Epilogue
Izzy
Five Years Later
There’s something about the sound of a stadium filled with voices singing along to the love of your life’s songs that never gets old. It rattles your bones in the best way—a reminder you’re alive, even when you’re covered in spit-up.
In the five years since we started dating, I’ve been to almost all of Jaxon’s concerts.
Our life was crazy at first, balancing demanding careers with dating and exploring our lives together once it was clear our relationship was anything but fake.
I still laugh at how na?ve I was when I made that deal—as if Jaxon and I could ever be in each other’s orbit without becoming the center of the universe.
It’d been that way when we were best friends growing up, and it certainly was that way now that we’ve been married for three years.
I balance our sleeping daughter on my chest, making sure my gentle swaying doesn’t knock off her baby headphones as I dance to Jaxon’s newest release—a ballad from his most recent album about love and home and family.
A song that, if you listen close, sounds an awful lot like a promise to his young daughter.
I press a kiss into her soft curls, damp from the humid Tokyo night.
“I don’t know how she sleeps through this,” Kelsey says beside me, smiling as she adjusts the earpiece in her right ear.
I grin, eyes still fixed on Jaxon, standing center stage, lit up like something out of a dream. “Because she’s got Steele in her veins,” I say, chuckling at my own pun.
At the look on Kelsey’s face, I laugh harder.
“Don’t tell Carter that one,” Kelsey mutters, glancing over her shoulder to where her husband stands a few feet behind us, scanning the crowd from his position near the stage.
To our left, my mom laughs as she reaches to steady a wobbly toddler clambering up her leg. “I think their Harper genes might be just as resilient as the Reid genes.”
“You did have a five-hour standoff with Maya about brushing her teeth last week,” I say, reaching down to pull the tiny ponytail sticking straight up from the top of the little girl in question’s head.
“Hey,” Bryn interjects, shifting her baby to the other arm, “that’s on Mom. I never have problems getting Maya to brush her teeth. My kid is well-behaved.”
“She literally bit Jameson’s big toe this morning,” Kelsey says, a smug look on her face doing nothing to hide the fact that she’s glad she decided not to go the motherhood route.
“Because he said, and I quote, ‘Why does my toe look like a sausage?’”
My dad raises his beer in a salute. “That one’s on you, Jameo.”
Jameson just shrugs, grinning as he leans down to tickle his child—the one who is putting a valiant effort into staying awake until the end of the concert.
JT and Lila join us backstage just in time for the last chorus, hands clasped.
“I can’t believe you almost made us miss this,” Lila whispers.
JT kisses the top of her head. “I merely suggested it might make sense for me to not miss this weekend’s tournament after I won the last two. But heaven forbid I get between you and your crush on Jaxon Steele.”
“He never gets less dreamy,” Lila says, taunting her husband.
Mom glances at me. “That’s because he’s singing about Izzy and Gwen.”
Onstage, Jaxon finishes the song with his eyes on us—on me and our daughter—his voice quieting as the last words echo on the air.
My heart flutters as he taps his heart, his private sign just for me that he’s done since the first concert I attended as his girlfriend. Now he taps it once more for our child tucked tight against my heart.
***
That night, long after the stage lights faded and the last encore passed, we trade cheers for baby snores and slip into something far more familiar: sisterhood and wine.
Lila, Kelsey, Bryn, Mom, and I are perched on the balcony overlooking the Tokyo Imperial Palace, nursing glasses of wine and our sore feet.
The men are inside, arguing about our tourist agenda for the next day.
I don’t know why they even bother. Kelsey is going to tell us what to do, and we’re all going to do that.
Even Maya, Gus, and Gwen will fall into line, getting their little toddler and baby attitudes in line rather than risk a glare from Aunt Kelsey.
“I think we should leave the kids at home next time,” Bryn suggests, a weary smile on her face.
“Jameson’s parents offered to watch them, but I incorrectly thought we’d be fine since we fly to Jameson’s tournaments all the time.
I did not account for the amount of time this flight took or the damage the time change would do to their sleep schedules. ”
I shrug. “They’ll get it figured out.”
I’m not sure I’ve gotten this new version of me figured out yet—the one who is a mom, and a wife, and somehow still me. There are days when I feel like I’ve lost part of myself, and days when I realize how much I’ve grown. Maybe the truth is, I’m still figuring out how to be both.
Mom smiles. “We all figure it out. In our own ways.”
Kelsey nods, refilling her glass of wine. “There’s a kind of power in opening yourself up to be who you really are. All parts of you.”
“And to think I used to believe I had to pick—career or love,” Bryn says. “But look at me now. My life with Jameson is so much fuller than it ever was when I was just focused on my career—and I’m far more successful than I ever would’ve been if I hadn’t taken a chance on him.”
Lila laughs. “I think I might still be figuring it out. I thought all I wanted was a husband and a family, but…well, it looks like we might need a little help to make that dream come true. And I’m starting to be okay with that.”
“Oh, Lila,” my mom says. “I’m so sorry to hear that. It’s such a hard thing, especially when it’s something you’ve longed for. I’m—we’re—here for you if you ever need someone.”
Lila sniffles and wipes her eyes, and Bryn reaches out and gently squeezes her sister-in-law’s hand.
My chest tightens. I remember what it felt like to want something so badly it scared me—to wonder if life would ever line up the way I hoped.
I don’t say anything, just squeeze her hand across the little patio table.
We all go quiet for a while. Some grief doesn’t need words. It just needs someone to sit in it with you.
We fall into a soft, easy silence, and I remember how loud my thoughts used to be.
How certain I was that I’d never be enough.
Knowing the women seated around me, the ones I love unconditionally, struggled with their own battles about balancing careers and relationships, makes me realize how normal it is.
The challenge between belonging and becoming.
Looking at the large park surrounding the Imperial Palace—the calm in the midst of one of the world’s busiest cities—I realize that’s what Wild Bluffs has always been to me. A place where I can find peace. Where I can be myself.
“I’m so glad,” I say after a long moment, “that we have such deep roots. Not just the land, or the house, or the family dinners. But knowing you can go out into the world and come back. That the door’s still open. That the people you love are still here.”
Emotion swells in my chest.
“It’s why I told Jaxon we need to spend more time in Wild Bluffs now that Gwen is born. Slow down—not stop. Just make sure Gwenie has some roots of her own when she’s ready to come back home.”
“Wild Bluffs will always be home,” Kelsey says.
“And we’ll always be a little bit wild,” Bryn adds with a wink.
We clink glasses.
As we sit there, each of us lost to our own thoughts, Jaxon’s voice floats out from where he’s singing Gwen back to sleep: “Chase your wild, little thing, and then come back home.”
And in this moment, with my family beside me, I know—we all did.