Epilogue
VIKTOR
Six months in, and Alexander’s discovered his own voice, a fact he demonstrates loudly and often, currently shrieking with delight as Ginger makes increasingly ridiculous faces at him from across his blanket on the living room floor.
“He likes me best,” Ginger announces. “Watch.”
She makes another face, and Alexander shrieks again, kicking his legs with the particular joy only a baby who hasn’t yet learned self-control can manage, and Harper laughs from the kitchen doorway, watching the two of them with an expression I’ve come to recognize as her particular brand of quiet contentment.
“He likes everyone,” Harper says. “You’re just louder about claiming credit.”
“That’s called confidence, Aunt Harper.”
“That’s called being seven.”
Ginger’s turned seven since the birth, a fact she reminds everyone of with some regularity, apparently considering it a significant upgrade in status.
Second grade suits her, judging by the enthusiasm with which she reports classroom developments most evenings, and the treehouse still gets regular use, though these days she’s more likely to bring a book up there than a stuffed dragon.
I watch this exchange from my chair by the window, invoice work forgotten in my lap, unable to focus on anything as mundane as numbers when the actual view in front of me is considerably more interesting.
Six months since the birth, nearly a year since the reveal, and some days I still find myself simply watching this family exist in a house that no longer needs cameras built into the landscaping to feel safe.
Renata arrives just past noon, exactly as promised, carrying a cake box and an expression that suggests she’s already planning to overstay her welcome by several hours, which by now is simply how she visits.
“I come bearing sugar and gossip,” she announces, setting the box down and immediately scooping Alexander up before either Harper or Ginger can object. “Hello, handsome. Has your mother told you yet that she used to work the world’s most thankless front desk job before she landed all this?”
“Don’t corrupt him with hotel stories,” Harper says, though she’s smiling.
“I’m building character. There’s a difference.
” Renata settles onto the couch, Alexander perfectly content in her arms, and looks around the room with the satisfaction of someone who’s watched this entire story unfold from the very beginning.
“I still can’t believe this is the same woman who used to complain about the broken ice machine on the third floor. ”
“That machine was still broken when I left.”
“Some injustices never get resolved.” Renata glances at me, something warm and slightly teasing in her expression.
“And you. Still can’t believe you actually turned out to be a decent husband.
I had my doubts, you know. Strip club owner marrying a woman who mistook you for a dancer. Not exactly a fairy tale opening.”
“I’ve been informed several times that I exceeded expectations.”
“Low bar, but you cleared it admirably.” She adjusts Alexander against her shoulder, patting his back absently.
“I still tell people about it sometimes, you know. The version where I don’t have to explain the actual complicated parts.
Coworker proposes to a club owner on a whim, marries him, ends up happier than anyone I know. People love that story.”
“They’d love the real version considerably less,” Harper says dryly.
“The real version has excellent bones. It just needs a better editor for polite company.”
“Ginger, tell me everything about school. Leave nothing out, I want the full report.”
Ginger launches into an enthusiastic account of second grade politics, something about a classroom hamster and an ongoing dispute over recess equipment, and Harper settles onto the arm of my chair, close enough that I rest a hand against her back without either of us discussing it, the easy, unguarded intimacy of two people who’ve stopped needing permission to simply be close.
“She talks about you a lot, you know,” Harper says quietly, watching Renata and Ginger. “Renata. When Ginger’s telling stories about her week, half of them somehow end up involving her too.”
“She’s good for her. Good for both of you.”
“She’s good for all of us.” Harper leans into me slightly, and I press a kiss to the top of her head, unhurried, an ordinary gesture between us now, one I barely register doing anymore, though it still means everything it ever did.
Dinner that evening is loud and chaotic in the particular way family dinners apparently always are, Ginger narrating her hamster saga in exhaustive detail, Alexander banging a spoon against his highchair tray with enthusiastic disregard for anyone’s eardrums, Renata staying long past when she should have left, exactly as expected.
It’s well past nine by the time she finally goes, and the house settles into the quieter rhythm of bedtime, Ginger reading herself to sleep now most nights, proud of the skill in a way that makes my chest ache every time she mentions it, Alexander down for the night after his own elaborate routine of songs and rocking that Harper insists is necessary and I’ve long since stopped questioning.
I find Harper on the back porch afterward, wine in hand, feet tucked beneath her the same way she’s settled onto this porch a hundred times before, though tonight, watching her, I’m struck by how completely different this moment is from every version that came before it.
“You’re staring,” she says, without opening her eyes.
“I’m allowed to stare at my own wife.”
“You’ve said that exact line before.”
“It remains true every single time I say it.” I sit beside her, close enough that our shoulders touch, and take the offered glass she’s already poured for me, an old habit neither of us bothers commenting on anymore.
“I was thinking about the club tonight. About the night you walked in and mistook me for a stranger you could hire for a few months.”
“That feels like a lifetime ago.”
“It does. And it doesn’t, somehow, both at once.
” I turn the wine glass slowly, watching the porch light catch it.
“I agreed to that arrangement because it cost me nothing. Because I genuinely believed a temporary marriage to a stranger was the easiest, least complicated transaction I’d make all year. ”
“You were spectacularly wrong.”
“Spectacularly,” I agree. “I don’t think I understood, standing in that hallway shaking your hand, that I was agreeing to the single most significant decision of my entire life. Not the marriage itself. Everything it eventually became.”
Harper’s quiet a moment, studying me with the particular focus she still brings to conversations that matter.
“Do you regret any of it? The way it started, I mean. How complicated it got before it got easy.”
“Not for a single second.” I mean it completely, the truth of it settling somewhere solid in my chest. “Every difficult piece of this, the silence, the danger, everything I got wrong before I finally got it right, all of it led directly here. I wouldn’t trade the ease of a simpler path for a version of my life that doesn’t include exactly this family. ”
“Even the parts where I was furious with you for months at a time?”
“Especially those parts. They taught me I could survive your anger and still keep you, which is more than I ever expected to learn about myself.”
She leans into me, resting her head against my shoulder, and we sit there together a long while, the house quiet behind us, both children finally asleep, danger finally, genuinely behind us in a way I still sometimes have to remind myself to fully believe.
“I love you,” she says eventually, simple, certain, no hesitation left in it at all. “I don’t think I say that enough, given everything we’ve survived to actually get here.”
“You say it exactly enough. And I love you too, more than I knew I was capable of feeling for anyone, before you walked into my club and changed the entire trajectory of my life without either of us realizing it yet.”
She laughs, soft and warm, and tips her face up to kiss me, unhurried, certain, nothing left between us that needs protecting or hiding or managing anymore.
I hold the woman who walked into my club with nothing but nerve and a ridiculous proposal, and I understand completely how lucky I am that she did.
The End.
My dearest reader, thank you for reading Marrying the Pakhan!
P.S. If you enjoyed reading Marrying the Pakhan, then I think you’ll enjoy Baby for My Ex’s Brother! Swipe to the next page for a quick sneak peek…