Epilogue
Trenton
Some people wish for quiet. Some people find silence peaceful. Some people sit in their driveways just to have some time to themselves before they walk inside after a long day at work. Some people are fucking idiots.
The quiet was a black hole, sucking everything into its nothingness, and right then, Dad’s house felt like the graveyard I’d just left—still, heavy, and filled with the ghosts of everything that used to make it home.
I glanced at my watch. Around this time, Olive would have been bouncing in like a bottle rocket. Even though she was a teenager and too cool for just about everything, she always let her guard down at Papa Jim’s. Here, she could be her energetic, silly self, and we’d all adored her for it. She’d update us on dormitory gossip and what test she’d just aced. She’d play her terrible music from her laptop while finishing a paper, waiting for dinner or for Camille and me to take her to Chicken Joe’s.
Dad would’ve been in his recliner, carefully sipping hot coffee from his favorite mug. My eyes drifted to the seat cushion permanently shaped from years of him molding it to perfectly fit his old, crotchety ass, sharing his captivating stories or passing down invaluable wisdom. The floor used to creak under his shoes, and the faint smell of his aftershave would linger in the air.
Now, creaking floors were just creaking floors, and his aftershave had been tossed like the food, his deodorant, toothpaste, and everything else that would’ve been weird to keep, even though I wanted to.
I stared at the same brown calico carpet that I’d crawled on as a baby. Not because it was fascinating—it wasn’t—but because if I let myself feel anything, I’d feel everything. And I didn’t have the energy to open the floodgates for yet another emotional apocalypse. Camille sat on the sofa, a stack of papers in her hands. The papers. The ones that started with Final Will and Testament of James Maddox , but might as well have said, Congratulations, you’re an orphan.
“So,” she trailed off, the word stretching out like she didn’t know what to follow it with.
I didn’t look up. I couldn’t. The floor and I apparently had a thing going. Romantical like. “So…?”
Camille sighed, and from my peripheral, I noticed her licking her thumb before flipping carefully between two pages. She had approached Dad’s estate the same way she’d handled the restructuring of Skin Deep—organized, methodical, and determined. Every task had a checklist, every document sorted, every detail triple checked. It wasn’t just efficiency; it was her distraction. Camille threw herself into it all as if by staying busy, she could keep her mind from wandering into the grief waiting just beyond the paperwork. “Dad left the house to us,” she said, half confused, half in stunned disbelief.
Left. That word landed heavy, like it didn’t quite fit in the sentence, and Dad wasn’t there to make it make sense. Olive wasn’t there to cheer about her favorite person in the world potentially living next door to her parents. Not that I’d deserve it. I’d failed to keep my most important promise: to protect her.
I forced my eyes up, dragging them away from the floor, trying not to glimpse the framed photo perched on the end table—the one Olive had given Dad last Christmas. It was from the state fair, taken on a night so perfect it felt untouchable. We were standing in front of the Ferris Wheel, its lights painting the dark sky in neon swirls. Dad had his arm slung over Olive’s shoulder, grinning like the proudest Papa on earth. Camille and I stood on each side of them so that Olive was front and center. She was glowing with excitement, her head tilted back in a laugh that felt as big as the night itself.
She’d convinced a complete stranger—a frazzled mom juggling a toddler and a basket of fried Oreos—to pause long enough to take the picture. With her signature smile and charm no one could resist, Olive had made it seem like it was the woman’s idea to begin with. I’d watched her, amazed, wondering what she might do with that gift of hers. She had this rare way of making people feel seen, heard, and willing to go along with whatever she asked. It wasn’t manipulation—it was magic, pure and simple. I used to think she’d change the world with that kind of power, but now I’d never get the chance to see it. That thought hit harder than anything else, sharp and unrelenting, a reminder of everything that would never be.
Camille waited for my response, her expression a careful mix of patience and sadness, yet somehow so composed it was almost unfair. Next to her, my grief felt messy and loud, and I couldn’t help but feel like I should be doing better—for her, if not for myself.
“He left it to us ?” I asked. “What are we supposed to do with it? Turn it into a museum? Live here? Sell it? Throw everything in a dumpster and burn it to the ground?” The last part came out sharper than I’d meant, but anger was the only emotion that felt safe, and the house was the only target that I wouldn’t have to beg for forgiveness later. Dad’s house used to be a warm blanket, the last bastion when life was going to shit, but now it was a shrine to everything I’d lost. Everything we’d all lost.
