Epilogue #8
Everywhere I look, somebody is doing something that would’ve sounded insane four years ago.
Thomas O’Farrell is the governor of Massachusetts, and right now he’s somewhere in the yard letting my four-year-old fine him a dollar.
Dad laughs from the grill, Callum beside him, Gideon and Clifford too.
Theodore brings another tray from Katya.
Saoirse and Mom are sitting with Ally now, discussing something for the nonprofit between interruptions.
Alice has a sketchbook open on her lap, and Piper is leaning over it, pointing at one of the frogs.
She does all of Ally’s children’s-book artwork now. Every frog. Every ridiculous little creature. Every world Ally creates for kids who need stories about being scared and brave at the same time.
Then Louise walks past carrying another dress, and I stare at her. “Why do you have a backup?”
She looks offended. “Have you met your daughter?”
Piper Jane — the label — started because Louise wouldn’t stop making Piper clothes. Now there are kids I’ve never met walking around in things with my daughter’s name stitched into them. Piper doesn’t understand that. To her, Aunt Louise makes clothes. That’s it.
Delilah catches Piper before she crashes into her. “Whoa.”
Piper grabs her hands. “Did you bring art?”
“I work at the MFA. I don’t steal the art and bring it to birthday parties.”
“Why?”
Delilah pauses. “Because prison?”
Piper thinks about that. “Okay.”
“Excellent talk.”
It’s Delilah’s second year there now. She looks like she belongs in Boston. Like she’s found her own place outside being Danny’s little sister.
Piper looks up at her. “Do you have dinosaurs?”
“Wrong museum.”
“You should get some.”
“I’ll tell my boss.”
“Perfect!” Then she runs away.
Delilah looks at me. “She really believes I can make that happen.”
“Daddy!” I turn. Piper is standing beside the cake. “Cake now.”
Everyone starts moving toward the tables. Kaid brings Cat. X brings Penny. Danny and Becca are arguing over whether she’s allowed to answer a UN email at a four-year-old’s birthday party.
“It’s one email.”
“You said that three emails ago.”
“I have a job.”
He takes her phone.
“Daniel.”
“Rebecca.”
She stares at him. He kisses her. She tries not to smile. Fails.
Iz and Bella are arguing too. Obviously. “You’ve been at Harvard for five minutes and you’re already insufferable,” Bella says.
“I was insufferable before Harvard.”
“Finally, something we agree on.”
“You’re the one who followed me there.”
Bella stops. “Followed you?” Iz smiles. Wrong move. “I am getting my master’s in public health while working with BPHC and MIRA.”
“Trainee.”
“I will bury you.”
“Very public-health of you.”
“You chose medicine because you need everybody to tell you you’re special.”
“Boston Children’s thinks I’m special.”
“They let you near the building.”
“They love me.”
“They’ve met you. Impossible.” He pulls her against him. She keeps glaring. He kisses her. She kisses him back, then immediately says, “I’m still beating you.”
“At what?”
“Everything.”
Some things don’t change.
We crowd around the cake. Four candles. No pennies — Ally checked, then I checked after Ally checked.
Piper climbs onto the chair, her copper-red hair completely loose now, one shoe gone, frosting on the Piper Jane dress, grass on both knees, something blue on her arm.
Louise looks personally wounded. Ally comes up beside me.
My hand finds her waist. Hers covers mine. Then she moves it — over our baby.
I look down at her. “You okay?”
“Perfect.”
Everyone starts singing, and Piper sings louder than all of us. “Happy birthday dear MEEEEEE—“
Tobias leans toward her. “That’s not how it goes.”
“It’s my birthday.”
We finish, and Mom smiles. “Make a wish, sweetheart.”
Piper squeezes her eyes shut, her whole face scrunching. Then —“I WISH FOR A PONY!”
Everybody laughs. Piper turns and blows. Spit goes everywhere.
Cat recoils. “Oh my God.”
Kaid grabs a plate. “You’re eating it.”
“I am absolutely not eating that.”
“You’ve put worse things in your mouth.”
“Kaid!”
“What?”
Tobias’s hand appears. “Fifty.”
Kaid stares at him. “I didn’t swear.”
“Sexual content.”
X fucking loses it. “So there are categories now?”
“Yep.”
“What does violence cost?”
Tobias looks at him. “For you? Two hundred.”
Penny laughs into X’s shoulder. “Occupational surcharge.”
The party doesn’t slow down after cake. It gets louder. The kids run. Music plays. People move between our house and my parents’ like there isn’t really a boundary between them anymore.
Piper opens presents in no recognizable order.
Tobias disappears toward the lake with his friends until Dad yells at them to stay where he can see them.
Mom feeds everyone again even though Katya already catered enough food for a small wedding.
Louise changes Piper after the green dress finally loses its battle with frosting.
Alice gives her a framed illustration from one of Ally’s books, and Piper announces she’s putting it above her bed. Then corrects herself. “Both beds.”
Eventually Ally finds me near the edge of the yard. She doesn’t say anything. She just steps into me, my arm going around her, her head resting against my chest, my hand finding the curve of our baby. We don’t leave. Don’t go inside. Don’t need silence. We’re standing right in the middle of it.
Close enough to hear Cat and Kaid arguing.
Close enough to hear Penny laugh when X says something against her ear.
Close enough to hear Danny telling Becca she’s not checking another email.
Close enough to hear Iz and Bella switch into French because apparently fighting in English isn’t competitive enough.
Our parents are everywhere — Dad and Thomas arguing politics, Arthur inserting legal corrections nobody asked for, Mom and Saoirse talking about Ally’s nonprofit, Alice showing Louise something, Katya trying to make Theodore eat, Callum and Clifford and Gideon still near the grill even though nobody needs more food.
Delilah is explaining the MFA to one of Tobias’s friends, because Piper’s dinosaur recommendation somehow started an entire conversation.
Ally laughs against me. I look down at her, her wedding ring catching the October light. We kept that wedding small. Friends. Parents. Tobias. Piper. Nobody gave Ally away. She walked to me. Her choice. Just like the ring. Just like staying here. Just like every piece of this life.
I look back across the yard. Four years ago, we were eighteen.
Now Cat and Kaid are engaged and at Berkeley getting master’s degrees in nuclear engineering and public policy.
X just won in Vegas and signed a professional contract.
Penny has her Yale degree and is working inside the same management world that’s beginning to build around him.
Danny and Becca are engaged — he’s at NYU researching addiction through bioengineering, she’s at the United Nations collecting languages like normal people collect fucking mugs.
Iz and Bella are both at Harvard, because apparently love, to them, means attending the same university so they can continue trying to academically destroy each other.
And Ally. Ally writes books. Works beside Saoirse helping women. Raises Piper. Raises Tobias. Is growing our next baby. And I get to come home to her.
I hold her closer. Around us, our family keeps being loud. Messy. Ridiculous. Too much. Everything Ally was once taught she wasn’t allowed to have.
I look at Tobias. At Piper. At the baby growing beneath my hand. At our friends. Our parents. At my wife standing right in the fucking middle of all of them.
The girl I fell in love with survived by making herself invisible. She doesn’t have to anymore.
We see her. All of her. And we fucking love what we see.