Epilogue
The thing about therapy is that nobody warns you how often healing looks less like an emotional breakthrough and more like being able to say, “I'm not responsible for every terrible thing that's ever happened to me,” without immediately wanting to vomit.
Progress, according to Dr. Selby.
Personally, I think progress should come with a trophy. Or at the very least, a cinnamon bun.
Still, when I stand in front of the bedroom mirror on Halloween, one year and a bit after some of the worst months of my life, and look at the woman staring back at me, I don’t flinch.
That part feels new. And good.
The dress, however, is ridiculous.
Black, tight, and short enough that if I bend over too far, I’m going to give the trick-or-treaters of Maplewood more than they bargained for.
There’s a white panel down the front that makes it technically penguin-adjacent, and a pair of black feathered cuffs at my wrists which Elle insisted were “important for flapping.” On my head is a little orange beak attached to a black headband, which looks deeply unserious with my curled blonde hair and winged eyeliner.
And on my feet are the silver heels.
I turn slightly, watching the light catch on the shoes, and something inside me settles instead of splintering.
Once, I thought luck was something I’d borrowed. A bright little spell with an expiry time, waiting for the clock to strike and prove I’d never deserved it in the first place.
Now, my clothes are strewn all around the room next to Evan’s most mornings.
My mug lives next to his in the cabinet.
My name is on Elle’s school paperwork under emergency contact, and there’s a smooth pebble on Evan’s nightstand beside a framed drawing of our family where everyone’s arms are too long and Gus colored like a cow.
The fear still comes sometimes. It has old roads through me. But I know the route now, and I know how to find my way back.
Therapy helped with that. So did lake breaths, and time, and Evan’s habit of saying, “Talk to me,” which was new for him, as well.
Elle’s voice carries down the hallway. “Penny! Daddy’s too big for the hallway!”
I close my eyes.
Some sentences change your life forever.
When I step out of the bedroom, I find Evan wedged sideways between the hall table and the linen closet in a giant inflatable penguin costume.
The costume is taller than he is, rounder than anything has a right to be, and powered by a tiny fan that makes a continuous whirring sound from somewhere near his left hip.
His face is visible through a little opening beneath the penguin’s orange beak, and it's currently set in the flat, long-suffering expression of a man who has survived structure fires and medical emergencies, yet has been bullied into becoming a flightless bird.
Elle stands in front of him dressed as a large white egg with little orange tights, her hands planted on her hips.
“Daddy,” she instructs seriously, “you have to turn with your feet.”
“I am turning with my feet.”
“Turn them more.”
“That’s medically impossible.”
“You’re stuck.”
“I’m aware, bug.”
Gus waddles in from the living room dressed as a fish.
The costume is blue, shiny, and has tiny fins sticking out from the sides. Every few steps, he stops to glare at his own body as if the fish costume will magically transform him out of this cursed Halloween hell.
“Oh, baby.” I press a hand to my chest with glee “You’re perfect.”
Evan’s eyes lift to mine as he manoeuvres a turn, and the second he sees me, the irritation disappears from his face so fast it almost makes me laugh.
His gaze moves slowly down my body, catching on the tight dress, the bare thighs, the silver heels. By the time his eyes return to my face, there is nothing fatherly or penguin-like about the way he’s looking at me.
Unfortunately, the costume chooses that exact moment to make a louder whirring noise.
I bite my lip.
Evan narrows his eyes. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re about to.”
“I would never mock the father of my egg.”
His mouth twitches despite himself. “This costume was a mistake.”
“This costume is the backbone of our family now.”
Elle nods hard enough that the top of her egg wobbles. “Daddy penguins keep the egg warm.”
“They do,” I agree solemnly.
Evan stares at both of us. “I look like a weather balloon.”
A laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it. Elle giggles brightly too, and the sound hits that soft place inside me that still remembers what it felt like when her laughter disappeared for a while.
It’s back now. Not every minute of every day, because grief and fear don’t pack up neatly just because the calendar turns over. But she’s six, and full of questions and opinions and startlingly passionate views on Halloween costume accuracy, and she laughs like the world has magic in it again.
Evan catches me watching her and his expression gentles, the way it always does when he senses a thought brushing too close to old hurt. But Elle is already tugging at one of his inflatable flippers, trying to direct him toward the front door and down the porch stairs.
“Careful,” I warn. “If he goes down sideways, we’ll have to roll him.”
