Epilogue
Asher
Five Years Later
“If we don’t leave now, we’re going to be late,” I call out from the laundry room.
No answer.
Just the sound of giggles.
I’m stepping into the hallway when my wife shouts, “Oh my god. Ash, can you take a picture? Quick.”
I race into the living room and am met with the cutest scene. Our ten-month-old son, Eli, dressed in a purple tutu. The same one his big sister wore on her fifth birthday.
Bea holds both of her brother’s hands as his chubby bare feet smack against the wood floors.
He took his first steps last weekend—in Southern California, much to Claire’s dismay.
We all flew out to San Diego to celebrate Kane’s college graduation.
It was Eli’s first plane ride, and let’s just say we will not be flying again anytime soon.
I think Claire and I are traumatized for life.
Scratch that. Every person on that plane is traumatized.
He screamed for seventy-five percent of the trip, and no amount of nursing calmed him down.
If Claire and I ever have another kid, we’re naming him or her after the saint of a flight attendant who finally offered to walk up and down the aisles with Eli.
We shared a vacation rental on the beach with Millie, Ezra, and their three-year-old daughter, Talia, as well as Cam and Joey, who I doubt will ever have kids. The one day it rained and we were all stuck inside, Bea took it upon herself to teach Eli how to walk.
I’ll never forget Claire’s face as she whipped around the corner and yelled, “Knock him down! He’s too little.”
Mama was not prepared for this milestone to happen so quickly. I don’t blame her. While he only took two or three steps before falling on his bottom while we were there, he’s up to four or five steps at a time now. He’ll be chasing after Bea in the blink of an eye.
“Where’s your shirt, little man?” I pick him up and toss him into the air, then blow raspberries on his bare belly.
I could listen to his laughter all day.
When I set him back on the floor, Bea is right there to scoop him up. She has been smitten with her little brother since the day he was born.
After Claire moved in with us permanently, everything clicked into place.
There were no major bumps in the road. I continued doing our laundry and bringing Claire coffee in bed, and she took over bathroom duty.
We share kitchen responsibilities, and it works for us.
My only complaint is that she never makes the bed, and her only complaint is I never put the toothpaste back where it belongs. But I think we can live with that.
We were basically a family already, except that Claire didn’t have any parental rights to Bea.
The decision we came to regarding the situation wasn’t made in haste, that’s for sure.
I spent many hours talking to Daisy at her memorial cove, and ultimately, I felt in my heart and soul that I wanted to marry Claire and ask her to adopt Bea.
I discussed it with Jack and Natalie first, then my therapist, then Claire, and finally Bea.
Jack and Natalie were emotional, but their support never wavered.
Proposing to Claire and asking her to adopt Bea were two tasks that could not be disentangled, so I popped both questions on the same day.
We were hitched less than a month later in a small synagogue on Long Island with our families and close friends in attendance.
The short notice irked my parents, until I reminded them that their daughter gave them only one day’s notice before she got married at city hall.
Ray, Benji, and Zion proudly shared the title of best men, while Millie, Joey, and Bea stood alongside Claire.
Even though the ceremony was on the shorter side, Bea had to go to the bathroom about halfway through, claiming she absolutely could not wait.
Our family and friends roared with laughter as Claire carried her up the aisle as fast as her high heels would take her so Bea wouldn’t have an accident.
Then the two of them returned with the biggest smiles on their faces and I got to watch both my girls walk down the aisle for a second time that day.
The adoption was finalized just before Bea’s seventh birthday. Since Claire and I were married and she had already been living with us for several months, the process was fairly simple and smooth. We celebrated with chocolate milkshakes, go-cart rides, and finally letting Bea get her ears pierced.
It was the perfect day.
Claire had major baby fever when our niece, Talia, was born, and I’ll admit, I did too. It took several months and too many negative pregnancy tests for us to realize that we might need help. We sought out a doctor, only to get a positive test the morning of the appointment.
The hardest part was keeping it a secret from Bea. The day, probably down to the second, that Claire was out of her first trimester, we surprised her with a “Big Sister” shirt. My ears are still ringing from the scream she let out.
Now, when I see my children together, I’m reminded that life is unpredictable and precious.
“Come on, Eli.” Bea stands two feet in front of him, her arms out. “Walk to Dolly.”
Eli reaches for her, and in four steps, he’s falling into her arms, laughing like it’s the funniest thing in the world.
“Good job!” she praises. “Now walk to Mama.”
“Mama,” he babbles, craning his neck in search of Claire.
This time he takes six unassisted steps, the most he’s done so far, before his mother catches him. She smothers him with kisses and he cackles and drools in her arms.
I snap a few pictures as requested, then tuck my phone into my pocket. “All right, fam. If we don’t leave now, we’ll be late.”
We’re meeting family at our favorite brunch spot, a place where we make our own pancakes right at the table.
Later this afternoon, a few of Bea’s friends will come over for a slumber party.