“We have to keep it,” Camille said. “We have to. We… we could live here, combine our stuff with theirs, make it ours while still honoring their memory.”
I laughed, and it sounded wrong, even to me. “Combine? What, like mixing your coffee cups? Throw Mom’s crystals in with our shot glass collection? What about the rest? Do we pack their lives into boxes and drawers? How do we make this house ours when everything in it screams theirs ?”
Her eyes softened, and she leaned forward. “We figure it out, baby. One piece at a time.”
She made it sound simple, like breathing, but the idea of picking through my parents’ things felt like trying to walk through quicksand. Every step would drag me deeper.
“I still expect them to be here,” I admitted, my voice breaking like a cheap guitar string. “Every time I walk in, I think Dad’s going to be sitting in his chair, watching TV. Or Olive will come crashing in with her backpack, yelling about some idea she had. I can’t… I don’t know if I could do it. I don’t know if I can be here without them.”
“You don’t have to decide today. Or tomorrow. We’ll figure it out when you’re ready.”
I looked away, back to the floor. The carpet was still there, still worn and unhelpful. “I don’t want to sell it,” I admitted. “But living here feels impossible. Everything reminds me of them.”
“That’s why we make it ours,” she said again, her voice firm this time. “We don’t erase them, Trent. We make it ours and theirs. This house is a part of you. Of us.”
Her words hit something deep, something I didn’t want to face. She was right, but that didn’t make it easier.
“I’m an orphan,” I said, the words slipping out before I could stop them. They sounded foreign, like they belonged to someone else. “I don’t even really remember my mom, you know? But I remember feeling loved. I remember her holding me. I remember how safe it felt. And Dad? He was everything. He knew everything. What to say, what to do. I used to think being a man happened when you turned eighteen, but it doesn’t. It happens when your dad dies, and you can’t go to him for advice anymore.”
Camille’s eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t let them fall. She just crawled over to me and squeezed my hands, like she could hold me together through sheer force of will. “We can’t see them, but they’re with us everywhere we go. You carry everything he’s taught you right there,” she said, touching my chest with her finger.
“Yeah, well, I’d rather look up and see him in that old ass recliner,” I muttered, bitterness coating my words.
She didn’t respond right away, letting the silence settle around us. “You’re not alone in this. You’ve got me. You’ve got your brothers. We’re all still here.”
The truth was too heavy to carry, so I just kept dragging it behind me, hoping it would lose its grip and disappear.
“It’s too big for us anyway,” I said.
“Well, maybe not.”
I frowned and looked up at her. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d talked about trying for a baby. I was beginning to think she’d decided it was getting too late in the game, and we’d missed our window. Then, I realized I might be off the mark.
“You mean for like… Thanksgiving?” I asked. She wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t imagine holidays anywhere else.
Camille stood abruptly, smoothing her hands over her jeans. “Stay there. Don’t move.”
Before I could reply, she disappeared into the kitchen. I heard a cabinet open, the faint rustle of something being shuffled around. My curiosity spiked, but I stayed put, my mind racing through a thousand possibilities, none of them making any sense.
When she came back, she held a small white gift bag in her hands, the kind you’d find at a boutique, with crisp tissue paper peeking out of the top. She handed it to me, her lips twitching like she was trying to suppress a smile. “Here.”
I looked from the bag to her and back again. “What’s this?”
“Just open it,” she said, returning to the spot by my feet.
“Okay…” I pulled out the tissue paper, and there it was—a small black frame. I tilted it in my hands to see the photo inside, and at first, my brain couldn’t make sense of what I was looking at.
It was an ultrasound. Not just any ultrasound. At the bottom, printed in typed letters, it read: Baby Boy Maddox, 22 weeks.
I stared at the picture, my fingers tightening around the frame. Time froze, and for a second, I forgot how to breathe. Finally, I forced myself to look at her, my voice cracking. “Is this yours?”
A laugh poured out of her. “He’s ours.”
I couldn’t think, my brain firing on all cylinders, but not in a productive way, or any other way that would be a bit fucking helpful in that moment. Every time a thought even hinted at my wife finally being pregnant with our child, something would bang it away like a pinball ricocheting off the bumpers, leaving me dizzy and stuck on repeat.
