expire?” she asked, shaking her head at me, put lifting the lid of the basket.
Then, earning their mealworms, they suddenly broke into little choruses of quacks that had Miranda squealing, then crying, as she picked them up to love on them.
“Don’t worry,” Tig said, nodding. “Your man has already arranged to have us dig them a pond in the backyard.”
“And their Aunt Alice bought them the coolest little custom coop ever, that will be delivered in a few weeks since they’re too little to go outside yet anyway.”
“Looks like you missed part of your gift there, Randi,” Cam said, on cue, making her hand two of the ducks to an eager Alice as she looked back in the basket.
Distracted for just long enough for me to get down on my knee in front of her and pull out the ring box.
“I don’t see… oh,” she said, smile huge as she looked from me, to the ring, back to me again. “You don’t even have to ask,” she said, holding the duck to her chest with one hand, his little webbed feet dangling down, and thrusting her left hand toward me. “In this and every other lifetime, yes.”
“Hear that?” Sawyer asked, after I got the ring on, and a solid kiss from my woman, making everyone quiet down and listen. “That is the sound of every rich divorcee crying now that he is officially off the market.”
To that, Miranda let out a little laugh.
“They might have gotten a piece of you,” she said, handing me a duck. “But I get all of you.”
And so she did.
Miranda - 10 years
We didn’t rush anything.
There were no timelines for us, no pressing reason to get to any particular part of life.
So we went ahead and enjoyed six solid years together. Just us, our ducks, our eventual dogs, our friends that were like family, and our love.
We ate great food.
We saw beautiful countries.
We went to benefits.
We built an amazing nonprofit that was helping people through their mental health struggles every single day.
Then, eventually, it was time.
To, as Brock put it, ‘do the parent thing.’
But we’d both agreed that small kids weren’t our style.
First, we were both older. And pretty fond of sleeping through the night.
Second, we had a lot to offer some teens in the system who might otherwise age out with no families of their own.
We’d talked extensively with Riya, who had been adopted, and who had adopted as a parent as well.
We’d discussed it with Alice, who had, after she stabled herself out, gone after that therapy degree she used to joke about, and she’d worked with us to understand the innate trauma that came with adoption, helping us to understand what we would be dealing with when we were ready.
Then, we were.
Ready.
And after a home study, some classes, and meeting with a caseworker to go over files, we were paired up with a set of siblings—fourteen and twelve—who we’d welcomed into our home(s), into our life.
They’d been with us just under a year, and we already couldn’t imagine a life without them.
“Hey,” Brock said, coming into the kitchen where I was putting together a snack board.
“What’s that look for?” I asked, knowing mischief when I saw it.
“Fenway just called. He’s at some concert or something that the kids like. And he’s going to do a video call with the band. You know what that means?”
“That we really shouldn’t let our children associate with a man who keeps a team of crisis managers on the payroll?”
“He’s gotten in less trouble since he’s settled down,” Brock insisted. “But no.”
“What does it mean then?” I asked.
“It means we have a solid twenty-five to thirty minutes of alone time,” he told me, already grabbing my wrist and pulling me toward the stairs.
“I bet, if we use your little buzzy friend, we can get you to come three or four times,” he added, smirking at me, his eyes bright with the upcoming challenge.
It was four.
And we stumbled back down the stairs, disheveled, flushed, to find the kids just wrapping up their call with Fenway.
None the wiser to what had just happened.
“Hey, tell your mom that she missed a button,” Fenway called.
“Fucking Fenway,” Brock hissed, closing his eyes as he sighed.
It was our daughter, the eldest, who looked over, her face screwing up.
“Gross,” she decided, then turned her attention back to choosing a movie on the TV.
“Hey, did you hear that? We grossed out the kids,” Brock says. “I’ve never felt more like a parent.”
“Not even when you tell your awful dad jokes that makes them roll their eyes?” I shot back, fixing my buttons.
“Hey, those are loving eye rolls,” Brock insisted, grabbing the snack board for me.
“Whatever you need to tell yourself to feel better,” he said, putting down the tray, then pulling me down beside him.
Reaching down, he grabbed my wrist, pulling my arm up, and planting a kiss on the inside of my forearm.
Where I’d gotten something completely ridiculous tattooed on my skin.
Reptar.
To match the one Brock had tattooed on him years before.
It covered the scar that had brought us together, turning it into something that represented our connection, the life we’d built together.
It wasn’t the first time in my life that I found a way to be thankful for all those horrible things all those years ago.
Because if it hadn’t been for all of that, I would never have built all of this.
“Hey,” Brock called as the movie started, making me turn my head up on his shoulder to look at him.
“Yeah?”
“What ever happened to that statue?”
“What statue?”
“The one you almost bashed me over the head with,” he clarified. “I haven’t seen it in years.”
“I think I boxed it up to donate to a museum.”
“You can’t donate it. It has sentimental value. That shit’s priceless.”
“You want us to hold onto something I almost used as a weapon against you?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“You love it.”
And I did.
And I always would.