Epilogue - Nash
Four Years Later
The house smells like vanilla cake and chaos.
I'm standing in the kitchen, frosting a two-tier monstrosity that's supposed to look like a princess castle, and I'm pretty sure I'm failing spectacularly.
"How's it going in there?" Claire calls from the living room.
"Great," I lie.
"Liar."
I smile despite myself. Four years of marriage and she can still read me like a book.
Through the doorway, I can see her hanging pink streamers across the ceiling while our daughter, Sophia, toddles around her feet, clutching a stuffed rabbit that's nearly as big as she is.
Sophia. Two years old today. Dark hair like her mother, my eyes, and a stubborn streak that came from both of us.
The best thing I've ever had a hand in creating.
"Dada!" Sophia spots me and makes a beeline for the kitchen, her little legs pumping.
I scoop her up before she can grab the counter. "Hey, princess. You're supposed to be helping Mama."
"Cake!" She points at my disaster with sticky fingers.
"Yeah, cake. But it's not ready yet."
"Cake now!"
"Cake later. When everyone gets here."
Her bottom lip wobbles and I brace myself for the tantrum. But then Claire appears in the doorway, hands on her hips, wearing jeans and one of my old fire department T-shirts that's paint-splattered from when we redid Sophia's room last month.
She's beautiful. More beautiful than the day I married her, and I didn't think that was possible.
"Sophia Grace Holland," Claire says in her mom voice. "What did we talk about?"
Sophia's lip stops wobbling. "Patience."
"That's right. Patience. The party doesn't start for another hour."
"But Mama—"
"No buts. Go play with your blocks and let Daddy finish the cake."
Sophia sighs dramatically, a two-year-old with the attitude of a teenager, and I set her down. She stomps off toward her toy box in the corner of the living room.
Claire comes over and looks at the cake. "Oh honey."
"That bad?"
"It's... unique."
"It's a disaster."
"It's perfect." She kisses my cheek. "Sophia's going to love it."
"Because she's two and doesn't know any better."
"Because her daddy made it for her." Claire steals a fingerful of frosting. "And because it tastes amazing even if it looks like the castle is melting."
I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her close. "I should've just bought one from the bakery."
"But you didn't. You made it yourself because you wanted to." She rests her head on my chest. "That's what matters."
This. This right here. This is what I never thought I'd have.
A wife who loves me. A daughter who looks at me like I hung the moon. A house full of laughter and toys and sticky fingerprints on every surface.
A family.
"What time are your parents getting here?" I ask.
"Any minute now." She pulls back to look at me. "You okay with that?"
"Yeah. I'm okay."
And I am.
It took a while. Those first couple years were rough. Her parents barely spoke to me at our wedding. Showed up, sat in the front row with tight smiles, left early.
But then Sophia came along.
Everything changed when Sophia came along.
Hard to stay mad at your son-in-law when he's holding your granddaughter and she's laughing at him like he's the funniest person in the world.
Her father still gives me shit sometimes. Still makes comments about the age gap, still "jokes" about running background checks. But there's no heat in it anymore. Just the standard father-in-law ribbing that I've learned to take in stride.
And her mother—
Well. Her mother cried when we told her we were pregnant. Happy tears. Pulled me into a hug and whispered "take care of my girls" like it was a benediction.
I plan to. For the rest of my life, I plan to.
The doorbell rings and Sophia shrieks. "Gamma! Gampa!"
She takes off running toward the door and Claire laughs, chasing after her.
I wipe my hands on a towel and follow. Claire opens the door and her parents are standing there with armfuls of presents. Too many presents. They always bring too many presents.
"There's my girl!" Claire's mother drops to her knees as Sophia barrels into her. "Happy birthday, sweet pea!"
Sophia is already tearing into the first package while her grandfather sets the rest down and turns to me.
"Nash." He extends his hand.
I shake it. "Richard. Patricia. Good to see you."
"You too." Richard looks past me into the house. "Place looks good. Bigger than the last one."
"We needed the space." I gesture at Sophia, who's now surrounded by a mountain of tissue paper. "Kid's got more toys than sense."
"She's two. That's the job." He claps me on the shoulder. "You look good, son. Settled."
Son. He's called me that a few times over the past year. Always catches me off guard. He’s only a few years older.
"Feel settled," I say honestly.
Claire's mother stands, leaving Sophia to her presents, and gives me a hug. "How are you, Nash?"
"Good. Really good."
