Epilogue I
RHETT
Three years later…almost…
The house is the quietest it’s been in years as I wake up and press a kiss to Avery’s head. She’s dead to the world after last night. I tried to help, but turns out the kids only have one person they go to when they’re feeling sick. Mommy.
“Tell me it’s not morning yet,” she mock sobs into my chest, her fingertips instantly finding the scar at my side, an action that has become instinctual to her.
“It’s not morning.” I give her what she asked for.
Looking up at me with a sulk, she groans, “You’re a terrible liar.”
“Sleep a little longer. I’ll take care of breakfast for the girls before I leave.” I manage to untangle her body from mine even though all I want is to take advantage of my fiancée one last time before she becomes my wife.
“Don’t leave me, Doc. Come back to bed.”
“If I don’t go, Rowan will fuck shit up and then…then, Nora will want my head on a platter. Or worse, Callie will follow through on the promise of torturing me if it’s not perfect.”
“The only thing that will make today perfect is you being there when I walk down the aisle. I don’t care about the rest.”
“That’s a lie. You care about the night off from parenting.”
“After last night? I need at least a week,” she laughs, hugging my pillow to her and burying her face in it.
By the time I’ve showered and dressed, she’s asleep again, deep enough that she doesn’t stir when I search through my sock drawer to find the present I got her for today.
Something new and something blue. I slip the box into my pocket as I head downstairs, looking into the nursery to find it empty already, and when I get to the bottom of the stairs, I have to take a moment.
I do it every morning because it’s the best sight I’ve ever seen to this very day.
As per usual, Iris is sitting on the couch with her bowl of cereal, Poppy and Rose on either side of her, stealing a Cheerio every now and then.
I’ve almost made it to the kitchen when Iris calls, “Morning, Father!”
It’s been her recurring joke since Avery and I got engaged seven months ago.
It’s been the longest seven months of my life, with the exception of the ones Avery was pregnant with the twins.
The pregnancy was easy on her once she got past the nausea, but it was hell for me.
Especially the first six and a half months.
I’m grateful she didn’t run away with how much I fussed over her.
I think she understood my apprehension and fears.
Poppy meanders over to me with her pink Cheer Bear plush hugged to her chest. Rose isn’t far behind her with Funshine even though she’s more of a grumpy bear in our family—a trait Rowan likes to point out as mine. I call bullshit, though.
“What are we having for breakfast?”
“Dodo.” Poppy points up to the counter where Jo’s granola bars are sitting, and Rose proceeds to tell me, “No. No…” on repeat even when I’ve got her in her chair and she’s eating her second bar.
“Uncle Rowan called to say that he would meet you at the cove. Callie’s tired because she was on the phone till late with Mom. and now he has to pick up the flowers.” Iris sits at the table beside me, breaking off half of one of my bars. “Are you excited to marry my mom?”
“I can’t wait,” I reply, and she smiles up at me before resting her head on my shoulder. “Are you excited?”
“I’m happy for you.”
“That’s not a happy face, champ.” The look on her face has me sitting back in my chair and pulling her to sit on my thigh. “What’s happening? You and Scarlett have a fight? Caleb teasing you again?”
“No.”
“So, what is it? Who’s giving you trouble?”
“Dodo,” Poppy calls again, only silenced when I break up some more granola bar onto her tray.
“Come on, you can tell me anything.”
“It’s nothing,” she tells me, but from the wet sound of her voice and the tears swimming in her eyes, it’s clearly something. And I don’t like that she’s being coy about it.
Iris has never been shy with me, and it’s not starting now because if something is bothering my girls, I’m going to fix it.
“You want me to tickle it out of you like I tickle your sisters?”
“No.”
“Well, then, you better get to talking.”
“It’s stupid and it doesn’t matter.” When she tries to get up from my lap, I sit her in her seat and drag her close enough that she has no chance of getting away from me. “What have I told you? If it bothers you, it’s not…?”
“Stupid.”
“And?”
“And it matters.”
“Exactly. So talk to me, champ.”
After a moment of waiting for her say something, she finally caves, looking down at her lap as she tells me, “I’m on my own now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Rose and Poppy have the same name as you, and now Mom is going to have it too, so I’m on my own.”
Oh God, this girl is something else. I knew from the moment I met her that she was special. Iris is so much like Avery it’s insane.
“You’re never on your own, and you know that regardless of whether or not we have the same name, you’re mine.
Just like your mom and those two nightmares over there.
” I nod at the twins, and as she’s done from the day they were born, she reaches over and strokes each of their cheeks with the back of her finger.
“A name doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a word like any other. ”
“It’s not, though. You’re all going to be a family, and I’m…I’m me. I’m not a Reynolds like the rest of you. I don’t even have a dad.”
“Okay, time out,” I tell her, getting up from my seat and taking her up with me.
“Come on.” I grab her hand as Avery walks into the kitchen.
The concerned expression on her face tells me she’s heard the conversation we were having, and when I press a kiss to her forehead in passing, she hands me the envelope we prepared last night.
“Where are we going? We’re not even wearing shoes!” Iris groans as we walk through the house and out of the front door.
We only moved in five months ago, and there are still cardboard boxes stacked in one corner of the dining room off the hallway. We were really beginning to struggle in the bungalow, but we wanted to wait until the house we redesigned for the plot I bought off Jo was ready.
