Epilogue
Ryder
Ten Years Later
“One more, Daddy!” she squeals. “Just one more!”
I groan, feigning exasperation. “You said that five charades ago.”
Eleanor’s eyes go wide in exaggerated innocence. “We really will go to bed after this one, we promise! Won’t we, Hayes?”
Like a puppet on a string, my three-year-old son nods his head, thumb firmly planted in his mouth, his threadbare stuffed koala gripped tightly in his other fist.
I let out a long-suffering sigh, like this isn’t the millionth time we’ve played out this particular script and we don’t all know exactly how it ends—with my precocious, headstrong daughter getting her way. “Fine, one more. But this really is the last one.”
Eleanor beams and bounces gleefully on the mattress, her gap-toothed grin of victory making it clear I never stood a chance. Springy blond ringlets fly in all directions, her curls a mirror image of her mother’s, and I’m reminded just why I can’t say no. I’m powerless against a five-year-old.
Charades is their favorite part of our bedtime routine—or perhaps more accurately, the most effective tool in their procrastination arsenal.
On the bright side, if I ever decide to quit acting, I think I’ve got a real future in miming.
The only problem is, I’m running out of ideas.
I can only pretend-dribble a basketball, pirouette like a ballerina, or trip and fall over some invisible hazard so many times.
Sometimes I switch off the light, close the door, and pretend I’ve left the room, only to pop out of their closet wearing one of Ellie’s frilly dresses on my head. They love that one.
By the time I’ve performed one last charade—a dog digging a hole in the sand and then peeing in it (anything with bodily functions is an instant winner)—I’ve somehow managed to get the two of them more riled up, not less.
They’re now lobbing stuffed animals from bed to bed, their gleeful shrieks loud enough to be heard from space.
I adopt my sternest dad voice. “Alright now, it’s time to quiet down and go to sleep. I don’t want to hear a peep coming from this room.”
Their squeals only get louder, the toy tossing continuing unabated. It’s pathetic, really; I’ve never been able to inspire an ounce of fear in my children. It might be because I’m a total pushover and they’re all so ridiculously cute.
“Fine,” I say casually, affecting a nonchalant air. “If you don’t settle down, I’ll have to send Mom up.”
The animal tossing abruptly ceases, and I have to fight to keep a straight face.
I wish I knew how to command the obedience Scarlett manages with a single look, but I guess what she says is true: I’m as soft as a stick of room-temperature butter, and like animals, kids can sense weakness.
In my defense, their adorable faces are my kryptonite.
They’ve got me wrapped around their chubby little fingers.
I close their door with an ominous look that fools no one, then stop into my older son’s room. Noah’s cocooned under the covers, the telltale halo of a booklight glowing beneath the sheets. “Don’t stay up too late, bud.”
“I won’t,” his muffled voice says, and I hear the soft rustle of a page turning. “Just a couple more chapters.”
I chuckle quietly to myself; I know better.
He’ll read until sleep wins, until the book slips from his hands and lands on the floor.
Later tonight when Scarlett and I head to bed, I’ll sneak in to switch off the light and set his book on the nightstand.
Noah is our serious one, earnest and inquisitive.
He’s a classic firstborn, responsible and diligent, forever trying to keep the other two in line.
I make my way down the stairs, moving through our quiet house, gathering the day’s debris along the way.
I loop through the family room, depositing an abandoned blanket in a basket, sweeping Hayes’s toy trains into their assigned bin, letting out some choice words when my foot finds a rogue Lego.
When I’m done, I survey the space, my eyes skimming over the matching Oscars statues gleaming from the mantle.
His and hers. A stray Nerf bullet is wedged between them, an ironic metaphor for the two worlds we straddle.
I pluck it free, and into the toy bin it goes.
I step into the kitchen and listen for a moment, hearing nothing but the low hum of the dishwasher, so I glance outside.
The patio swing is swaying gently, her feet dangling off the side.
Our Indian summer is slipping away, school just around the corner, and we’re determined to savor every last moment of it.
I slip something into my pocket before going out to join her. “Room for one more?”
“Took you long enough,” Scarlett teases, but she’s smiling as she lifts her head, and I take my usual place on the swing, resettling her head in my lap.
She smirks up at me. “You finally escaped. How many did they take you for?”
