Epilogue
The Shore
I leaned my phone against a candle on my kitchen island, watching Stella’s face fill the screen. She was sitting at her kitchen table in Atlanta, still in her work clothes, glasses pushed up on her nose, giving me her full attention.
“I got a notice from my landlord today,” I said, getting right to it. “Wants to know if I’m renewing my lease.”
Whitley appeared in the frame from somewhere off screen, wedging herself between Stella and the camera the way she did anytime she felt like she was being left out of something. “And?”
“And I don’t know,” I said.
Whitley gave me a look that was way too grown for her age. “Nique, I check your location. You are at Dex's house ninety percent of the time. The other ten percent you’re at the warehouse shipping orders. Nobody is actually living in that apartment. Just because you decorated doesn’t make it home.”
Stella pressed her lips together trying not to smile. “She’s not wrong.”
“Y’all are too much alike,” I said, pointing at them through the screen.
“You just know we’re right,” Stella said. “From what I’ve seen on these FaceTime calls for the last six months you are paying very good money for a very expensive workspace. Just move in with the man.”
“I have a process,” I said.
“Your process is costing you two thousand dollars a month,” Whitley said. “That’s a car note. Two car notes actually. Move in with your man and let that apartment go.”
“You sound like you’re forty,” I told her.
"I sound like somebody with sense," she said, not even looking up from her phone. "Which is more than I can say for you right now."
Stella laughed, a real one, the kind that still surprised me sometimes because I had spent so many years not knowing what her laugh sounded like.
Six months ago, I wouldn’t have believed we would be here.
Face Timing on a Tuesday evening like it was the most natural thing in the world.
But therapy had a way of doing that. So did time.
After Tulum Stella had gone home and done what she promised.
She sat Whitley and Deuce down and told them the truth about her past, about the rape and the circumstances of mine and Nel’s birth.
They had been devastated. Whitley had called me crying so hard I could barely understand her.
Deuce had gone quiet in that way teenage boys go quiet when something breaks their understanding of the world.
But by the time Oak Bluffs came around that summer it was the first time all of us were together after everything had come out and something about being somewhere new and beautiful gave us all permission to just breathe.
To stop processing and start healing. By the time we left Martha’s Vineyard we weren’t performing family anymore. We were actually becoming one.
“Aight,” I said finally, looking around at the apartment that Whitley was absolutely right about. “Y’all win. I’ll talk to the landlord when I get back.”
Whitley pumped her fist. “Finally. Now go finish packing. You have a flight to catch.”
“Don’t forget to check in when you land,” Stella said. “You know I worry.”
“I will,” I said.
“And Nique,” Stella added, her voice softening. “Happy birthday, baby.”
Tomorrow was my birthday and hearing it from the woman who gave me life landed differently than I expected. Different than any happy birthday I had ever received before.
“Thank you mama,” I said quietly.
Whitley was already waving at the camera. “Happy birthday sis! Okay bye love you post pictures!”
The screen went dark and I stood there for a second in the quiet of the apartment, my eyes landing on the framed photo on the mantle.
All of us in Oak Bluffs last summer wearing shades of white on the lawn of the Vineyard house.
Stella and Wendell in the back. Whitley with her arm thrown around Nel’s shoulder.
Deuce trying to look serious and failing.
Me and Dex on the end, his arm around my waist, both of us squinting into the sun like we couldn’t believe we had ended up somewhere this good.
I grabbed my suitcase and headed to Dex’s.
He was still at work, so I let myself in with the key he had given me months ago after the fourth time I showed up and had to wait on the porch.
I spent an hour packing his suitcase because he would absolutely forget something essential if left to his own devices, then started on a light dinner, moving around his kitchen like it was mine.
Because if I was being honest with myself, it basically was.
My phone buzzed on the counter. Nel.
“Hey twin,” I said, answering on speaker and turning the heat down on the stove.
