Epilogue
Epilogue – Cole
It’s been two years since I met Cam and life couldn’t be better. As I look back, I can’t help smiling at how much things have changed, at how much she changed us. It’s crazy to think that for two years after Sarah left, I saw myself struggle through life, barely holding everything together, but two years with Cam have flown by with her teaching me that I don’t have to do it all alone. For the first time ever, I have a partner, a real one that isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, or to face the hard shit head on.
After the incident with Holden running away, Matt helped us file an emergency halt to Sarah’s visitations. At the hearing the following week, the judge spoke privately with Holden and Cody, asking them questions about their time with their mother and he seemed genuinely disgusted when he came back to the court room. All visitation privileges for her were revoked and, just to dig the knife a little deeper, he nailed her with a court order for her to pay child support which comes with back child support for the two years she was absent from the boys’ lives.
Holden, who’s always struggled in school, is getting all A’s and B’s with Cam’s help and Cody is in first grade this year, but is ahead of every damn kid in his class…more proof of Cam’s hard work. Joey will be five in a few months and that kid is smart as hell. He can write, knows his alphabet, can count and do basic addition and subtraction…and he can read! Our boys are thriving and I owe it all to the most amazing woman…my woman.
As for me and Cam, we’re great…better than great actually. She moved in with me and the boys only a month after we reconciled, but she was already spending every damn night with us anyway. I proposed a few months back, nothing fancy, just a ring and a dinner that I cooked for us while the boys stayed the night with Mary. She said yes…well…she said ‘Holy shit, are you serious? Yes! Yes! Yes!’.
I learned a lot about Cam in the first few months we lived together, things I should’ve taken time to learn in the beginning. I found out she can’t have kids, a result of a medical condition that landed her with a partial hysterectomy at the age of nineteen. Another little detail, something that honestly had me floored, was how much money is sitting in her damn bank account.
We were working on our budget and I kept trying to cut back anything that wasn’t necessary, but she just kept laughing and shaking her head at me. Turns out her divorce from that prick left her with a little over eight hundred thousand plus a third of the shares in his company. Add to that all the money she made from the job she had while she was married and she has a damn big chunk of change just sitting there.
The minute she dumped that little gem on me, she started talking about setting up college funds for the boys and making repairs to the house, acting like having that kind of money is just a normal fucking thing. I guess, for her, it actually is, but for me...it was a hell of a lot to wrap my head around.
We’re not perfect…we argue, we disagree, we have bad days, but we always fix that shit before we go to bed. She’s not just an amazing partner, but she’s an amazing mother to my boys, something I never thought they’d get the chance to have. She sacrifices for them, she supports them, she encourages them and she fucking stays.
Who the hell thought that someone like me, the grumpy asshole next door, would find a woman who not only had the ability to turn my life around, but who' genuinely want to? At the end of the day, I’ve got my kids, I’ve got my woman and, because of them, I’ve got something worth holding onto and I won’t be letting them go. This life, this beautiful, messy, chaotic and unexpected life is more than I deserve, but I couldn't be more grateful that this beautiful disaster is mine.