Epilogue - Billy
DAWN OF THE WED
“What do you want, Nolan? I’m not doin’ shots outside of my own wedding. Especially when, out of the kindness of my generous heart, there’s an open bar.”
“That’s courtesy of your wallet, not yer heart. And we aren’t doin’ shots,” my best man informs me, snapping his mouth shut before he calls me fuckface or shitbrain or simply eejit . Because it’s my wedding and I didn’t want him calling me names today, so I bet him that he couldn’t get through one day without calling me something insulting.
Nolan has gathered me, Declan, and Eddie on the front porch. My beautiful wedding to Donna happened in the backyard of the farmhouse, where the reception is now in full swing. The adults are enjoying a variety of cranberry-based cocktails of my own design, courtesy of our very own cranberry bog. There’s also Guinness and Irish whiskey—I’m not gonna start a riot on my own wedding night. There are also bottles of Sam Adams for my Boston bros, kept on ice in an open coffin next to the bar. The kiddies get a cranberry-and-orange-juice cocktail that comes out of a skull-shaped dispenser, Hogwarts pumpkin juice, and mugs of hot chocolate with ghost-shaped marshmallows. I’m paying Piper to keep an eye on the kids while she’s here, so she gets her very own virgin cranberry-peach-flavored mocktail. Surprisingly, she did not get the joke. Possibly because she was too busy checking out the bartender’s and DJ’s butts.
I have so much to be grateful for today. Most of all, for my stunning wife. But the weather is a very close second. You just never know what you’re gonna get at the end of October in New England, but we really wanted an outdoor wedding on the farm. I wanted to get married immediately, of course, as soon as Donna said yes. Not necessarily because I thought she might change her mind, but because I wanted to be her husband ASAP. But we decided to wait a year, until Halloween, because it’s the anniversary of us finally being honest with each other about how we feel and because we wanted to thank the people who really brought us together. Piper said that the spirit world is closest to the living one on Halloween.
We left two seats empty for Lars and Lara, which most of our guests understood as a lovely gesture—except Murph complained that they were prime seats. Which was crazy because he was a groomsman, so he was standing with me and the rest of the guys, but he had a tone in his voice like he could scalp tickets for them and get a really good price.
But after we recited our own vows and Donna said her I do s and I will s and I said the same, clouds sailed past the setting sun, making the whole sky seem to flash. It was like Lars and Lara were winking at us. It was a nice moment that Donna and I could privately share, even though we were standing in front of all of our loved ones.
All of our loved ones and about fifty jack-o’-lanterns. Donna and Chelsea and my cousins’ wives went a little nuts with the whole Union of Souls/Till Death Do Us Part/Halloween-themed wedding. The kids are wearing costumes, but the grown-ups were given eye masks and hats and wigs to choose from when they got here. Everything’s decorated pumpkin-orange and black, with pops of cranberry-red and off-white—which is not the same as white—something most straight guys don’t know until they’re getting married. But I know it now!
Donna’s wedding gown is the most stunning cranberry-red-and-black dress I have ever seen, and her bridesmaids are in black. I’m wearing a cranberry-red tux with a black tie, and my guys are wearing black with cranberry-red ties. Our wedding party and Donna and her dad walked down the black candle-lined aisle to a string quartet playing “Thriller.” And by “walked” I mean they danced like Michael Jackson zombies. It was wicked amazing, and she totally surprised me with that. Mark’s son held a ring box shaped like a tiny black coffin. Our priest is wearing a skeleton suit.
For the reception, Piper suggested getting custom-made tarot cards for the table number settings. There are bunches of flowers stuck in pumpkins that were grown in our very own pumpkin patch. Would my beautiful wife and her lovely bridesmaids scold me for saying the flowers were “stuck” in pumpkins? Yes, they would. But there are a bunch of flowers stuck in pumpkins in the middle of a bunch of tables… You get the picture.
But now we’re out here on the front porch, me and my three closest cousins.