“I’m pregnant, Trent. We’re pregnant.” Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “For a long time, I didn’t know. I’d stopped paying attention to my cycles years ago. Then I went to the doctor, and it took weeks to process the news. I wanted to make sure the pregnancy was viable this time, but then we had funerals to plan, grieving—it never felt like the right moment.”
Her words hit me like a freight train. Everything we’d been through, everything we’d lost. And here she was, carrying something—someone—whose existence was a catalyst for our new beginning. Our son.
She reached out and touched my arm gently. “Please don’t be mad that I waited. I wanted you to be happy about it, a happy has seemed out of place.”
I looked back at the ultrasound, shaking my head in disbelief. “Cami, I’m… I don’t even have the words. I’m just… wow.”
She gave me a soft smile, tears finally spilling over. “We’ll need more than a nursery, you know. We need enough room for cousin sleepovers. And one day,” she giggled, “grandkids.”
I huffed out a laugh, still staring at the photo. “Why can’t I think of words right now?”
“He should get to play in the yard with Stella, just like James, Jessica, and Olive did. That’s what Dad would’ve wanted.”
I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I set the frame gently on the end table next to the one of Olive, slid to the floor in front of my wife, and buried my face in her lap. My shoulders shook, and the sobs I’d been holding back for months finally came pouring out. Camille leaned over, her arms wrapping around me.
“I wish… I wish Dad had known.”
“He knew,” she said simply. I looked up at her for confirmation. “He was the only one who knew. He was so happy for us, and so proud of you.”
I bowed once again, bawling like a baby against her thighs, falling apart while at the same time feeling I was finally being put back together.
“Is he… is he okay?” I choked out between breaths. “Is everything okay?”
Her voice was steady, reassuring, as she leaned closer. “He’s strong, Trent. He’s healthy. Everything is perfect. He’s due January 21st.”
I lifted my head, staring at her through blurry eyes. “That’s… that’s coming up fast.”
“I told you; I wanted to be sure. And then there just wasn’t a good time.”
I sat up, wiping my eyes quickly. “A boy. You’re sure it’s a boy?”
She laughed softly, cupping my face. “It’s a boy. And… we should ask, but… what do you think about the name Oliver?”
My bottom lip trembled and I nodded, pulling her down into my arms, holding her tight. My son. Our son… Oliver. It didn’t feel real, and yet it felt like the only thing that could anchor me in that moment. We cried together, but for the first time in months, they weren’t tears of loss. They were something new. Hope. Joy. Relief.
When we finally pulled back, she rested her forehead against mine. “See? There are still good memories to be made in this house. We’ll make it a home again.”
I looked around, taking in the familiar space that had just moments before felt like a mausoleum. The photos lining the hallway, the worn edges of the furniture, even the creak of the floor beneath my knees—had felt hollow. This house, Dad’s house, had carried so much grief, but Camille’s words lingered, wrapping around me like a beacon in the dark. It wasn’t just about what we’d lost here. It was about what we could build, what we could give our son—a place full of laughter, memories, and love, just like Dad had given to my brothers and me.
The house still held the marks of Dad’s boots by the door, Olive’s map pencils and glitter notebooks in the drawer, and the kitchen where so many Maddox arguments and celebrations had taken place. But for the first time, those thoughts didn’t make me want to pull them out of my brain with a screwdriver. They were stories to tell Oliver and promises of what could be again. Of what would be again.
I looked around once more. The walls and floors that had felt so empty just hours ago now seemed to hum with possibility, the quiet no longer so loud. It was waiting for something—someone—to fill it again.
Dad had known. He had left us this house for a reason—not just to preserve the memories, but to build on them. To give his grandson a place where laughter would echo again, where new traditions could take root, and where life would go on, even after so much loss.
I could picture it now: Camille sitting on the porch steps, smiling as she watches me swing Oliver in circles, standing to wave to Travis, Abby, and the kids as they pull into the drive like Dad used to do. He’d trusted us with his legacy, to carry forward everything he had built, and I wasn’t going to let him down.
I helped Camille off the floor and to the couch. Her hand rested on her stomach, and I smiled, realizing she had a small baby bump for the first time, wondering if she’d been doing that for a while but I’d been too distracted to notice. Her eyes met mine, and in that moment, everything was right again.
I’d gone from wondering if I’d ever smile again to wondering if I’d be able to stop.
Now, it was our turn to make sure this house became what Dad had envisioned—a home, not just for us, but for the next generation of Maddoxes, one that included my son.
The End.