“Hey.” His voice was heavy before he even said anything else. I knew that tone. I had known that tone my whole life. “The agency called. The new surrogate candidate isn’t a match. Again.”
I closed my eyes for a second. “Nel.”
“I know,” he said. “I know. It’s just.” He exhaled slow. “This was supposed to be the one. The agency felt good about her. Harvey felt good about her. I let myself get excited and I told myself I wasn’t going to do that again after the last time and I did it anyway.”
The last time had nearly broken him. Their first surrogate had miscarried at ten weeks, and the grief had leveled Nel in a way I hadn’t seen since Grandma Anne died.
The girl had opted not to try again after that and Nel had spent two months barely leaving his home before therapy and time and the people around him slowly pulled him back.
“The right person is out there,” I said. “I really believe that.”
“I know she is,” he said. “I just wish she’d hurry up.” He paused. “It’s weird not being with you for our birthday. Thirty years and this will be our first birthday apart.”
“I know,” I said softly. “I hate it too.”
“No, you don’t,” he said, and I could hear the smile coming through even under the heaviness. “You’re about to be in the Caribbean with your man. You don’t hate nothing right now.”
I laughed. “Go be with Harvey. I’ll call you when we land.”
“You better,” he said. “Happy birthday twin.”
“Happy birthday Nel.”
I hung up and stood there for a minute in the quiet of Dex’s kitchen, holding the bittersweet feeling of missing my brother on our birthday while also knowing that both of us were exactly where we were supposed to be. That was a new feeling. I was still getting used to it.
The front door opened and Dex walked in looking exhausted and handsome in the way he always did after a long day on a job site, still in his work clothes, carrying his hard hat under his arm.
He walked straight to me without saying a word and wrapped both arms around me from behind, pressing his face into the side of my neck.
“Long day?” I asked.
“Long week,” he said against my skin. “Something smells good.”
“Dinner’s almost ready,” I said. “And I have good news. I checked my portal this morning. I passed all my finals.”
Dex pulled back and looked at me, a massive grin breaking across his face. “That’s my girl. Future business administration mogul with a chemistry minor. I knew you’d kill it.”
“Don’t make it weird,” I said, but I was smiling.
We ate at the kitchen island, talking about nothing and everything, the kind of easy conversation that had taken a year to build and now felt like breathing.
After dinner he pulled me upstairs and we celebrated our last night before the trip the way we always did.
Loud enough that I was glad his nearest neighbor was a quarter mile away.
The baecation vibes hit us the second we stepped off the plane in Curacao.
Nique had her sunglasses on before we even cleared the gate and was already taking in everything around her with that quiet alert energy she got in new places.
The water here was a shade of blue that didn’t look real, turquoise so clear you could see straight to the bottom.
The buildings in Willemstad were painted in these bold yellows and reds and oranges that lined the waterfront like something out of a postcard.
The air was warm and salt heavy but lighter somehow than Mobile air, like it wasn’t carrying anything.
She had been through a lot this year. School, the business growing faster than either of us had anticipated, figuring out her family, figuring out us.
Watching her finally exhale as we checked into the resort and stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the water made every bit of the planning worth it.
But the real plan was for tonight.
We spent the day doing exactly nothing of consequence.
We found a spot on the beach and stayed there longer than we planned.
Nique had on this color block one piece, yellow and hot pink with turquoise straps and little silver rings at the sides, cut high on the hip.
I had been taking her to the gym with me for the past six months and her body was showing every bit of that work.
She knew exactly what she was doing when she packed that swimsuit.
She ordered drinks she didn’t finish and took pictures of the water every twenty minutes like it was going to look different from the last time she checked.
Nique wanted to walk along the waterfront after and I wanted to go back to the room and she acted like I had suggested something criminal.
We ended up walking. When we finally got back to the resort she took over the bathroom for an hour and a half getting ready for dinner, which I had learned by now was just part of the deal.
I was dressed and ready in twenty minutes and sat on the edge of the bed scrolling my phone until she walked out and made me forget what I was looking at.