Epilogue One
EPILOGUE ONE
40.7128° N, 74.0060° W
Roman
W aking when I hear a tiny cry coming from the bassinet tucked between the hospital bed and my chair, I look over at Elora, who is fast asleep, and quickly get up before she wakes. Last night, after seven hours of hard labor, she delivered our daughter, who came out screaming with a full head of blond hair and features just like her mom. Going to the bassinet, I scoop Millie Diana King up and hold her against my chest. I still haven’t gotten over how tiny and absolutely fragile she is. Taking a seat, I pick up one of the bottles she had been drinking from not long ago and rub the end against her lips. She immediately chases it and begins to drink. As I let my eyes roam over her, my heart feels too fucking big for my chest. I still can’t believe that I had a hand in creating something so perfect.
“I didn’t hear her wake up?” Elora’s sleep-filled voice reaches my ears, and I look over at her. Even obviously tired from giving birth, she’s beautiful, and even though I knew I loved her yesterday, that love has seemed to have gotten stronger in just a few short hours.
“She just woke up,” I tell her, then shake my head when she attempts to sit up. “I got her. You rest.”
With her face soft, she relaxes back against the bed, her eyes wandering from me to Millie. When Millie stops drinking, I put the bottle away and turn her in my arms to hold her up against my chest so I can burp her.
“You’re already a pro,” she says when Millie lets out a burst of air.
“All those classes you dragged me to paid off.” I smile at my wife and watch her laugh.
When there’s a light knock on the door right before it starts to open, I expect to see one of the nurses who have been in and out all night, but I’m happily surprised when I see my mom, Diana, and Sofia walk into the room. Mom’s eyes come to me for a moment before they drop to the bundle in my arms.
“Oh goodness,” she whispers, tiptoeing toward me as Diana walks over to the bed to hug Elora with Sofia right behind her. “Can I hold her?” Mom asks, and I carefully get up and pass her Millie, then hover over her until she’s sitting. “She’s beautiful.” Mom looks over at Elora.
“She looks like your son.”
“No.” Mom shakes her head, dropping her gaze back to Millie. “She looks like you.”
When I look over at Diana, who is still standing close to Elora, holding her hand, I catch the small smile on her face as she watches her daughter with her great-granddaughter.
“Did you decide on a name?” Sofia asks, walking over to stand over Mom.
“Millie Diana King,” Elora says, and since I’m looking at Diana, I catch her look at Elora with surprise before she turns to her and wraps her in a hug. The two of them are close. Oftentimes, when I call Elora during the day, if she’s not studying for some test she needs to take for school, she’s out with my grandmother, who hasn’t lost the love for the city she has lived in her whole life and enjoys sharing it with Elora.
“Knock, knock.” I hear coming from the door and smile when Lucia steps into the room, holding a huge bouquet of pink and white flowers with two balloons floating above it. “I thought I’d be here before everyone else.” She places the bouquet on the dresser and then looks at Diana. “My dad is standing outside. Can he come in without you kicking him out?”
“He can do what he likes.” Diana sniffs, and I look at my mom, who is trying not to smile. Over the past couple of years, Diana has lost some of her anger toward Ricardo because of Elora. It’s not that she likes him, but she accepts his presence.
When Lucia comes back into the room a second later with her hand wrapped around our father’s wrist, I watch his eyes go to Elora and soften. He cares for her in his own way and respects everything that she has accomplished in the past few years, from starting school so that she can one day be a grief counselor to working with Mom on starting a nonprofit to help families pay for therapy after they’ve lost someone they loved.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Mom asks Dad as he leans over to get a better look at Millie.
“Perfect.” He reaches out one finger to softly touch her cheek.
Looking around the room at my family, I don’t know how Elora did it, but somehow, having her in my life has healed my family. Or maybe, like me, they all learned that life is short and fragile after losing Val. You never know when someone might be taken from you. And those regrets you have after a loss are difficult to swallow, especially when you have no way to get back the time you lost.
That is why Elora encouraged me to reach out to Molly after she gave birth. I was still too angry at that time, but then she asked me what Val would have wanted me to do. Of course, I knew the answer, but building that bridge was difficult.
Eventually, with Elora’s support, I worked through my issues to have a relationship with my nephew, and I’m thankful I did. Val Jr. is the spitting image of his father and his exact personality, so in the end, Molly gave us a piece of Valentino. Through him, my brother’s memory will live on. Just like Millie’s memory will live on every time we take our daughter and any other kids we have to visit her home in Wyoming and all the places we traveled with her.
I wish that I could say that Elora’s family learned that same lesson after her mom passed away, but unfortunately, they didn’t. Elora has had little to no contact with them over the years except to send them photos of the places we traveled in Millie’s name, so if they’d like to visit those places one day, they could.
Walking over to my wife, I lean over and kiss the top of her head. Before her, anyone looking at my life from the outside would have thought I had it all. They would’ve had no idea that I was the king of nothing until I met and fell in love with Elora, and she changed my entire life.
Elora
2 years later
“Can you see anything?” Roman asks, keeping his hands firmly covering my eyes while he uses his big body pressed up against my back to urge me forward.
“No.” I wave my hands out in front of my belly, which is getting bigger by the day.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I laugh, stumbling slightly, hearing someone, most likely his mother, gasp for him to be careful.
The demand is ridiculous. My husband would never let anything happen to me, especially with me carrying our son, who should be here any day now.
“Okay,” he whispers, his lips brushing against my ear and making me shiver. When his hands slide away, I blink my eyes open, and it takes me a few seconds to realize what I’m seeing. Tucked away in the corner of the playroom is the VW van he and I drove in for days as we traveled from Oregon to Vegas years ago. Only it’s been freshly painted, and the wheels and the sliding back door have been removed.
With my heart in my throat, I walk down the single step into the room. When I reach the van, I look through the driver’s window at the front seats that have been replaced and the dash that has been traded out for something you’d find in a children's museum with the steering wheel still intact but gadgets and gizmos to press, turn and touch where the dashboard once was. Walking to the open back door, I see the wood floors in the back that were destroyed when I bought the van have all been replaced. The bed has been taken out, and the kitchen has been updated with a child’s version of a stove and sink.
“What do you think?” Turning to face the man who I fell in love with while driving in the van now sitting in our children’s playroom as something they can enjoy for years to come, I shake my head in disbelief.
“I thought you sold it?”
“I couldn’t bring myself to do it.” He looks at the van, then back at me. “When I told Mom it was sitting in storage, she suggested that I have it remodeled into something our kids could play in. It took a year for the company to make sure it was safe and three months for us to figure out how to get it up here.” He smiles. “Luckily, it only took two days for them to get it done once they figured it out.”
“So that’s why you insisted on taking me away for the weekend.” I look at Diana, who just smiles.
“Down, Grandpa.” Hearing that demand from Millie, I look at Ricardo and watch him walk down the step into the playroom and carefully put Millie on her feet. As soon as she’s free from his hold, she runs to the open door of the van and climbs inside, her blond hair a wild mess of curls that are impossible to tame. When she pokes her head out with a cup in her hand and asks if any of us would like tea, I smile at my girl and feel Roman’s hands still holding me tight.
“It’s perfect.” I glance up at Roman before looking back at the van, a million memories coming at me at once. I used that van to run away from my life when I felt like I was drowning, and I ended up finding myself and the love of my life.
Roman often tells me that it must have been magic that brought us together, but maybe, just maybe, my mom was looking out for me just like she did my whole life.