“So helpful, Lucky Penny.”
“Always.”
He finally shuffles free of his daughter with all the dignity a man can have while dressed as an enormous penguin, then pauses in front of me. The costume prevents him from getting properly close, so he lowers his head instead, waiting.
I smile at him. “You need something?”
“My kiss.”
“Your kiss?”
“Don’t make me ask twice while I’m dressed like this.”
My heart squeezes ridiculously tight. I rise onto my toes, which is far easier in the heels, and press my mouth to his through the awkward gap in the costume. It should be funny. It is funny.
But his lips are warm and familiar, making my stomach dip.
“You look unbelievable,” he murmurs against my mouth.
“Define unbelievable,” I whisper.
His eyes flick down again. “Dangerous.”
“Excellent, that was the goal.”
“You guys.” Elle groans. “Too much kissing.”
“You told us penguins mate for life,” I remind her.
“They don’t have lips to kiss, though!”
Evan huffs a laugh, and even muffled by the costume, it vibrates through me.
We eventually make it outside, though it takes several minutes, one minor argument with the front door, and Evan muttering something about fire code violations while trying not to knock the porch light off with his inflatable head.
Neverland glows at the end of the street once we turn onto Main Road. Orange fairy lights have been strung around the windows, and paper bats flap unevenly in the breeze. Music spills out every time the door opens, along with laughter and the smell of fried food.
Maplewood has taken Halloween very seriously, which is to say half the town is wearing elaborate costumes and the other half is pretending they didn’t secretly enjoy being forced into them.
“Egg in the middle,” she announces, grabbing my hand with one of hers and Evan’s flipper with the other.
“Best place for it,” Evan says.
I glance over at him, at the stupid penguin costume and the man inside it, and I think about the first time Elle called me her family. How it cracked me open because I wanted it so badly and didn’t trust myself to keep it. Now she tugs me forward like I’ve always belonged with them.
Inside Neverland, chaos immediately finds us.
Fletch is dressed as a vampire in a cape so dramatic it keeps catching on barstools. Frankie is beside him in a red riding hood costume, which makes absolutely no sense with his vampire thing, but neither of them seem bothered by the lack of thematic cohesion.
Tucker is wearing a police uniform with a fake mustache, which Gwen has already declared “lazy and offensive.” Gwen herself is behind the bar in a black dress, pointed hat, and dark lipstick, somehow looking less like she dressed as a witch and more like witches everywhere dress as her.
Finn Garner is sitting at the end of the bar in a pirate costume.
Or, more accurately, Finn Garner is sitting too close to Gwen’s end of the bar in an open black shirt, dark pants, and an eyepatch pushed up into his hair because Gwen apparently told him he looked like an idiot with it down.
He’s smiling at her. She's pretending not to enjoy it.
The second Fletch sees us, his mouth falls open.
“Prince.”
“No,” Evan says immediately.
Fletch presses a hand to his chest. “I need you to know I mean this with my whole heart. You look majestic.”
“I will deflate myself and beat you with the fan pack.”
Tucker leans around Fletch, grinning. “Can penguins file assault charges?”
“They can try,” Gwen says, sliding drinks down the bar. “But I don't think they can drink beer.”
Evan points one inflatable flipper at her. “I’m grieving my dignity.”
“You lost that the second you agreed to family costumes.”
“I was outvoted!”
Elle is too busy showing Remi her egg costume to care that her father is being publicly humiliated.
Remi stands near the bar with Zela on her hip and Max leaning against her leg in a skeleton costume. She’s dressed as a witch too, but softer than Gwen, with a crooked hat and sparkly moons on her cheeks that were clearly applied by small, enthusiastic hands.
She looks better than she did a year ago. Not healed, because that word feels too tidy for grief. But she’s here. Present and wrapped up in all of us, always.
Her smile still has shadows under it sometimes, and every now and then her gaze moves toward the framed photo above the bar. But when Elle spins to show off the full circumference of her egg costume, Remi laughs—small, but whole.
“I wish Beck was here,” Fletch sighs. “I need him to tell Prince this violates at least six safety codes.”
Evan’s eyes narrow through the penguin face hole. “You’re enjoying this too much.”
“Correct.”
Ghost appears beside Remi, holding a bowl of candy corn for Zela to pick through. He’s wearing a white sheet covered in crooked pumpkin stickers, which means the kids got to him at some point. “Beck’s at the station.”
“Of course he is,” Evan mutters.