Epilogue
EPILOGUE
JACOB
“ W hat is it?
“I think they’re gone. There hasn’t been any movement over there in a couple of days. Should I go in and take a look?”
“No! Give it a week, and I’ll call in a welfare check.” I hung up the phone and sat back in the chair behind my desk at home.
Those two saved me a lot of trouble. I’ve been hedging my bets about what kind of stunt either one of them would pull in the future until I got the bright idea to put someone on each of them. Doug hardly ever left the house, though he had plenty of company coming and going.
But his side piece was a whole other story. She was pretty good at running around on her lunch hour but she had no idea that I had eyes and ears on her at all times. I knew exactly what she was up to when she researched and then ordered thallium on the black market.
If I was halfway decent, I would’ve warned my ex-friend, but I hate his guts for what he did to my wife, so fuck that guy. What I didn’t expect was for him to hit her so hard it would lift her off her feet and cause her to become paralyzed.
No one but their detail knows the truth about that, and they’re paid well enough to keep their mouths shut; besides, it has nothing to do with them. It’s not like I’m breaking the law after all. I knew about the thallium in the whisky and the food and all the other shit she’d been doing on those breaks.
The two of them were so self-absorbed they never suspected that they were being watched even in their home and for some reason, never thought to cover their tracks. Well, except for the Jezebel, who thought she was Mata Hari for one hour each day.
I had enough evidence that whichever one offed the other was going away for a very long time, and I was almost certain that that fuck would off her first after she became paralyzed and he had to take care of her. But now it looks like they’re both gone.
I pulled up the folder with my vacation spots on my computer. It’s time to take my wife and kids out of town for a month or so. The kids are too young to attend a funeral, and my wife isn’t mourning that fuck on my watch.
Once I found the perfect place for this time of year in my portfolio, I turned my attention to the family lawyer. Of course, I wasn’t going to call him yet, but once that bastard is six feet deep, there’s no reason not to adopt and change their names.
It's not like I plan to remove Doug’s family from the children’s lives, but my kids’ comfort comes first, and I still believe that there’d be hurt feelings once they realize that we don’t all have the same last name. If the adults around me can’t see that or can’t understand, that’s too damn bad.
I know Rachel will come around because having my name will offer them more protection than Doug’s name ever could, and I’ve been dropping hints in the right ears this whole time to make the transition easier. Had I intended on severing ties with their grandparents, that would be a different story, but I have no plans on doing that, so if they really care about the kids, it should be easy enough for them to understand.
Two days after that phone call me, my wife, our kids, and our support team were on our way out of the country. Rachel didn’t ask any questions because she was accustomed, by now, to my spur-of-the-moment trips and ideas.
I told the parents that our phones were going to be off during this time because it was about family time and they understood. Five days after we landed in Fiji, I called in the welfare check on Doug’s home. My people kept me posted on what was going on with the shit show that ensued.
I called Helen later that evening after the families had been informed under the pretense that I’d heard it through the grapevine and asked her if she thought the kids needed to be there.
She, of course, said they were too young, which is what I had expected because I had already felt her out about this very thing and knew she thought kids under seven had no place at funerals. Kevin isn’t quite six, and my little Sara is almost two.
Out of respect for her I pretended to care and offered any kind of help, which I knew wasn’t needed. If I had to bury his ass on my dime, he’d end up in the landfill. Sorry, not sorry! She was very grateful for the call and my genuine concern, which was easy to give since it was for her and her family and not for the piece of shit they’d scraped off the floor after he became a puddle of goo because of the intense heat back home.
I heard that the house was covered in maggots and flies, and the stench was unbearable. Doug was almost completely melted into the floor while the harlot had molded into the bed. The general consensus is that he fell while drunk because they found the whisky bottle near him, and since Thallium is undetectable, there’s no way anyone will ever know what really went on there.
That night, I told my wife about their deaths, and she was in shock, as expected. I told her it was okay to cry because I legit thought she was holding back tears because of me but she said she didn’t have it in her to be that much of a hypocrite.
