Epilogue 2
Slim
“Where is Piper?” Marissa squints as she tries to locate her in the car behind me.
I look away. “It, er… didn’t work out with her.”
“That’s too bad,” she frowns as her hand flies to her baby bump. “I really liked her. DJ did, too.”
I suppress the memory of feeling DJ’s somersaults in there.
“I’m not sure she’s step-mom material. She’s not…” I swallow and finally meet her eyes. “She’s not you, Riss.”
Piper was my first relationship since I ended my marriage. As accepting as she was of an almost 40-year-old man who lives with his mother, I just couldn’t take the relationship to the next level.
Marissa’s eyes roll so far back into her skull that it’s an absolute miracle when they eventually return to their original position.
“Wow, and I mean at least a little offense, but you’ve got to stop idealizing your exes! That’s what got you into this mess in the first place, Dylan. Besides, it’s dehumanizing,” she adds.
“You spend too much time with Molly,” I mutter.
“Why can’t you live in the present? Or look at the person you’re with as they are instead of in relation to someone else?”
“I can! I do! Our situation was different. Rebel was a cancer on my heart, preventing me from being happy. She and I were bad for each other, toxic even.”
I mean that. In hindsight, Rebel coming back was the beginning of the end.
In just nine months, the time it takes to grow a baby, I lost everything - my family, my business, my club, and my home.
I shake my head. I don’t even like remembering that period of my life.
After the lawsuit, I had to close my shop. And then I lost my house because that moron Claw continued moving product for the cartel, thereby violating the conditions of his release.
I’ve lived with Mom since then. That part’s kinda nice.
I feel like we’re closer now, and we love having DJ over.
Both Mom and I have made some changes for his sake.
I've become somewhat of an amateur chef, and she's started taking better care of her health.
She even started leaving the house three years ago, and she's made tons of friends at the Arizona Senior Academy.
This weekend, I’m taking my son on a camping trip in the desert, since I’m working on building our own small traditions, per my therapist's suggestion.
After DJ’s accident and losing custody, I... went off the deep end a bit. I barely slept, because I kept having nightmares about someone cutting my leg off, or DJ losing his leg in the accident, or Rebel chopping my leg off... You get it.
And it only got worse after Marissa and Hawk got married. I was terrified of becoming irrelevant and insignificant to my son, now that he had this picture-perfect family with two parents and a fancy house.
I, on the other hand, had nothing. No house, no wife, no job, not even my club.
After there were no more assets left and with most of the leadership in jail, the Wolves disbanded. The clubhouse was condemned, and some Russians bought Skinfinity. Last I heard, Angie was working there as a cleaner after she and Ryder moved in with her sister.
Then Mom sat me down one day and said that I had to go into therapy if I was going to continue living with her, and that changed everything. I managed to pull through for my boy.
I still go once a month, and I respect Dr. Jackson a lot. I even consider her a friend. I don’t think I’ve ever had a female friend before.
Soon after I started therapy, Hawk got me a job with the Desert Snakes. They owed him for something, I guess. I ride with them now.
I notice Marissa wince and lean her back against the door. “Do you need to sit down?”
“I’m okay. Standing is becoming increasingly difficult these days, and I still have about a month to go,” she says with the same joy she had on her face every time she’s been pregnant.
“Do you think you’ll have more after this one?” The question leaves my mouth before I can think better of it, but Marissa doesn’t act like I’m overstepping.
Instead, she seems to really think about it. “I don’t know. Three seems like the perfect number, and they’re spaced out so nicely. But who knows, maybe once this one’s feet start stinking, I’m going to start craving another little one,” she laughs.
Sometimes I feel like I’ve dreamt our entire relationship. Why else would I be so surprised by her humor or her insights? Is it possible that she was a different woman while we were together, and is someone else now?
I talked to my shrink about that, and we concluded that, if I blamed Rebel for my behavior, I also had to credit Hawk for the change in Marissa. I didn’t like that.