It’s our own mini ranch with a chicken coop out to the side and a barn-type garage where we keep our surfboards and hang our suits to dry. We walk past the cars to the small pond Iris asked for so we could keep ducks like Jo.
“Sit with me,” I tell her, putting my feet in the water and waiting until she does the same. “Look around.”
Kicking her feet around in the water, she does as I told her until she finds my gaze again.
“What do you see?” When she shrugs, I point at the barn and ask, “What’s in there?”
“My surfboard.” She smiles.
“And who taught you to surf?”
Fresh tears line her eyes as she replies, “You.”
“Who’s going to teach your sisters?”
“You.”
“And what about over there?” I point to the field separating our home from Jo’s ranch. “What’s over there?”
“Dodo,” she chuckles with a roll of her eyes, mimicking her sisters.
“Is her name Reynolds?”
“No.”
“But she’s family, right? For all intents and purposes, she’s a nanna to you like Nora, right?”
“Yes.”
“What else is over there?”
“The horses.” She smiles wide again.
“Who taught you to ride?”
Her smile grows bigger. “You did.”
“And I’m going to teach your sisters too. Let’s face it, your mom is still too scared to saddle up, so…”
“I know all of that, it’s just that…I don’t know. I told you it was stupid.”
“Your feelings are never stupid, Iris. It’s understandable that you feel isolated because we don’t have the same name.
You’re not the only person to ever feel that way, but here’s the thing…
” I wrap my arm around her and pull her into me.
“Where do you belong? Where do you feel like you belong? Where’s your home? Where do you feel the most loved?”
“Here.”
“And who makes you feel that way?”
“You and Mom.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because…” Her voice wavers as she hugs me tighter. “You’re my family.”
“You don’t need to be Iris Reynolds to be family. You don’t need to have my name for me to be your dad. You’re always going to be my first baby girl. No matter what.”
I knew today was going to be hard for her.
I think in a lot of ways it’s harder than when we brought the girls home and she had to adapt to sharing Avery with them.
In many ways, this little old soul championed me from the moment we met.
Sometimes I think that if it wasn’t for her unwavering and unrelenting love of me, her mom’s heart would’ve been a lot harder to conquer.
“Look at me, champ.” Pulling back, I brush the tendrils of hair that have escaped her ponytail from her face. “You don’t need to have my name for me to love you, but if you want it, I would be so proud for you to have it.”
Her eyes widen when I pull the envelope Avery handed me from the pocket of my shorts.
Over the last couple of years, Avery and I had this conversation every now and again.
After the twins were born, it seemed like the right thing to do, the last piece of the puzzle to our future.
Iris and I might not share the same genetics, but she’s as much mine as the two little girls who do.
Taking the envelope from me, she opens it with bated breath.
I notice the way she’s picked at her baby blue nails and her thumb is bitten raw at the sides from her anxious gnawing.
We’ve had the adoption papers for a few weeks, but we wanted to wait till today to make it special for everyone. Now I wish we hadn’t waited.
“What do you want, baby girl?”
Her audible swallow is followed by a shaky breath as she replies, “What do you want, Doc?”
“I want you to be happy. Whether you’re a Reynolds or a Henderson or anything else.”
“I’m not…not happy.” She smiles. “But…” She swallows again, and this time tears don’t just fill her eyes, they pour in hiccups and sobs that have me pulling her onto my lap and suffocating her with my tight embrace.
“You wanna be a Reynolds?”
“Yes,” she sniffs.
“You realize that Rowan will expect you to call him Uncle Rowan all the time…and Caleb will tease you and prank you as much as he does Scout?”
“Yes.”
“And Callie will keep trying to make you a girly girl.”
A long chuckle bursts from her before her sobs become so hard that she’s trembling.
“Those better be happy tears, Iris Elizabeth Reynolds.”
“Mhhhmmm.” She nods, kneeling up on my lap to bury her face in the crook of my neck.
“I love you, champ.”
“More than my last bite of cake.” She squeezes harder, and I don’t just wish Avery and I had given her the papers sooner, I wish we’d done it after that first conversation we had about me adopting her.
“More than my last crumb of pie.”
“Forever and ever.”
“And ever and ever.”
Always.
“And I’m still your favorite, right?” She looks up at me with that sneaky smirk that makes her more of a Reynolds than she’ll ever know.
That smirk has been the start of many a trouble, especially when Scarlett is involved and Caleb is the recipient.
“Shhh…” I look back at the house to find Avery standing on the porch with the twins perched on her hips as she smiles on at us. “Of course.”
“Along with Pop and Ro.”
I hold up my thumb and forefinger in a half heart shape, and she does the same. “See, you’re all a piece of my heart.”
“That’s corny,” she giggles, looking back down at the paper semi-scrunched in her hand. “It kinda feels good being a Reynolds.”
Pushing up from my lap, she pushes the paper into the front pocket of her hoodie before grasping my arm and trying to pull me up too. “Come on, Daddy, you got a wedding today.”
“Yup, or your aunt Callie might get all ninja spy on my ass.”
With the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on her lips, she runs back to the house, and there is no happiness I’ve felt that comes close to this hot ray of sun in my chest.
Whoever said it’s the little things that make life worthwhile was wrong. It’s these small moments that make life worth everything.