Epilogue
You knew how I chewed when you married me, you little shit.
—Odin to Constance
Odin
Four years later
“Odin, look!”
Though I wasn’t “daddy” to Wendy, and never would be, she was still mine.
I looked over to where she was digging for shells in the surf.
We were at Murell’s Inlet in South Carolina, and my girl was living the dream.
It was spring break, and we’d just left Montana hours before a huge snowstorm was set to hit our small little town.
For the first time in years, I was finally able to take a break from work.
I’d found that I loved being the town doctor.
What I did not love was not getting to take any time off.
That’s where our new doctor came in.
He was a great help.
Moses had completed his residency and had finally come back to town, ready and willing to take over as the town doctor.
I was glad to give it to him.
Not that I didn’t love the job.
I did.
But I also wanted to spend some time with my family while they were still young.
Speaking of young family, movement caught my eye, and I spotted Constance making her way down to the beach with our toddler, Janette—named after her grandmother Janet—on her hip and our infant, Rex, strapped to her chest.
Janette looked sleepy but appeared to be waking up fast.
She saw me and waved.
I waved back.
Wendy arrived with her shell and held it out for me to see.
I picked it up and examined it.
“This is a cowrie shell,” she declared.
“It is?” I asked. “How do you know?”
She held out her sheet of shells’ names that she’d had me print out and laminate at work before we’d come.
“Ahh.” I nodded. “That matches up pretty darn well.”
“I know.” She narrowed her eyes. “That man is taking my spot.”
I looked at said “man.”
It was a man older than dirt, and he had a long-handled scoop that he’d been using to slowly work his way down the length of the beach.
“Just give him a second. He’ll move on.” I squeezed her ankle.
She sighed and plopped down next to me where I was reading the newest Nelson DeMille book.
“What part are you on?” she asked.
I was just about to reply when Constance arrived, holding an iPad out to Wendy.
“Your dad wants to say hi,” Constance said softly.
Wendy smiled.
She started talking to her dad, and I looked over at Constance and reached for Janette.
She came willingly, snuggling deep into my chest, not quite ready to be awake.
It was always that way with our second child.
Always sleepy and cuddly.
The exact opposite of Rex, who was hell on wheels, even at four months old.
I dreaded the days when he learned how to move around on his own.
Wendy picked up the iPad and turned it around. “Dad says hi!”
I waved at Mackey.
He wasn’t better.
He wasn’t worse, either, which was a good thing.
He was perpetually eleven in an adult male’s body.
But the good thing was, he knew his girl.
And though he may not know the extent of his relationship to her, he knew that she was someone close to him.
Wendy loved her dad.
Which was why she’d never call me dad.
But that was okay.
This worked for all of us.
Even though I thought of her as my own daughter.
“All right,” Wendy said. “Love you!”
After they hung up, Wendy turned to her mother. “Dad says hi.”
Constance smiled. “I know, I talked to him for a bit before I came down here.”
I squeezed her hand.
It was so hard for her to see her best friend in that state, but she talked to him once a week like clockwork because she loved him.
Rex woke up with a scream, and I reached for him, too.
Our boy was pissed when he woke up and saw the sun.
“Swear to Christ,” Constance sighed as she handed him over. “He acts like the sun is going to kill him.”
I grinned. “Go play with your girl. She’s been dying to find shells with you.”
Constance and Wendy left, and I watched them go, a rightness to the moment that I’d never dared to dream of having.
“Hey, I found that one!” Constance teased Wendy.
“No, I did!” Wendy shook her head.
“I gave birth to you, so I win.”
Wendy threw up her hands. “That was one time!”
A yell came from farther down the beach, and I looked over and my heart caught in my throat.
A familiar face came into view as the woman turned around, and the man at her side said something in a grating voice that had always gotten on my nerves.
The woman came closer and her gaze caught on my screaming son.
A little boy that looked like my mini-me in every way.
Same hair. Same eyes. Same facial structure.
All of it something I used to have and now didn’t.
Madalyn paused next to my chair, and I tried hard not to focus too hard on her.
“What a cute baby,” she said sweetly, then turned to the man at her side. “Are you sure you don’t want one?”
The man snorted. “No. Never have. Never will.”
Madalyn, my once fiancée, looked like she’d lost at life when he said that.
She’d always wanted kids. Never danced around the fact that she wanted a dozen.
But it seemed like karmic justice to know that she’d never gotten the happily ever after she’d claimed to want with me once upon a time.
“He’s just a sweetheart.” She sighed, her eyes losing focus. “He looks a lot like someone I used to know.”
I didn’t say anything.
And luckily my girls came back to show me a massive shell, which caused Madalyn and the man she cheated on me with to scurry off.
Constance glared at her back. “Who the fuck was that?”
I smiled and patted my little man on the back. “No idea. Someone that loves kids and her man refuses to give them to her.”
Wendy snorted. “Then she should leave him. You should never give up your dreams for a man.”
I held out a fist for her to bump. “Amen, sister.”
Wendy bumped my fist, then ran back to the place the old man had finally given up searching.
Constance studied me for a long moment before she said, “You okay?”
I nodded. “Never better.”
And it was.
I had the job I wanted.
Wendy was healthy as a horse.
The family that I’d dreamed of.
The club brothers that I’d always longed for.
There was nothing that I could dream up that would give me a better life than the one I had.
An alert popped up on my phone, and I glanced over at it to read the readout.
Black:
Mrs. Pendelton is now Mrs. Rhodes. And Eustace found out about it and cried. Even better, one of the inmates stole his wheelchair and left him in the bathroom by the toilets to rot. Best day ever.
I did tend to agree.
When I looked out over my little family, I knew that the best was yet to come.
There was always room for more happiness.
Even if my kid screamed like the world was dying.
Peanut barked and came barreling toward us, Janet and Israel behind him.
Then Possum landed on the beach next to my chair, and all was finally right in Rex’s world.
His best friend was there.
Grumpy and grumpier, at your service.