Epilogue
(Five Years Later)
‘The fact that I come on this trip every year is a testament to how much I love you all,’ Markus said dramatically.
‘I could be at a five-star hotel with Juan right now.’ Dressed in cargo pants, a long-sleeved shirt, combat boots, and a hat with a full veil of mosquito mesh that fell to his shoulders, he looked like a tourist who was about to embark on a tropical wilderness adventure, not spend one night camping in Santa Barbara County.
He surveyed Wrangler’s Clearing with thinly veiled dread. ‘It’s so … picturesque.’
Markus might not have had an appreciation for the great outdoors – as he called it – but Sierra’s bond with the clearing surpassed any fondness for family camping trips, irrespective of how fun.
Wrangler’s Clearing was where she and Benji had come to say goodbye to Baby Girl.
They had agreed to mourn their daughter openly and had come up to Wrangler’s Clearing together after their shotgun court wedding.
They had scattered her ashes among the trees and then held each other and cried long into the night.
And when Benji had said, ‘We don’t have to call her Ava if you don’t want to,’ Sierra hadn’t agreed.
She had finally accepted what she had lost, and she had replied, ‘She was our firstborn. She’ll have the name we always promised our little girl would have.’ So, they’d named her on the same day they’d finally set her free.
Afterwards, the family had made it a tradition to stay overnight on Ava’s birthday every year.
Markus came in for the night. Even after winning two Academy Awards and becoming one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood, Nina adjusted her filming schedule every year so that she and Mav and their kids were always home for the trip.
Jade and her family had even come up a few times, though this year the trip to Wrangler’s Clearing had coincided with their family’s vacation. Still, Jade had called all the way from Spain that morning to check in and make sure that Sierra was okay.
With Mav and Nina’s three kids, Poppy, Daisy, and James, and Sierra and Benji’s twin girls, Willow and Wren, what had once been a quick overnight visit had turned into an epic annual excursion.
The tent and sleeping bags were packed, but so too were the kids’ sleeping onesies and socks, portable potty, insect repellent, nightlight, changes of clothes, favourite snacks, enough toys to entertain them for eighteen-odd hours …
The list went on, and although she occasionally grumbled about it, Sierra’s Type-A heart loved every second of fighting for order in the chaos that was her family.
‘You know you love it,’ Nina teased, and passed Markus her and Mav’s youngest, James. At six months old, James explored the world by picking things up and putting them in his mouth. And Markus’s mosquito netting was no exception.
‘What I can’t figure out,’ Mav piped up as Markus patiently rescued his hat from the baby, ‘is what the hell you pack in this thing?’ He heaved Markus’s huge bag out of the Jeep and held it up.
‘Only essentials,’ Markus replied and perched James on one hip.
Sierra, who had been listening in, snorted. ‘He literally has a wilderness survival kit in there. There’s a pocket just for aerosols!’
‘Um’ – Markus held up one finger – ‘don’t mock the aerosol pocket. Those babies may just save your life one day.’
‘Oh?’ Sierra taunted. ‘How exactly?’
‘Bear spray, insect repellent, sunscreen, hairspray, air horn, and most importantly’ – he tipped his nose up in a mock-superior gesture – ‘whipped cream to bribe the kids with.’
Sierra and Nina exchanged a glance and started laughing.
‘He’s not wrong,’ Nina ceded.
Knowing that the four girls could find trouble in seconds, Sierra turned to look for them. She relaxed when she saw them huddled around Benji, taking turns with the rubber mallet to hammer tent pegs into the ground.
Nina finished popping up the last camping chair. ‘Wanna let them get a swim in before it gets dark?’
‘I am not getting in that water again.’ Markus shuddered dramatically, his shaking body making James giggle in his arms.
‘You can be on baby duty,’ Nina clarified. ‘Si?’
‘We’ll meet you down there in a few minutes,’ Sierra replied. ‘I’m running behind, and I want to finish setting up the girls’ things while I have light.’
Mav paused what he was doing to look pointedly at Sierra’s hugely pregnant belly. ‘You need help?’
‘Nope. I’ve got Benji. Go. We’ll just be a few minutes.’