Eli and I will spend the night next door while Claire, her mom, and Natalie wrangle the adolescents.
Little does my wife know that I’ve booked a massage for her tomorrow—my way of thanking her for taking one for the team.
“Actually,” Claire says, “We’re not meeting them for another hour.”
“Oh? Did I mix up the time? I thought you said to be ready by nine.”
“I did. But that’s so we could take a little boat ride first.”
Confusion rolls through me. “Boat ride?”
“Just trust me.” She grins and passes the baby to me.
We replace the tutu with an infant-size life jacket, and I hold Eli on my lap while Claire helps Bea drive the boat, an activity they’ve been doing together a lot lately.
When we dock at Daisy’s cove, I’m surprised.
I haven’t been out here in a while, and the area looks different.
More lively and brilliant, despite how cloudy it is.
But there’s something else too. As we approach the bench, I discover that it’s been recently refinished.
And that’s not the only thing that’s been updated.
Beneath our feet are the same rocks that have been here for years, only they’ve been freshly repainted.
I take a seat on the bench and pick one up.
Eli immediately reaches for it and clamps his mouth around it, and when I pull it away, he fusses. Bea, the best big sister in the world, plucks him from my arms and walks over to the shore.
The rock in my hand is covered in freshly painted daisies, the work clearly my wife’s. I’m well-acquainted with her artwork because it’s inked on my body in numerous places now.
“When… Where… How?” I stutter, at a loss for words.
Claire sits next to me and retrieves another rock, this one painted with even more daisies, plus a bumblebee.
“At Jack and Natalie’s. It was a form of art therapy, actually.
When I was at my lowest after Eli was born, and Natalie was helping a lot, I’d go over there while you were at work and Bea was at school, and just…
paint. I was resistant in the beginning.
It was hard to get dressed or do anything beyond nursing the baby.
But Natalie encouraged me to sit outside and paint.
At first it was just stupid scribbles on paper, then I moved on to watercolors.
Eventually, I thought about these rocks.
As I painted, brightening them up, my color and vibrancy returned too. Bit by bit. Rock by rock.”
I don’t even realize tears have been streaming down my face until my wife gently wipes them away. She tugs me in tight and rubs my back.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “This is… It’s so beautiful. I love you so much.”
For five years, I grieved Daisy’s death alone.
But since Claire came into our lives, I’ve always had company, no matter how low I get.
There are times when I like to have a moment of privacy, but I no longer drink and cry myself to sleep on the anniversary of Daisy’s death.
We honor her life by celebrating Bea. It’s become tradition to end her birthday by sitting around the campfire while Claire records the stories Jack, Natalie, and I share so that Bea can keep them forever.
No one holds back their tears. Or their smiles.
My wife kisses my jaw. “I love you,” she says, then relieves Bea of her big sister duties.
When my newly ten-year-old drops down beside me, I wrap an arm around her, and by some miracle, she doesn’t shrug me off. Public displays of affection from her are scarce these days, so I take what I can get.
She bends over to pick up a rock. “Oh! I made this one,” she says, swinging her feet back and forth.
“You did? Let me see.”
The image is of two women holding hands, a cloud above one and grass beneath the other.
“It’s Mom and Claire,” she says.
A knot forms in my throat as I force back tears. “I love it.”
“I think she sent Claire to be with us.”
I’m quiet for a beat, watching my wife crawl in the sand with our baby.
The sun breaks free from a cloud and shines down on her, and at that moment, I’m struck in the solar plexus with a sensation so intense that no words exist to describe it.
My body breaks out in a chill, despite the warmth in the air.
Facing my daughter, I say, “I know she did.”
I wave Claire over, and together, as a family of four—plus one in heaven—we sort through the rocks. Bea is adorable, all too eager to point out which ones she painted. Come to find out, our family and many local friends painted some too. There’s even one with Eli’s footprint on it.
It’s much too sunny to stay out here without lathering the baby in sunscreen, plus we have a brunch reservation, so we head home.
On the back porch, Bea lends a hand as Claire rinses the sand from Eli’s toes and thigh creases.
She’s an incredible helper, even adding a beauty salon session to Eli’s bath time routine each night, as if he’s her personal baby doll.
Our little guy’s hair is curly, apparently like his Uncle Cam’s was when he was a child.
If it stays that way, I doubt my wife will ever want to cut it.
I secretly pocketed the rock Bea painted, the one of Daisy and Claire, so I could display it on the mantel.
Beside it is the picture of Daisy, Bea, and me.
The one I used to keep tucked away in a box.
When I came back from the office one day, it was framed and standing proudly on the middle of the mantel.
Claire had discovered it in the closet when she officially moved in.
That small act of kindness, of selflessness, made me fall even more madly in love with her. Cozied up next to that picture is one of Claire, Bea, Eli, and me on the day he was born. The Kintsugi vase is there too, safely out of reach of chubby little grabby hands.
Though if one day it falls and breaks, I know we’ll be okay.