Epilogue
I looked up anxiously at where Jake stood on the ladder. He was several feet above us, which made him the tallest human ever in existence. “Be careful,” I urged.
“Ember, stop!” Meadow scolded me, but I noticed that she was standing at the bottom of that ladder and gripping the side rails, holding tightly enough that her knuckles were turning white.
“How is it?” he asked, and she peered up through the branches.
“It’s still not straight. Now it’s tilting a little to the left,” she advised him, and he made another adjustment.
“Is it good now?” He moved away his hand and leaned back so we could all see.
I liked that even less. “Jake!”
“I’m fine,” he told me, and he did climb down. “Now I’m safely on the ground.”I nodded, but then he grabbed another box.“Now I’m going up again to hang more ornaments,” he continued, and she grabbed the ladder.
“Why are you so nervous about him? He’s as tough as nails,” Seyram told me. “Does it bother you when he’s on the field?” He had his arm around Calandra’s shoulders and his eyes were on her son Dreyden as he played with our dog. He and Calandra had gotten together not too long after Jake had let him know that he was being, in my husband’s words, a real dumbass. Seyram had called her and suggested that they go out again, and she had brought along her mother and her son to show him that she wasn’t messing around. He needed to be serious, no more playing.
But speaking of that, he had asked me about Jake playing football, and the answer to his question was no. “I don’t worry about him in games, because I know he’s the best one out there,” I said, before I remembered who I was talking to. “I mean, other guys are very good, too.”
Seyram, Calandra, and Jake were all laughing at me, but Meadow was nodding. She let go of the ladder briefly so we could bump fists, because we were ride or die Jake Koval fans and nobody was going to tell us that he wasn’t the most talented, handsomest, most loving, sweetest—
“Mother of all…come here, you,” he said as he climbed back down the ladder. He took a chair and pulled me into his lap. “What’s this? Are you getting upset because you think that you hurt Seyram’s feelings? He can handle the truth.” Seyram laughed harder. I had hated him for not immediately recognizing how amazing Calandra was, but he had apologized to her a lot and he’d stopped acting like a dumbass. It had taken her a while to accept it, but now they were going strong. I had to call their relationship a win for Calandra, and it was definitely one for him.
“I would think that you’re emotional because you’re taking antibiotics again, except I know that they don’t have that as a side effect,” Meadow remarked. Now that she was a senior in high school, she knew pretty much everything, for real. She and I had been going to school together and I could say for sure that she was brilliant, which made me so proud…I watched her leave the room and I did sniff a little.
“Baby, you have to stop,” Jake said softly. “It makes me worried when you cry.”
“I’m not really,” I told him, and pointed to the top of the Christmas tree as a distraction. “Isn’t that beautiful?”
“Beautiful,” he agreed, but he was looking at me. I put my head down on his shoulder, the one he’d had surgery on a decade—no, it had only been a few years ago, I thought with surprise. In the time since, Jake and I had gotten married, which had become his number one priority after he’d put the engagement ring on my finger. We’d had the ceremony at our house, with Calandra and Meadow standing next to me and a fleet of giant guys in dark suits next to him.His other top priority had been to turn things around at school for Meadow. He’d started helping her with homework and so had his friend Kellen…I checked the time. Kellen and his family should have been here by now, but with all their kids, it was sometimes hard to get out of the door.
Things had gotten better for our adopted daughter starting that year, and they had really improved once she’d gone to high school. The bigger place with more kids meant more chances to make friends, especially since she was pretty much a different person. All her natural kindness and intelligence just poured right out, and everyone was attracted to it. She had a good friend in Jamison, the guy we’d first met at Helping Hands so long ago. She even had a boyfriend, the son of another player on the defense and Jake and I approved of him. He was a good kid, too. She was happy, which was the most important thing to me.
I felt more tears welling up, so I stopped thinking about that—and it wasn’t like the past few years had been totally smooth sailing. In fact, things with Christal had been generally rough. She hadn’t fought (much) when we’d adopted Meadow, but she’d popped in and out of our lives in ways that were always disruptive, made Jake angry, and made her daughter sad. And now? She was in prison, a real one and for a few years, not just a short stint in some county lockup. That might have sounded terrible, but I was hoping for the best. She wasn’t using and was involved in a few programs there that could possibly lead to some real changes. She had to really change before Meadow would give her another chance at a relationship, and she knew that.
Yeah, we were hopeful, but we weren’t letting hope blind us to reality. The beauty of having a lot of people who loved you was that you had others to share in all those burdens, so Meadow wasn’t ever struggling alone. Neither was I.
A good, loving friend had also helped Calandra get a new job. Jake had asked around, and he’d managed to get her an interview for one the coveted positions with the Woodsmen team. She had aced it and was now working in the back office of the security department with that nice man Lyle as her boss. She, Petrise, and Drey were out of their former home and into the one I’d previously rented, which now had a paved driveway. It was a little small for them, but I had a feeling it would belong only to Petrise pretty soon. I’d caught Seyram looking at Calandra’s bare finger on her left hand. We knew someone he could talk to, a gem dealer downstate who also gave good relationship advice.
My own engagement ring now had a band next to it that Jake had slid on the day we were married, and his formerly bare finger had one from me, too. He’d also given Meadow a ring for her right hand, just a simple one with a little sapphire that was the same color as mine. “So she knows that the three of us are a family, now,” he’d explained.
Then came one more…
“Here he is,” Meadow said, walking in with my sleep-mussed son. “Noah was standing on his head in his crib.” She kissed him and he giggled. He was crazy about his big sister, and having him adore her so completely had been the best gift I had ever given to my grand-niece and greatly loved daughter.
“I got up, Daddy,” he explained to Jake.
“Upside down,” his dad answered, and smiled. He reached for our son and Meadow put him next to me on Jake’s lap. That was large enough to have room for all three of us—not Meadow, but she sat down next to his knees. No, there was someone else, maybe another daughter or maybe another son, who would make an appearance in the new year.
But for now, we had so many other things to celebrate.
Noah snuggled in and I kissed him hello. “How’s my best guy?”
“I got tired of sleeping,” he explained to me, and I said I understood completely. He often got tired of that activity.
“I want to put it on the top,” Noah said next, pointing to the tree. We had named him after Jake’s best friend, and the Boones would be here soon.
“I already did it, because it’s so high up there,” Jake explained. “Maybe next year we can together. What do you think?”
Our son nodded. I decided that if they went up that ladder, I would put a net around it.
“It’s pretty,” he said, still pointing.
“I drew that,” Meadow told him. “I wanted a star for the top of a Christmas tree that I’d decorate with a family.”
“Now you have it,” Jake said. He’d taken the picture that she’d drawn and that I’d saved, and had the star made out of metal. We put it on our tree every year.
“Yeah,” she agreed, smiling. “I have the star and I have my family.”
“We all do,” he answered, and I nodded.
What a win!