Epilogue
Zach
Three years later
A chubby hand wrapped around my finger. Not the one where I wore my wedding band, the one next to that.
I glanced down at the tiny girl hovering beside me. The wispy chocolate pigtails on her head bobbed as she peered around my parents’ backyard, and she clutched her threadbare pink bunny under her chin, her thumb in her mouth.
My little girl. Josie.
I squatted, steadying myself with a hand on the grass. Closer to forty than thirty, my knees creaked, not quite what they used to be. Josie shuffled her tiny high-tops along the grass, the soft pad of her diaper butt in pink overalls parking on my knee.
“What do you think, JoJo?” I asked. “Excited?”
Her enormous brown eyes tore away from the corner of the yard where Dad and Andie scrambled to finish building her new jungle gym. She blinked up at me. Her thumb dropped out of her mouth with a slurpy pop.
“Yeth!” A toothy smile flashed but quickly disappeared. She’d inherited her mother’s scowl…and impatience. “All done?”
“Soon.”
Not a word she enjoyed hearing. “No” was high on the list too. Josie’s thumb popped back in her mouth—precisely where she liked it—and she sucked furiously, surveying her domain with serious eyes.
“We might be here a while,” I muttered.
The whole jungle gym debacle had taken longer than the motley crew had estimated over breakfast. A lot longer.
“Three hours,” Andie had promised Eden.
“Two.” Dad had upped the ante. “Tops. Our girl will be in her tux, ready to leave for the awards on time.”
“Promise.” Andie had crossed her heart.
And now it was—I glanced at my watch—yep, six hours and counting.
Dad and Andie were usually a good team. They’d constructed the sandpit in record time. A few trips to the nursery had finished the landscaping for the new pool.
But I’d learned never to trust Dad and Andie to finish anything except a lot of beers when the cricket was on. They’d been distracted by the TV. I’d covered Josie’s ears to avoid her hearing most of the ranting when a guy in baggy whites was “out” for something called a “duck.”
Those shenanigans also gave me a clue Andie was probably the bad influence behind Josie declaring, “Fut that,” with her hands on her tiny hips when I’d told her tea party time was over.
I huddled Josie closer. She giggled when Dad hollered out to Andie. He’d gotten himself tangled in the metal ropes trying to hang the swing.
“Pop, I told you to wait!” Andie dropped the yellow slide she was lugging over. “You’ll put your fuc—I mean, fudging —back out again.” She flashed a sheepish grin in my direction.
“Smooth save,” I called out.
She bowed.
The slide was fastened in record time. The two of them surveyed the bolts, tugged on the ropes, and rattled the frame to make sure everything was secure. A couple of slaps on the back for a job well done, and the jungle gym was finally complete.
Josie’s hopeful eyes turned to me. “Me go?”
“Yep!” I nodded with a big smile. “Pop and Andie all done.” Finally.
Josie grinned and threw her tiny arms around my neck. Bunny came for a cuddle, too.
“Lub oo, Dada.”
Her chunky tooshie toddled across the yard to the new swing she’d been dying to ride for hours. I hopped back up, watching Dad lift my little girl onto the yellow seat. His hair was threaded with so much more silver, but somehow, he looked younger, lighter. With her Bunny stuck safely under her arm, Josie glared straight ahead as Dad pushed the swing. She was wary at first, sizing up the new situation, but she was soon giggling and demanding to go “Hi-wa, Pop!”
Andie jogged over. “Dude! Did we do good or what? That play set is a work of art.” She grinned. “I didn’t think we’d get it built in time. So, ah”—she rubbed the back of her neck—“how pissed off is Ed?”
Smirking, I cocked my head. “What do you reckon?”
“Tsunami?”
“I’d scale her mood somewhere around Summer Storm Surge.” I puffed out a sigh. “She’s freaking out about the awards.”
“Dunno why. This is her year.”
“I’ve told her. You’ve told her. Until the Hairstylist of the Year trophy is in Eden’s hand, it’s a lost cause. She thinks she didn’t send enough gift baskets or word her ‘Thank You’ social media posts properly.”
Andie winced. “I still have nightmares about those baskets. At least you knew how to arrange the fruit correctly.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m so bloody glad we’re going rock climbing next weekend. I love our girls, but fuck, I need a few hours to decompress. This world has way too many extroverts.”
“Hearing you loud and clear. I seriously underestimated the importance of award season.”
I spared Andie the details of just how much I’d used my powers of distraction in the last month. Sex hadn’t been this off the charts since Eden and I had eloped to Falls Creek—the first and, thankfully, last time either of us had seen snow. Sex the last two weeks had even eclipsed when we’d started trying for a baby. Two or three times a day sounded great in theory—fun in practice, too—but I still worried Eden used it as a tool to avoid her anxiety.
Then again, I always worried about her in some small way.
Love was like that. Life was less about me and more about my family, and I wouldn’t change it for all the promotions in the world.
I’d thought less and less about the old days at Worley and Stone as time went on. Chris had battled his own demons, disappearing into the wilds of Tasmania instead of answering for the day he’d laid his hands on Eden. Michaela had been nothing to me. She stayed that way. The past was in the past. The future was so much brighter without those people darkening it.
I dipped a nod at the house. “Heading upstairs to put your penguin suit on?” I asked Andie.
“Yeah, I’ll help Pop tidy up otherwise he’ll overdo it like always. Otherwise, I’m right behind you.”