She watched their little group walk down the cleared path to the water, Nina and Mav walking on either side of their girls, Markus holding James as they monologued gibberish to each other behind them.
And then she turned and watched Benji hold a tent peg still for Willow to hit with the mallet while Wren watched on, and unspeakable peace washed through her.
Sierra closed her eyes. She breathed in the earthy scent of the dell and just lingered in the moment.
‘Mommy, can we go now?’ The question, coming from Wren, had Sierra opening her eyes.
She smiled at her younger twin, replied, ‘We’re just going to finish setting up, and then we’ll head down there, okay?’
Alone with her family, Sierra set Willow and Wren up in their camping chairs with some grapes and a chunk of Benji’s homemade bread, spread thick with peanut butter, in the hope that she could keep them occupied for ten minutes while she and Benji quickly finished setting up.
But she kept one eye trained on them at all times.
So, she saw when Wren reached over and snatched a grape off Willow’s tray and popped it into her own mouth with a slightly unhinged grin, and she saw when Willow reached over, her fist curled, and hit Wren.
Curious to see if they would resolve it themselves, Sierra waited.
Wren raised one pudgy hand to her ear. Her green eyes, so like Benji’s, welled.
But the temper she’d inherited from Sierra sparked beneath the pain.
She moved her hand off her ear and reached over to hit Willow back, but before Sierra could issue a warning, Benji’s voice, calm but firm, cut through the chilly, evening air. ‘Don’t even think about it, Wren.’
‘She hit me!’ Wren exclaimed with disgust, but she lowered her hand and sent her sister a look of pure dislike.
‘You stole her grape,’ Benji countered.
‘She got more than me!’
‘You each got ten exactly,’ Sierra interceded, having learned very quickly that everything between the twins had to be the same otherwise one would throw a tantrum. But unlike Benji, her voice was steel. It was Mom Voice, perfected.
Wren piped down, but not before having the last word. ‘Hers were bigger.’
Sierra tried to fight her grin, but when she felt it breaking across her face anyway, she angled away so that she didn’t encourage the behaviour – and met Benji’s eyes.
He was watching her, his smile big, his green eyes bright with humour.
She wasn’t sure how he had only gotten more attractive with age.
The grey coming into his thick hair a little more each year made him look rugged and distinguished.
His muscles were somehow thicker though they’d celebrated his forty-fifth birthday just a few months prior.
Sierra’s heart swelled with love.
Unable to stay away, she laboriously rose from where she’d been unrolling a canvas tarp to put the kids’ toys on and went to him. Benji’s arms opened for her – always.
‘How are you feeling?’ His hand dropped to run gently over her pregnant stomach.
‘Incredible,’ she replied. But because she knew he worried, she nestled closer again, added, ‘Forget soccer. These two are going to be wrestlers.’
They had known that Benji’s grandmother was a twin, but they could never have anticipated that they would conceive twins once, let alone twice – and the second time had been the result of a surprise weekend getaway and one too many mezcal margaritas.
So the plan for one baby had turned to two, and the plan to stop at three had quickly changed to stopping at four, giving them the bunch they’d always wanted.
Add in Mav and Nina’s kids, and Sierra had the chaotic family she’d always dreamed of.
She and Nina had been playing ‘your turn with the Hunt bassinet’ for years, and while the original passed back and forth between them, Benji had built a matching second one when they’d found out they were having twins – the first time.
The kids ran wild together, often dashing out of the adjacent ranch houses to meet on the shared grassy front lawn and swing beneath the oak tree or climb into the Jeep with Mav or Benji to head down to the barn for a group riding lesson.
The sound of their combined laughter, squeals, and occasional tears was constant.
And beautiful. It reminded Sierra of her childhood with Mav and Benji. It was wild and free and happy.
‘I can’t believe we only have two months to go,’ Benji whispered, his voice tinged with that old fear.
Sierra understood it. Some nights, when the boys kept her awake with their kicks, she struggled to keep her mind from going back to Ava and that year After.
But through years of therapy, she and Benji had learned how to welcome all that ugly emotion – the fear and sadness and bitterness.
Now, they embraced it. They grieved, still, but without shame.