“I lost track at five.”
She sighs. “Hopeless. They’ve completely broken you.”
I can hardly disagree. I thread my fingers into her hair and scratch lightly, and she purrs in pleasure.
This is our nightly ritual, and it’s one role I never tire of playing.
All day long I share her, and every night, my world shrinks down to this swing and the night air, when she belongs entirely to me again.
I love her like this—relaxed, languid, and content, the stressors and demands of everyday life receded, washed away like the tide going out.
Her curls spill across my lap, wild as the marsh grasses, an unruly tangle she long ago stopped trying to tame.
Her face is bare of makeup, her skin sun-kissed and faintly freckled, the moonlight softening the angles the camera loves almost as much as I do.
She’s stunning in this undone state, more herself than anywhere else.
“Do you hear that?” she says, and I take in what we affectionately call the Seafolly soundtrack, the Lowcountry chorus of crashing waves and rustling palmetto fronds and chirping cicadas echoing in the night air. “Silence. Peace and quiet.”
I hum, saying nothing. I know the particular exhaustion of parenthood well enough myself—the chaotic days, the never-ending messes, the overstimulation of being touched and tugged in every direction—but I can’t bring myself to wish a single moment of it away.
I’ve had a lot of time to contemplate the quiet.
As a kid, I spent entire years steeped in silence, wishing alternately for more friends, for a present father, for my mom to come home from work before it got dark, for a sibling that never materialized.
I had to grow up fast, help my mom, be the man of the house.
Bustling film sets were a welcome reprieve from my loneliness.
After Scarlett left and my mom passed, my world, which had briefly been full of light and color, went dark again.
I spent the years after trying to fill the void they left, dulling my pain with anything that would distract from their absence.
Though she tries, Scarlett can’t really understand what it was like for me.
And how could she? She grew up in a house bursting with people and laughter and love, where quiet was a pipe dream, the stuff of family jokes.
She doesn’t know how suffocating the silence can feel when it’s not chosen, when it’s all you have.
Now, my life is loud. I revel in the racket and silliness, which is probably why I’m such a hopeless disciplinarian.
I’ll take squealing over silence ten times out of ten.
To me, the clamor of our lives isn’t chaos at all—it’s proof that I got everything I always dreamed of.
Noise is my greatest blessing. It means I’m not alone anymore, and that’s all I ever wanted.
“You know what I was thinking?” I say, changing the subject.
“What’s that?”
I push off lightly, keeping us rocking at a steady pace. “Ten years ago I tricked you into coming back here for the reunion.”
“Tricked me, huh?” she says, laughing. “Maybe I wanted to come back.”
I scoff. “You did not want to come back.”
“Of course I wanted to come back. I just needed a little nudge.”
It’s a familiar fight, as comfortable and well-worn as a pair of old slippers. “Hmm,” I say, like I’m not fooled. “And now you’ve been here ten years.”
“Ten amazing, blissful years,” she confirms with a smile that crinkles her eyes, then tugs on my arm until I bend down to kiss her.
After that fateful summer ten years ago, it didn’t take long for us to make some big moves.
As I’d promised, I tagged along while she filmed The Ingenue, hopscotching from Venice to Barcelona to Corsica, and saw to all her off-camera needs.
I ran lines with her, rubbed her feet, kept her fed, gave her the intimate, (ahem) hands-on attention she swore had become a crucial part of her process.
I fulfilled that last duty with all the dedication and diligence it demanded. What can I say? I’m a giver.
It was after one such prep session that she rested her head on my chest, venting about an issue she was having with one of the other actors, and how hard it was to balance navigating the situation as a producer without jeopardizing her working relationship with the costar.
I grimaced in sympathy. “That’s a tricky one,” I told her as I went to grab us a couple bottles of water from the kitchen of our beachside bungalow.
The sound of the sea drifted in through the cracked window, warm Mediterranean air wafting through the villa.
No matter how far we traveled, the ocean always seemed to find us.
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re handling it the best you possibly can, considering everything you’re juggling.
I have a couple of ideas, but if you’re just venting and want me to listen, I can do that too.
Just let me know how best to support you.
” I twisted the cap off one of the bottles and placed it on her nightstand, then noticed the way she was looking at me. “What?”