Epilogue
Renée
Four Months Later
For the first time in more than ten years, I stand on the porch of my childhood home, with Jonah and the girls behind me.
“I’m ready if you are,” Amber says, taking my hand in hers in gentle reassurance.
“It’s time.”
“You got this,” Jonah whispers.
We1 decided it was time we make amends with our mother.
Amber has been holding onto her pain, even though she knew it was right to ask for forgiveness—part of her drug rehab and all.
I had to make the leap too, not only for me, but for Amber and my daughters.
I’ve faced so many fears since my husband died, all of them hard, but all of them worth it. It was time to face this one.
We called our mom last week and spoke briefly, letting her know we’d like to visit and try to work things out. I wanted to go into detail right then, but doing it face to face felt like the right thing to do.
That’s how I find myself awkwardly ringing the doorbell to the place I once snuck in and out of as a teenager.
Mom’s anxious face appears through the glass door—the corner of her mouth curling into a hesitant smile before the door opens. “Hi.”
I thought I would be stronger, but hot tears spring forth and my voice cracks. “Hi Mom. I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” Amber says.
In an instant, our mom wraps her arms around both of us in a fierce hug—and somehow, without words, she erases the shame I’ve been carrying around for no reason.
The three of us stand there in the cool spring breeze, holding each other in the kind of love that could never be broken, no matter how much pain we may have caused.
I release them, wipe my tears with the back of my hand, and gesture behind us. “Mom, these are your granddaughters, Delta and Loretta, and this is my boyfriend, Jonah Johanssen.”
All three of them wave and say hello at the same time, and I laugh.
“Well, it’s about time,” Mom cheers. “Everyone come inside.”
Her grin is a mile wide as we follow her to the back of the house to the kitchen and living room.
We pass by family photos, and my heart breaks all over again seeing myself and Amber—still proudly displayed amongst my parents’ framed records—like we were never forgotten or disposed of the way I did to them.
The kitchen and living room have been updated, now with muted earthy greens, cream, and hickory, and it’s so much the kind of home I could see myself in.
Mom has snacks and refreshments already laid out, and when the girls dig in, she leans against the counter with her hands propped under her chin, watching them in fascination.
She asks them everything—favorite colors and subjects in school, what kind of music they like, who their friends are and what they’re like.
“Jonah is our friend too,” Loretta smiles. “He lives next door, and he’s a rugby player, and he has a farm.”
Mom beams. “Is that why you like him?”
“A hundred percent,” Jonah teases. “They’re all just using me for my animals.”
She laughs. “And how long have you two been together?”
I take his hand in mine and stare at him affectionately. “Since November.”
“She wanted nothing to do with me for a long time,” he smirks. “But I never gave up.”
I turn back to Mom and sigh. “After Greg, I was so closed off. It was just me and Amber against the world. I’m really sorry for closing you and Dad out. As you probably know, Greg was very controlling, and he made me believe I was just your pawn on stage.”
Mom furrows her brow and frowns.
“I know,” I say. “The truth is, I never felt like that, but he had me so twisted up that...”
She places her hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, honey.”
“It’s not, and I’m sorry. I want to reset everything. I want you to have a relationship with your granddaughters. I want us to visit each other all the time.”
“Me too,” Amber says. “And I promise, I’ll never ask you for money again. I’ve been clean since I moved away.”
Mom’s eyes are round. “You have? Oh, Amber.” She sniffles and throws her arms around her once again. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Me too, Mom.” She releases her. “And I have a steady job and good friends that are nothing like the ones I used to hang out with. No more unsavory characters.”
“Thank God,” she guffaws.
We spend the rest of the afternoon—and well into the evening—catching up on lost time, laughing like it was never lost in the first place.
The girls discover her closet full of stage clothes and take turns parading around the house like they’ve found literal treasure, and Mom plays along, crowning them with the kind of ease I remember from childhood.
And Jonah—because he can’t help being the bright soul that he is—wins her over in a heartbeat.
When she learns of his musical abilities, she glows with quiet joy, as if she’s instantly claimed him as one of her own.
Before long, we’re slipping into their home studio, playing The Band Wilde’s greatest hits—because of course Jonah has learned them all.
Mom hands him every instrument she has to test him, and he indulges her with a smile.
But when he finally sits behind the drum set and lets it rip, she’s rendered speechless.
He takes her classic bluegrass tune and turns it into something new and angsty and wild.
Jonah is an incredible musician, but when he’s on the drums, he’s incandescent and unstoppable.
He could give Travis Barker a run for his money.
Later, when the girls have dozed off on the couch in a tangle of small limbs and borrowed blankets, Mom pulls me into a quiet hug.
It’s brief, a little awkward—two people relearning the shape of each other—but it’s honest. “You found yourself again,” she whispers, and her prideful words hit with the force of all the years we didn’t say the things we needed to say.
She eases back from the hug, arching an eyebrow at Jonah. “And I would keep him if I were you.”
We set our plans for the next visit after school lets out. Outside, the cool night night air wraps around us as Jonah carries a drowsy seven-year-old and reaches for my hand, our fingers lacing together. “How are you feeling?”
I think about my daughters chattering their grandmother’s ears off. About the way Mom looked at Jonah, and the mistakes that brought us here. And somehow, instead of my pained truth—instead of the fear I’ve harbored for my parents—there’s a warm, steady fullness in my chest.
“I don’t know,” I say, laughing a little. “Lucky, maybe? Ridiculously lucky.”
Jonah presses a kiss to my head. “You deserve all of this, Renée. Every good thing.”
Maybe I do.
There’s some saying that life is a series of beginnings and ends. For a long period of my life, I felt like I had no way out—that all life could offer me was bitter and charred.
Nothing feels like that anymore.
I believe good things are on my horizon—and every chance I get for a new beginning, is a chance worth taking.
1. Landslide by The Chicks