And then they let it pass. Through trial and error and conscious practice, they had learned to not only be gracious to each other, but to themselves, which was something neither of them had ever been very good at, Before or After.
‘Why don’t you sit down while I finish setting up.’ Benji gently took her hand and guided her to one of the camping chairs set up next to the twins.
Because she was tired, she let him lead her and sat down. But because she would always find more energy to give her kids, when Willow slipped out of her chair and came and crawled onto her lap, Sierra wrapped both arms around her daughter.
Willow placed one tiny hand on Sierra’s stomach, and when one of the boys kicked beneath her palm, she gasped. Her eyes widened. ‘He felt me.’
‘Yeah.’ Taking Willow’s hand in hers, she moved it around to the side of her stomach where there was more movement.
Willow laughed happily.
Never one to be left out, Wren pushed her tray onto the floor, scattering the grapes she had been so bullish about only moments before, and came to stand at Sierra’s side. ‘Can I feel the babies?’
Sierra took her tiny hand and placed it next to Willow’s.
Wren giggled when she felt the first kick. She turned to Willow, and Sierra saw that twin connection in motion as questions and answers that she had no way of knowing passed between the girls, all stolen grapes and retaliations forgotten.
‘Are you excited to meet your brothers?’
‘Yeah.’ Willow replied, but they both nodded vigorously.
‘We each get one,’ Wren clarified.
‘Oh?’ Sierra tried to hide her amusement, but it wasn’t easy.
‘Yeah,’ Willow said with the solemnity only a near-three-year-old could muster. ‘We talked about it.’
Sierra nodded seriously. ‘That’s good.’
‘Unless he poops like James does,’ Wren said, and crinkled her nose. ‘Then you can have mine.’
Sierra laughed. ‘Oh, okay. If they poop, I’ll handle it,’ she promised, and because she could feel his loving gaze on her, she turned to Benji.
He was leaning against the truck’s tailgate, his arms crossed over his chest, and a soft smile on his face as he watched them. Sierra winked at him, but instead of winking back, he mouthed, ‘I love you.’
Benji stood and watched them a while longer.
The girls were identical and had his burnt gold hair and green eyes, but that was where their similarities ended.
Willow was calm and quiet and shy with strangers.
She could entertain herself for hours doing anything – colouring, riding, or baking mud pies with her cousins.
She loved to cuddle, and although she would come and snuggle onto his lap if Sierra was busy, the moment Sierra sat down, Willow would leave his arms for hers.
Wren … Wren was a wildling. With a temper.
She was loud and boisterous, and they’d had to warn her not to talk to strangers repeatedly.
But from the moment she could walk, she’d been Benji’s shadow.
She watched everything he did with an intensity that had taught him to slow his movements so that she could learn. And boy did she.
Though both the girls could already ride in the small arena without much assistance, Wren lived for the horses.
She was always underfoot in the barn, wanting to help groom and tack even though, more often than not, she simply did what three-year-olds did: got in the way.
She loved to ride, but long before they’d put her on her first horse, they figured out that, while long drives in the car calmed Willow, Wren stopped crying the moment she saw a horse.
Being a father to the two of them was a lesson in communication in and of itself. While Willow needed soft words and gentle encouragement, Wren would have walked all over him if he talked to her in the same way. She needed direction, discipline, and consequences.
Benji loved how different they were. He loved that each of them taught him radically different things about being a human being.
But more than anything, more than watching his girls grow, more than being a dad, more than the sun and the moon and the stars combined, he loved watching Sierra grow into motherhood.
She never stopped. If she wasn’t tying a shoelace or baking cookies or giving baths, she was teaching the girls about horses or doing puzzles with them or painting their bedroom wall.
She loved with a ferocity that constantly awed him.
She had learned to be patient – and it hadn’t come naturally to her.
She gave and gave, and the result was that – even though he would have said it to be impossible – Benji found himself falling more in love with his wife with each day that passed.
But the depth of his own experience didn’t terrify him.
Because if life had taught him anything, it was that nothing lasted forever – but that he had more than most. He had everything.
And he would hold on to them until the day his body was reduced to ash – and then he’d leave without regret. And he’d go and meet Ava.
His first.
His greatest joy Before.
His greatest loss After.
His daughter.