“The time for drinkin’ will come,” Nolan says—not menacingly so much as significantly . “Now is the time for reflection.” He pulls four cigars out of his suit coat pocket and hands them out. “You’re the last one, Billy. We’ve all been made honest men.”
He infuses the lighting of each cigar with the same significance that he used to lace his words. First Declan’s, then Eddie’s, then his own, and then mine—lighting us up in the same order that our worlds were lit up by our women. We’re silent during all of this, like it’s a proper ceremony that he’s performing.
Nolan blows several smoke rings into the cool fall air. “So, Billy. What did you learn?”
I take a puff on my cigar. “What do you mean?”
The boys share a look. Declan looks back at me. “What changed to make you marriable?”
I stare back blankly. “I’m not following.”
“I think what we’re asking is what deep truth you learned to make it possible that you could marry a woman as amazing as Donna.”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
Declan sighs. “For me, I realized that no one gets me or keeps me in line the way Maddie does. That I wanted her handing me cups of coffee and rolling her eyes at me for the rest of my life. But to get that, to earn that, I had to let go and open myself up. It was…problematic. But I did that because I knew she was the one.”
“ Okaaayyy ,” I say, drawing out the word because I know that story. I saw it happen. Well, I saw him get drunk and make a lot of phone calls anyway.
“Or like Birdie and me,” Eddie adds, pointing his cigar for emphasis. “She was my best friend. And I wanted to protect that. But her big brain and those lips…” He shakes his head, still clearly a lovestruck fool. “I needed to risk the friendship to gain my soulmate. We wouldn’t be working together on our new Sh akespeare-inspired musical about Eleanor Roosevelt titled A Roosevelt By Any Other Name if I hadn’t been willing to take that risk.”
We all groan and chuckle.
This guy.
“Am I gonna have to see that?” I’m pretty sure it’s clear from my tone that I hope the answer is no.
Eddie rolls his eyes. “It’s just something we’re doing together for fun. But if we do actually get it produced, you should be so lucky.”
Nolan huffs. “Billy, I had to arrange a Vegas heist with the likes of all of you to win my bride. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, have done that before Cora captured my heart and inspired me to do so. So what changed in you to realize that you had to marry Donna?”
“Ohhhhhh,” I say, finally getting what they’re after. They want to know how Billy turned from boy to man. From party animal to stable husband material. From man of the world to man of the house.
I shrug. “Nothing.”
The boys all share an incredulous look.
“What do you mean, ‘nothing’?” Declan asks.
“What I had to do was change nothing.”
The boys look at me like my bespoke cranberry-red tux is made of horse shit.
“What are you talking about? You almost lost her,” Eddie says, exasperated.
“Yeah, but the problem was that I wasn’t being myself enough . I say what I want and do what I want when I want. I wanted to love Donna. And I should have just done it. I’m so unrelentingly perfect the way I am, I just needed to realize it.”
“Unbelievable,” Declan mutters, taking a puff of his cigar. “You can’t even express a logical idea without sounding like a maniac.”
I shrug. “I’m a simple man, fellas. I did what I wanted before I met Donna. I’m still doing the same. I do what I want to do. I just gotta keep doing that.”
“Yeah. Donna,” Eddie says, and the boys laugh.
“Yeah. Absolutely. I wanna do Donna. Forevah and evah. But also, she doesn’t make things any more complicated. She still makes it simple. She loves who I am. And everything I do, I do for her. Not complicated at all.”
They look happy for me. They really do. These guys that I’ve grown up and partied and adventured with. The fucks also look a little pissed that this all seems so easy for me.
“Well, wait until the kids come along. Won’t be so easy then, Billy boy,” Nolan says. “You’ll see.”
I shrug again. Mostly just to piss them off. Because while I’m longing to put a baby in the most beautiful woman on Earth, yeah, that is the one adventure that kind of makes me pause.