"Still having the—" She makes a vague gesture.
The nightmares. She means the nightmares.
"Sometimes," I admit. "Not as often."
"That's good." She squeezes my arm. "And you're taking care of yourself? Taking care of them?"
"Always."
"Good. That's all I needed to hear."
She moves past me to help Claire with the decorations and Richard follows, already pulling Sophia into his lap to help her open the next present.
I stand in the doorway of my house, our house, the one we bought two years ago when Claire got pregnant, the one with the extra bedrooms and the big backyard and the porch where we sit in the evenings while Sophia plays, and I watch my family.
My wife laughing as she hangs crooked streamers. My daughter squealing over a new doll. My in-laws who went from hating me to accepting me to actually caring about me.
The nightmares still come. Some nights I wake up at three a.m. thinking I'm back in a burning building. Some nights I have to get up and walk it off, stand on the porch until I can breathe again.
But now there's Claire.
She never pushes. Never demands I talk when I can't. Just lets me have my space until I'm ready to come back to bed, and when I do, she's there.
Reminding me that I made it out. That I survived. That I get to have this.
"Dada!" Sophia calls. "Come see!"
I cross the room and sit on the floor next to her. She climbs into my lap immediately, shoving a new stuffed animal in my face.
"Dragon," she announces.
"I see that. Very fierce."
"Like Dada."
Claire laughs from across the room. "Daddy's not fierce, baby. He's a big softie."
"Am not," I protest.
"Are too. I've seen you cry at insurance commercials."
"That was one time."
"It was three times."
"They were very emotional commercials."
Sophia pats my cheek with her small hand. "It otay, Dada. I cry too."
Everyone laughs and I pull her closer, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. Yeah. This is worth everything. Every scar, every nightmare, every moment of doubt that I'd never get to have something good.
This is worth it all.
The party is small. Casey shows up with his wife and daughter. A few neighbors. Tom from the community center with his kids. Claire's best friend from her remote work team who drove up from the city.
We eat cake, the disaster cake that Sophia declares is "the best cake ever, Dada", and sing happy birthday and watch Sophia blow out her candles with way too much help.
As the sun starts to set, people drift away. Claire's parents are the last to leave.
"Thank you for coming," Claire says, hugging them both at the door.
"Wouldn't miss it for the world," her mother says. She turns to me. "And Nash? The cake was perfect."
"It was lopsided."
"It was made with love. That's all that matters."
After they leave, Claire and I tackle the cleanup while Sophia crashes hard on the couch, clutching her new dragon, frosting smeared on her face.
"Good party?" Claire asks, loading the dishwasher.
"Great party."
"Sophia had fun."
"She did."
"You did too."
I look over at her. "How do you know?"
"Because you smiled more today than you have all month." She comes over and wraps her arms around my waist. "You were happy."
"I'm always happy with you."
"Liar. You're grumpy with me at least forty percent of the time."
"Thirty percent."
"We'll split the difference. Thirty-five."
I kiss her, tasting vanilla frosting and home. "I love you."
"I love you too." She rests her forehead against mine. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For being here. For being you. For giving me this life."
"Pretty sure you gave me this life."
"We gave it to each other."
Yeah. We did.
Later, after Sophia's in bed and Claire's curled up next to me on the couch, I think about how different my life is now.
Four years ago, I was alone in the house next door. Watching Claire from a distance. Convinced I'd never be anything more than her silent guardian.
Now I'm her husband. Her daughter's father. Part of a family that I never thought I deserved.
"What are you thinking about?" Claire murmurs sleepily.
"That day you asked me to be your fake boyfriend."
She laughs softly. "Best terrible idea I ever had."
"Agreed."
"You know what's funny?"
"What?"
"I was so convinced you'd never actually want me. That you were just being nice."
"I wanted you from day one."
"I know that now. But then? I thought I was way out of my league."
"You were. Still are."
She pinches my side. "Shut up."
"Make me."
She does. With a kiss that turns into more, until we're stumbling up the stairs to our bedroom, trying to be quiet so we don't wake Sophia.
We don't always succeed at the quiet part. But we're good at the other parts. The love. The life. The family. All the things I thought were impossible.
All the things that started with a desperate lie on my front lawn and turned into the truest thing I've ever known.
As I fall asleep with Claire in my arms, I think about that scared firefighter who moved back to Blackwater Falls looking for peace.
I found so much more.
I found her. I found us. I found home.
And I'm never letting it go.
Thank you for reading it!