Epilogue
NATE
The truck bounced along the access track, suspension complaining over the same ruts I’d been meaning to fill for months.
The afternoon sun cut through the trees in long golden slats, dappling the hood and warming the cab.
I had the windows down and the radio off, just the engine and the birdsong and the familiar crunch of gravel under tires.
Home. Every single time I came up this track, the word landed somewhere deep in my chest.
The hut came into view through the trees and I slowed, taking it in the way I always did. The way I probably always would.
It didn’t look much like the place I’d bought four years ago.
The bones were the same, the original footprint still visible if you knew where to look.
But we’d nearly doubled the square footage with the extension I’d built when Maya was pregnant with Eli.
New windows. New roof. A wraparound porch that caught the morning sun and the evening breeze.
Fresh paint in a green so deep it almost disappeared into the forest behind it.
I parked beside Maya’s truck and cut the engine, grabbing the bag of groceries from the passenger seat.
The screen door on the side entrance was sitting crooked again.
I’d rehung it twice already, but the frame had warped in last month’s humidity.
I needed to plane it down properly instead of just shimming it.
I added it to the mental list, right under the loose step on the back porch and the trim in the nursery that still needed a second coat.
There was always something. I didn’t mind. Every fix, every small improvement, every hour I put into this place was another layer of proof that I wasn’t going anywhere.
I rounded the front of the hut, boots scuffing on the flagstones we’d laid last spring I was halfway to the porch when a voice rang out across the clearing.
“Daddy!”
Hearing that word and it still knocked the wind out of me.
I turned toward the trailhead and there they were. Maya, one hand on her lower back and the other shading her eyes, her belly round and full under a soft grey t-shirt. And tearing down the path ahead of her, all flying limbs and wild energy, was my son.
I dropped the grocery bag on the porch and stepped down onto the grass just as Eli launched himself at me. I caught him under the arms and swung him up, his sturdy little body slamming into my chest with enough force to rock me back on my heels.
“Daddy, Daddy, we saw a thing!”
“Yeah?” I hitched him higher on my hip, my hand spread across his back. “What kind of thing?”
“A really big thing.” His eyes were huge, blue like mine, his brown hair sticking up in six different directions. “It was in the water and it was doing—” He made a motion with his hands that could have meant literally anything. “And Mommy said it was a... a...”
“A salamander,” Maya supplied, close enough now that I could see the flush on her cheeks from the walk. “We found one in the creek.”
“A sala-maner.” Eli nodded solemnly. “It was orange, Daddy. Really orange. And it had spots and tiny legs and it went under a rock but I waited and waited and it came back out again.”
“You were very patient,” Maya said.
“I was!” Eli’s face was serious. “And then it looked at me. Right at me, Daddy. I think it wanted to be friends but Mommy said we couldn’t take it home.”
“Mommy’s right. Salamanders like living in creeks.”
“I know.” He sighed, deeply aggrieved. Then his face lit up and he started squirming in my arms. “But look, look what I got!”
He shoved his hand into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a rock. It was small and grey and completely unremarkable, except for the fact that my three-year-old was presenting it to me like he’d unearthed the Holy Grail.
“Wow.” I took it from him and turned it over in my palm, giving it the serious examination it clearly deserved. “That’s a really good one, buddy.”
He grabbed it back and rubbed his thumb over the surface. “It was next to the salamanna. It’s special.”
“Ah.” I nodded. “Salamander rock. Very rare.”
“Yeah,” Eli agreed.
I looked at Maya. My wife. Standing in the late afternoon light with her hand resting on her belly, her dark hair loose around her shoulders, her face soft and happy and so goddamn beautiful it made my throat tight.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi yourself.”
I set Eli down and he immediately dropped to the grass, already hunting for more rocks. Reaching for Maya, I slid my palm down the curve of her stomach like it belonged there.
“How was the trail?”
“Long.” She leaned into me, her forehead dropping to my shoulder. “My back’s killing me. Your daughter has a lot to say about our walk today.”
“That’s because she’s stubborn like her mother.”
Maya lifted her head and raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
I grinned and kissed her. Soft, slow, her lips warm and familiar against mine. When I pulled back, her eyes were a little hazy and her hand came up to rest on my chest.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you t—oh.” Her eyes went wide and she grabbed my wrist, pressing my hand more firmly against her belly. “There. Feel that?”
A flutter against my palm. Then a sharper movement, a distinct kick, strong and unmistakable.
I’d felt Eli do this. Felt him kick and roll and hiccup inside her. And now here we were again, my palm pressed to her belly. It still undid me completely.
“Daddy, what are you doing?” Eli was at my elbow, tugging at my jeans.
“Your sister’s kicking.” I crouched down so I was level with him. “You want to feel?”
His eyes went wide. I took his small hand and guided it to Maya’s belly, pressing his palm flat next to mine. We waited. Eli held his breath, his whole face scrunched in concentration.
The baby kicked again.
“I feel it!” Eli snatched his hand away, then immediately put it back. “She’s doing it again! Mommy, she’s saying hi to me!”
Maya laughed, her hand coming down to rest on top of Eli’s. “I think she is, baby.”
“Hi, baby sister.” Eli pressed his face close to Maya’s belly. “I found you a rock. It’s a salamanna rock. You can see it when you come out.”
Maya was watching him with so much love on her face it made my heart turn over.
Still, she shouldn’t be out here.
I straightened up and slid my arm around her waist. “Come on. Let’s get you inside and off your feet.”
“That sounds amazing.”
I grabbed the grocery bag from the porch and guided Maya up the steps with my hand on the small of her back. Eli scrambled up ahead of us, yanking open the screen door and disappearing inside with a bang.
“Gentle with the door, buddy.”
“Sorry, Daddy!”
Maya huffed a laugh and leaned into me as we crossed the threshold. “He’s got two speeds. Asleep and chaos.”
“Wonder where he gets that from.”
She swatted my arm but she was smiling.
The main room opened up around us, warm and bright. We’d knocked through the old wall two summers ago, turning the cramped living space into an open-plan kitchen and living area. Afternoon light poured through the new windows and caught the honey tones in the reclaimed wood floors.
Maya’s plants lined the sills. Eli’s drawings covered the fridge. The old woodstove still sat in the corner, but it shared the space now with a proper kitchen and a big squishy couch that could fit all of us with room to spare.
Home. Every inch of it.
I set the groceries on the counter and turned to find Maya already sinking into the couch, one hand on her belly, her eyes half-closed.
“Stay there,” I said. “I’ll make lunch.”
“You’re a saint.”
“I know.”
She cracked one eye open to give me a look, but her mouth was curved at the corners.
Eli tugged at my jeans again. “Daddy, can I help?”
I looked down at him. His face was eager, his salamander rock still clutched in one grubby fist. I thought about my own father. The way he’d snap at me to stay out of the way. The way I’d learned to make myself invisible in the kitchen, in the house, in my own goddamn life.
I reached down and ruffled Eli’s hair. “Yeah, buddy. You can help.”
His whole face split into a grin. I swung him up onto the counter beside the grocery bag and handed him a tomato.
“Hold that for me. Very important job.”
“Okay.” He clutched it to his chest like a football. “I’m helping.”
“You’re helping.”
Maya was watching us from the couch, her expression so soft it made my chest ache. I held her gaze for a moment, letting the warmth of it settle into my bones.
The screen door still needed fixing. The back step was still loose. The nursery trim still needed its second coat.
I’d get to all of it. I had time.
I had all the time in the world.