“I should have known,” I hear someone say from the doorway. I turn and find my beautiful wife. My wife, still radiant in her wedding gown but now pleasantly flushed from dancing. “Already stealing my husband away?” Donna smiles brightly, clearly enjoying the word husband the way I’m enjoying the word wife .
“Sorry, love,” Nolan says. “We were trying to talk some sense into this…handsome young man.”
“He is way too calm,” Declan says. “It’s problematic.”
“He should be pinching himself for being able to marry a woman like you,” Eddie adds. “He’s a little too high on his own supply. He thinks he can just keep floating through life, doing what he wants when he wants. This is not ideal.”
Donna holds her hand out, and I take it, helping her to gracefully join us on the porch. The boys aren’t wrong about that part. I can’t believe I scored a woman like her. But they’re wrong about the rest. Everything comes up Billy in the end, so why would I change?
“It’s all part of his charm,” she says, offering her lips to kiss, which I gladly do.
When the kiss breaks, I turn smugly to the boys. “See?”
“We were saying wait until he has kids ,” Declan says.
“Then we’ll see if it’s so free and easy for Old Billy Middleborough here,” Nolan says.
“That’s a good point.” Donna nods, getting a faraway look on her face. “Well, I wasn’t planning on breaking the news here and now, but…” She places her hands on her belly.
My jaw drops. No. Already? Am I ready for this?
“Are you okay, honey?” Donna asks. “You look a little pale.”
“You… We’re… You’re…?” I sputter. I’m going to be a dad. I found a girl who likes that I do what I want when I want, who does what she wants when she wants—when she’s not working. You can’t do that with a kid. You have to give them what they want when they want it. They get to drink and throw up and take naps in the middle of the day and not know where they wake up and play all day. It’s totally normal for an infant to wake up in Michigan without knowing how they got there. That won’t be my thing anymore.
Holy shit.
I scan the guys. They look just as shocked as me.
Donna throws her head back and cackle-laughs. “Trick!” she says gleefully. “Since you didn’t give me a treat.”
I squint my eyes, confused. “Wait, so you’re not…?”
She shakes her head. “Not yet. You should have seen the look on your face.” She grabs my cigar and takes a big puff.
Nolan, Delcan, and Eddie burst out laughing. Oh boy, do they think that was funny. Me, far less so.
“Well played, lass!” Nolan says.
“Welcome to the family,” Eddie says, holding his arms out wide and giving her a big hug. A little too big, but I’ll allow it, this once.
Declan is slow-clapping. “Perfectly executed, Mrs. O’Sullivan.”
“We’ll give you two lovebirds a moment. See ya back at the party,” Nolan says, still shaking his head and laughing. They pat me on the back, go down the front steps, and around to the backyard.
Donna squints one eye dramatically. “Billy Boston-Middleborough, do you not want kids with me?”
We do still have my apartment in Jamaica Plain, so we are technically Mr. and Mrs. Billy Boston-hyphen-Middleborough.
I shake my head. “No, Mrs. Boston-Middleborough. I want to fill you full of babies more than anything. But I’m not used to wanting things this badly.” I look around and lower my voice a little, not wanting the boys to hear about my actual doubts. “I wanted you so badly I nearly screwed it up.”
Donna puts the cigar back into my mouth and snakes her arms around my neck. “Well, you did get me, Billy. And I’m nervous about kids too. But there’s no adventure we can’t handle together.”
“You’re damn right about that, Red. ”
“Come on, Mouth. We need to get back to the reception. You got your trick, now you need a treat.”
“What is it?”
“Well, even if I were preggers, I’d still want to dance with my husband.” She grins. “Because I will get knocked up, but we’ll get down again. You’re forever going to keep me now…”
On cue, the first bars of the greatest song ever, Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping,” floats through the crisp autumn air from the speakers behind the house. My smirk is back in full force, and I grab my surprising, gorgeous wife’s hand, ready for whatever adventure comes next. Our party’s just getting started.
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