Epilogue – 6 Months Later
Liam
Coming inside, I step over Clover, our safety hazard, who is snoozing on the mat by the back door.
No dog bed has ever tempted her. She wasn’t bred to be a guard dog, but she sure thinks she’s one—a fluffy, loveable guard dog who follows the kids around the second they get home from school begging for rubs behind the ears and eating anything they drop.
“Ro?” I try to keep my voice down, knowing Wyatt and Callie are hopefully now asleep upstairs.
We’ve been dividing and conquering. I walked my parents out and chatted with them by their Lincoln Town Car until they finally left.
Rosalie tucked the kids into bed. It’s anyone’s guess which took longer.
Rosalie comes around the corner and sighs in satisfaction upon seeing me alone. “Not that I don’t love your parents…”
I laugh. “There is only one Mrs. Campbell I want to hang out with after ten p.m.”
“Oh, really?” She takes my hand and lifts it, twirling under my arm.
I pull her in and sway with her against my chest, humming the words to “Mary Had a Little Lamb” since it’s the only song I’ll ever have in my head again.
The kids played it for their grandparents on their cat pianos tonight.
The things are shaped like a cat’s face and every note says “meow.” Now that my parents are regularly coming over to our house, I’ve noticed the annoying gifts have stopped.
Joke’s on them. We pull them out for their visits.
I owe Rosalie a really good back rub. When her parents come over, it’s a party.
A fun one. I was terrified of her dad at first, especially having to tell him that I’d already proposed to his daughter.
(Although technically Rosalie proposed to me.) However, once I got to know him, I found a great friend.
Rosalie reaches out and grabs the little remote to the sound system off the counter. Soon we’re listening to “Lovesong” by Adele, turned down low. It’s a favorite song of hers and much better than nursery rhymes in cat.
“My mom wants to know what you want for your birthday.”
Rosalie makes a humming noise. “Books maybe. She has good taste.”
“She’ll be thrilled to hear that.”
“I’ll bet. So, my darling man. You seemed like you were a thousand miles away during the kids’ concert earlier. But then you looked at me…” She flushes at the memory.
“I looked at you?” I ask, playing innocent.
“Anything you’d like to share, Liam?”
I smile. “I was thinking about us in Maui, when we walked the beach at sunset and found a little secluded cove.”
She sighs contentedly, like we’re there again. “And we slept in every morning with the curtains drawn.”
“And we could hear the ocean from our bed. You smelled like coconut.” I’d rubbed cooling lotion into her burnt shoulders.
We went in January, a month after our wedding.
Everything was hectic before that. Good hectic, but I felt like I could breathe and just be with her there.
We were cementing a commitment so it would last us a lifetime. “It was a really good trip.”
“The best.” She’s looking at me with stars in her eyes, and it’s in that moment that I know we’ll find our way back there.
Even if we have to trade Andrew and Marisol babysitting again.
Even if Bea turns our neighborhood into a circus and I have to work from home the whole time and have Paxton right next to me asking me science questions and then answering them himself.
I owe Marisol everything because she brought me Rosalie. Andrew chose well, and so did I.
Rosalie clicks off the music, and I take her by the hand and lead her out of the kitchen.
We put away the cat pianos, averting the disaster that would have been our Saturday morning if we’d left them out.
At the bottom of the stairs, I snag the safari hat from the top of the toy basket and put it on.
Rosalie laughs and steals it from me, putting it on her own head.
“I know how you feel about this thing, Liam.”
She’s not wrong. Our house isn’t Maui, but it’s pretty amazing. Anywhere Rosalie is, I want to be.
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Thank you for reading!