I took a final look over the backyard. Josie shoved Bunny at Dad for safekeeping, jumped off the swing, and barrelled up the climbing frame, ready to test the slide. I smiled. The best sight in the world.
I raced up the back stairs two at a time until I landed at the top.
Mum shuffled around the deck, drizzling water over her potted herbs. “Eden’s getting ready in the guest room,” she said. Before I could escape, she caught my arm, dragging me down to her. Fierce eyes glared up at me. “When are you putting another baby in my daughter’s belly, Zachary?”
“Ma…”
“We’re not getting any younger here. Always so many excuses! First, it was getting married.”
I smirked. “I feel like getting married is a pretty standard step for a lot of people before having kids.”
Mum huffed. She often chose to conveniently forget she’d blubbered her eyes out to be one of only six people invited to our wedding. “Then, it was all that time looking for a house,” she said. “What a waste! You already had such a lovely apartment.”
“Eden didn’t want to raise kids in my apartment.” Or any apartment, for that matter. “She had her heart set on a house.”
A big house. The perfect house. And she’d driven everyone—including herself—absolutely bonkers finding it. After eight months of searching and attending open homes, we’d gotten a tip-off about a house coming on the market in South Coogee—of all bloody places. Eden had fallen head over heels the second we’d pulled up out front. The white weatherboard overlooking the coast was everything she’d dreamed about. The commute uptown in rush hour was awful, but she’d never complained. Not once. She loved that house.
“I could help more during the week,” Mum said. “Now Josie’s older, she could stay for more sleepovers. And two littlies are basically the same as one, really.”
“We’d love more kids, Ma. It’s just not the right time. I’m about to take on some new lawyers—”
“About time.” She spritzed me a little with her hose. “Less days in the office means more time for babies.”
I rolled my eyes. I only worked three days a week. I was hardly chained to my desk. I’d been sceptical when Eden had first encouraged me to start my own firm, but every afternoon when I pulled into the driveway, I was grateful she’d supported me to take the leap. I chose how many clients I took on. How many hours I worked. More time for family.
“I’m only running a small firm, Ma. All my staff only work part-time—even Sue. I need to step up for a few months and settle everyone in, but once they’re happy, I’ll talk to Eden about more babies.”
Mum stuck her nose in the air and returned to watering her herbs. “Some son you are,” she grumbled.
I bent down and pecked a kiss on the top of her head even though she huffed at me. “Eden said she wants three,” I whispered.
Mum grinned, misty-eyed, and shooed me into the house. The screen door snapped closed. I peeked out. She wandered around the deck, humming as she watered her plants. Another tick off the agenda. No need for a minivan— yet.
I walked through the house, down the hallway, to the guest room, and leant my shoulder against the doorframe.
Eden sat primly on a stool in her silk robe. Her designer dress—rented, of course—was hidden in a garment bag on the bed. She wanted her outfit to be a surprise. Her makeup was done, but Yvette still fussed behind her, rolling a fat hairbrush and blitzing the hairdryer on Eden’s dark hair so it hung in long, glossy waves over her shoulders.
I sighed. Eden was beautiful. Crazy beautiful.
Yvette’s eyes met mine in the mirror. “We’re not quite done,” she said over the whirr of the hairdryer. “Is my woman still outside building that”—she waved the brush about—“contraption?”
Eden hummed her disapproval through pursed lips.
“They’re packing up,” I said.
“She won’t have enough time,” Eden snipped.
“It takes Andie literally two seconds to get ready,” I reassured her.
Yvette nodded. “Shower, clothes, gel, out the door to grab the coffees. I see it every morning.” She stepped back and started to wind up the cord for the hairdryer.
I ducked in the gap. My arms hugged around Eden’s middle. I smacked a kiss in the crook of her neck, and she squealed, swatting at my thigh. With a quick spin of the stool, practiced in a hundred situations just like this, she faced me so I could finally kiss her properly—deep and long until she was breathless.
“Missed you,” I said.
“Love you,” she whispered back.
“This is all very touching, darling lovebirds,” Yvette said, “but this updo won’t get done if you hog our future award winner.” She flapped a handful of bobby pins at me. “Outta the way, Mr. Lawyer Man!”
Eden grabbed my hand and kissed it. A faint lipstick imprint was left behind. “Go put on your tuxedo. You can help zip me up”—she wiggled her eyebrows—“once I’m ready to put on my dress.”
“Mmm.” I captured her lips in a lingering kiss. “Deal.”
Eden spun around to face the mirror. “Vettie,” she said, lifting her chin, looking every bit a queen. “I need my pep talk.”
“Let’s do this.” Yvette started to pin Eden’s hair. “Whose night is it tonight?”
“Mine.”
“Who’s the best damn colourist in the business?”
“I am.”
“And who are you?”
Eden’s eyes met mine in the mirror. “I’m Eden fucking Rawles.” She grinned.
Her salon, earning her place at the award gala, and the fact she was about to be— officially —the best hairstylist in the country were her achievements. She’d done the hard work—mostly on her own.
But she’d whispered to me one morning that I’d given her the things she’d wanted most in the world. A name no longer attached to her father. A daughter. A family. A home, not just a house. She didn’t need to flip all the lights on anymore. She didn’t keep secrets about her fears or worries. She shared them with me. We worked through them together.
And what had Eden given me?
Simply…everything.
The End