She wouldn’t dance on their graves or anything, but she didn’t really care. That part of her life was over. We talked about having something of his saved for the kids in case they wanted to know about him in the future and settled on talking to Helen about that the next day on the phone. Whatever is best for my kids is what I will do. I can be the bigger person now that the fucker is dead. Good riddance.
As for my own feelings, I had none. I’d stopped caring about him a long time ago and wasn’t about to pretend differently. I had no tears to shed, but I did drink a finger of whisky and toasted him on his way to hell.
The two of them ended up as they should if you ask me: fitting and precise. I didn’t waste any time pretending to care and was onto the next thing by the next day. I played with my kids in the ocean, took my wife shopping, and started taking the steps necessary to put the past behind us.
My kids don’t even remember that fuck existed, so there was no need to even mention it to them, but as hard as I am, it still stung a little bit that the poor little mites had lost a part of them. He was the worst part, but still. Any sorrow I felt was for them and what could’ve been had the man who helped create them been a better person.
I’ll never forgive him for making this a part of their lives, all three of them, Rachel and the kids. I hate that his bullshit had ever touched them and that someday we’ll have to tell my eldest son and daughter that they didn’t come from me and how we ended up as a family.
No child should have to deal with this shit, but I am determined to do my best to make the blow as soft as possible when the time comes.
RACHEL
Wow, life sure is strange, isn’t it? How the hell did Doug end up like this? I tried to correlate the man I met that first night in the bar to the man who cheated and ended up dead on the bedroom floor in the house he shared with his affair partner and just couldn’t.
Both of them ended in such a horrible way that it was enough to take my breath away, and I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Of all the scenarios I had imagined, even when I hated them the most, nothing came close to this reality. The only thing I felt at the news was slight anger still that the two of them had ever been a part of my life.
I felt anger that now I was going to have to tell my kids at some point in life that they had a different dad and what transpired there. I think it’s going to take me a long time to get over the biggest mistake of my life, and that was Doug and our whole relationship. I wish I could have given them better.
Then again, if people could see ahead to the future, a lot of marriages would never take place. I was beginning to think that I was a horrible person because I had no tears in me for them. My only worry was for my kids when they got older.
Kevin was the only one who vaguely remembered him, but because Doug never gave him the time of day anyway, my little boy had clung onto Jacob and was now calling him dad. Sara only ever knew Jacob as dad, so that makes it easier, but they’ll grow up one day and want answers.
With that said, as their mother, I didn’t give them a good start. I hadn’t chosen the right man to be their father, but now I had the opportunity to at least make up for it a little bit and hope that they don’t hate me for the decisions I make.
There was only one thing left to do now, and that was go through with the adoption and have their names changed. I felt horrible for thinking that way as well, but I decided to take a leaf from Jacob’s book and just turn off any negative feelings I had about the situation.
Doug had made his bed; I had no part in that. His end had nothing to do with me, and we were over a long time ago, so there was no point in pretending, not even for Helen and the others. We each had our own relationship with the man that Doug was, and it was only right that they got to mourn their son and brother, or rather, mourn what he could’ve been.
By the time we got back home, most of the hubbub was over, and life went on. Six months later, we went through with the adoption and everyone celebrated. Helen was a little sad, but she understood especially when we asked her to keep some of Doug’s baby things for the kids in the future and reassured her that she was still grandma.
It was sad and, at times, rough, but Jacob was good at reminding everyone that Doug had made his choice and we were not going to put our lives or our children’s lives on hold. He never let anyone forget that this was Doug’s doing and no one was going to blame me or him for Doug’s actions.
Somehow, that seemed to make things a lot easier, and life went on. It wasn’t even a year before things went back to normal, and everyone went on with their lives. Jacob and I were pregnant again, this time with only one, and he had made them make so many ultrasounds I was afraid of what would happen.
They went along with it because he swore that he’d sue and win if they miscounted his kids again. He says we’re going for ten, and this is number six, so we’ll see.