Epilogue
EPILOGUE
ANNIE
SIX YEARS LATER
A lot had changed since the day Lucy had called me from the hospital, fearing the worst for her pregnancy. Healing our friendship had been the biggest thing. I had never heard Lucy as scared as she was that day, and it broke my heart. I’d also had never seen Dad as happy, or as concerned as he was when he got to the hospital.
In that moment, I understood this wasn’t just some sordid little affair with a pregnancy mistake. They were actually in love and happy; I couldn’t be angry at them for that, I loved them both too much. Truthfully there wasn’t another woman on the planet that I would be happy sharing my dad with. Lucy was my best friend since the day we met, and now, she was also family.
I sat at the edge of the auditorium with my dad, waiting for my beautiful friend to walk across the stage and collect her master’s in accounting and finance. It had taken her longer than usual to finish it but having two babies would do that.
Her name was announced, and I grinned with pride as she waddled across the stage to accept her certificate and shake the dean’s hand. My newest baby brother or sister was due to make an appearance in another six or seven weeks. Lucy was glowing, just as it had the last two times; pregnancy really seemed to agree with her.
She was starting a business with Dad, and she had been insisting that they would be focusing on that for the next few years. I had chuckled when I told my fiancé Greg – I gave them eighteen months max before they were pregnant with baby number four. Just in time to have a bump in my wedding photos the year after.
Around the time my first sister was born I was headhunted by a company in a field I had never even thought about before. But I liked their ethos, and what they were offering – it was a good opportunity in all directions. Greg was one of the first people on the team that I met. We hit it off really well, and the rest, as they say, is history. He proposed at Christmas.
I never would have predicted when we came home from university how life would have turned out for me and for Lucy. Her being my step mum and parent to my half-siblings was definitely not on my radar, but then, getting married wasn’t on my ten-year plan, either.
Things are good for me, my dad and my best friend. Life really did surprise me, but I wouldn’t change a single thing.