Was I to blame for everything that went wrong? In one of our early sessions, Dr. Jackson told me that it was my job to answer that question. I asked what the fuck I was paying her for, and she reminded me that my mom was the one actually paying her.
I like to think that I’ve learned a lot since then.
As if conjured, Hawk comes outside with my boy, and we hear snippets of their conversation, “Even if they’re delicious, I still wouldn’t eat them.”
DJ looks dejected. “Daddy, do you agree with Pop that we shouldn’t eat boogers?”
My eyes widen, and Marissa buries her face in Hawk’s chest to hide her laughter. “Yeah, buddy… No booger sandwiches, please.”
Seeing my boy in his Chasers cut no longer wounds me. I'm glad he has these good men and women to emulate and look up to.
“Where’s Mandy?” Marissa asks her husband.
I wonder whether Mandy still sleeps in the bed with them.
“Napping,” Hawk says, rubbing her lower back.
The relief on her face is immediate, and she leans into his touch. I used to do that too when she was pregnant with DJ, though not as often as I should have.
I should have done it every day, taken videos of it, and exerted concentrated mental effort to cement and fossilize those moments in my mind so that I could look back on them whenever I wanted. The fool I am, I didn’t feel their weight while I was living them.
Hawk seems like the type of man who knows the worth of things.
“Your brother has the hiccups,” Marissa tells DJ with a big smile, and he rushes over to feel it.
Marissa hugs him tightly before we leave. “Call me every night, okay?”
“Gee, Riss, it’s a week, he’s not going off to war,” I tell her, but there’s no bite to it.
Hawk laughs.
“I think she’ll break her own record of how many patches she can make in a week.” He’s beaming with pride as he says it.
I touch the pocket of my cut. The Desert Snakes get all their patches done by Marissa. She has built quite a name for herself over the last few years and has become the go-to person for custom embroidery in the Southwest.
I didn’t tell my new club about my connection to Raven. I didn’t feel like explaining how I fumbled that. I did place an order through the club to support her business, though. A little fish hook that I had sewn on the inside of my cut, right over my heart.
Dr. Jackson tried to make the gesture into something it wasn’t and even accused me of being dishonest with her. For a moment, I was overcome by this irrational fear that she had found out about Rebel.
My heart raced as I remembered the police officer showing up at my workplace, asking me to come down and claim my wife’s remains.
They found Bell way out in the desert, what was left of her anyway. Dental records confirmed it was her.
What did you get yourself into this time, Rebel?
That’s the one secret I told no one. Not Mom, not Dr. Jackson, no one. I even stopped going to see Prez, just so she wouldn’t come up. I couldn’t.
It wasn’t grief that was preventing me from talking about being a widower; it was shame.
I was and am still ashamed of what I did to myself because I let my dick call the shots.
Maybe I’ll be able to talk to Dr. Jackson about Rebel’s death one day. I wonder what she’ll have to say about it, whether she’ll think it’s insane that I blame myself a little.
Marissa, on the other hand, has picked well. Her man is building her a castle, takes care of her and their children, and even treats my boy like his own. Once Dr. Jackson helped me realize what a rare and generous gift that was, I started liking and appreciating Hawk.
After DJ’s things are in the car and he’s buckled in his booster seat, I linger outside with the happy couple, enjoying the warm glow of their loving bubble while trying to think of something profound to say.
Something that would let Marissa know how sorry I am. Something that would remove the bitterness coating the back of my throat.
“Kids, man. One day, they’re these tiny chubby angels sleeping in your bed, and the next, you’re having a full-on philosophical conversation about the nutritional value of boogers,” I say with a small smile, then get into the car.
I feel like a man adrift at sea. Aimless, lost, doomed to forever be alone.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
There’s only forward, Dylan, no yesterday, no going back, Dr. Jackson whispers in my mind.
I open my eyes and smile at my son in the rearview mirror. “Ready?”