Epilogue
Matthew
I never planned to leave my family forever without so much as a visit, but the past five years I had been a neglectful kitty cat. No more than the occasional email had passed between me and my family, something that was about to change.
“How many changes of clothes should I pack for Jade?” River asked. He’d been rearing a little girl but she’d been well past the baby stage when he took over her care.
“At least quadruple what you’re packing for Flora,” I told him. “And be sure to put a few in her carry-on.”
I had been worried about how my isolationist family might feel about my mating, but when I’d called them after Jade was born, my dads were thrilled and demanded to know when they could see their “granddaughters.” So, six months after her hatching, we were packing up for our first airplane trip as a group. My first time on a plane ever. Despite how ready I’d been to leave years ago, I was excited to go back. I wouldn’t be staying long, but maybe they’d see that there was a way not to be all by themselves and still find happiness. We planned to invite my dads and some other family to visit us, as well, so we could show them our home and introduce them to our friends from Animals and their families as well.
“The car will be here in ten minutes.” Allen stuck his head into the bedroom. “And Flora has her nose pressed to the window watching for it.”
“She’s really into this grandpa stuff,” River said, “having had such good luck with the first ones she met.” Good luck translated into spoiled, but it was hard to be mad about it. They did try to make most of the toys they sent educational, and our older daughter was going to spend two weeks with Allen’s pack on her summer vacation. Her expectations for my dads were high, but I had a feeling they were up to the challenge.
We might not have had outside contacts, but my clowder had not been a bad way to grow up. We always felt loved and cared for. I didn’t think I wanted the girls to stay there without us, but time would tell. Maybe when they were teenagers. And until then, we’d visit and so would my dads.
I missed them more than I could say; I’d just managed to stuff those feeling down, feeling like it was live like them or live entirely without them. Seemed silly now.
“Car is here!” Flora crooned. “I’ll go out and tell them to wait.”
“No you won’t!” River darted out of the bedroom to stop her from doing what she knew she was not allowed to. But she’d never been this excited, and even if she was a big sister who had just turned six, she was still a little girl with the impulse-control issues common to the age. “Do not open that door until I get there.”
Allen and I gathered the luggage and he lugged it downstairs while I put Jade in her baby wrap. She loved them and would fall right to sleep every time one of us put her in one. We had a big trip ahead of us, one that might have some uncomfortable moments, but I knew my dads would make my family feel at home.
My home was here, in our house in San Diego now, but I looked forward to showing Flora all the places I played as a boy, the tree house, if was still there, a particular favorite. My dads would make her their famous mango cake and banana ice cream and stuff us all with all their other delicious cooking.
When we got home, we had at least five kids’ parties lined up for the families who had come to Flora’s birthday event. Shifters of all kinds. I no longer avoided shifters. Sure, there were mean people in every group, but we had enough of the good kind in our lives to prove that the others were in the minority.
I climbed into the back of the airport limo with my two fated mates and two children and settled back on the soft leather seats. The day I’d driven away from Florida had been the start of all this, but where it had ended up was more wonderful than I could have ever dreamed of. Surrounded by love.