Epilogue
ONE YEAR LATER
I put the finishing touches on Elliot's hat.
A little crocheted green spiral coming off of the stem of the pumpkin.
"You really have infinite talents," Jack comments. "I can't believe just a month ago you didn't even know how to crochet."
I grin at him.
"It's not so hard," I say. "Something to keep my hands busy while I'm watching TV and looking after Elliot."
He shakes his head.
"Between you and Carla, I'm convinced we wouldn't need to buy another stitch of clothing for the rest of our lives."
"No way," I say. "I'm not nearly as talented as Carla. She can sew and knit. I can't do that. Just crochet."
I adjust the elastic on the hat.
Elliot's down for a nap. Otherwise, I would measure it right now, making sure that the little hat fits snugly on his cute, round baby face.
Dressing up my son as a pumpkin for Halloween is something I've been looking forward to ever since I found out that I was pregnant in the first place.
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and fat little babies in funny costumes are my ultimate weakness. Especially when it's my own baby.
I was nervous about becoming a mother unexpectedly. I mean, I didn't even have my own life figured out before I became pregnant with Elliot. How on earth was I going to manage the life of another small human being who depended on me for all of their basic needs?
But navigating this change with Jack has been easier than I ever imagined.
He took care of everything difficult for me: building the crib, painting the nursery. I just tell him what I want, what color, and where to put it. He does the hard part for me.
Labor went as well as labor can go, and Elliot was born after twelve hours with all of his fingers and toes, a perfectly healthy baby boy.
Jack took to fatherhood better than I could have ever imagined, and his friends agree.
I've gotten to know Adam as well as Carla, and a few others local to Wildwood in the year since I moved here.
All of them wasted no time informing me of a couple of things.
Number one, that Jack always swore up and down that he would never settle down with a woman and have a family.
And number two, Jack was obsessed with me ever since the first night we met.
"Some women make a man want to break all of his rules," Adam had told me with a grin. "Thanks for saving my best friend from his own self-imposed misery. We're glad you're here."
I've made fast friends with Carla. She's the one who taught me how to crochet, and next year she swears she's going to teach me how to knit. But I'm not sure I'm coordinated enough for that.
Carla is pregnant right now. No, she didn't settle down with a man. She went to the sperm bank and an IVF clinic and took matters into her own hands.
"I realized that I don't need to wait on a man to achieve my dream of motherhood," she had told me. "Besides, I want to make sure our kids grow up together, and how can I do that if I'm waiting on some guy to show up in my life?"
Funnily enough, as soon as she got the positive pregnancy test after her second round of IVF, she also met a man: a sweet-tempered, soft-spoken pipe welder named Paul.
He's been by her side ever since.
Carla is ready to pop any day now, and he's right there with her, rubbing her feet and taking her to doctor's appointments.
It's pretty clear to all of us except Carla that Paul intends to be around for the long haul and to raise this child as if it were his own, no matter who its biological father might be.
It feels like everybody in my life is going to get their happily ever after. If we could just find a woman for Adam, I think everybody would be settled and good.
I have this fantasy of everybody in Wildwood living close by, raising our babies together, spending holidays together, our own little found family.
My fingers pause over the pumpkin hat. For the first time in a long time, I think of Toby, my biological father.
Technically, he's my family. But he's never been a father in the real sense at all. After I showed up on his porch, he mysteriously skipped town. I found out after the fact that Jack and Adam might have gently suggested to him that it would be in his best interest to leave.
At first, I was upset. What if I had wanted to talk to Toby? To continue to try to build some kind of relationship? But I quickly put those thoughts aside, realizing that Toby was never really my dad…and that my family can be whoever I want.
I can choose my family. And I choose Jack, Elliot, Adam, Carla, and all of our Wildwood friends.
They've made me feel more welcome than anyone in my old life ever did. They’ve never made me feel like a burden at all.
"So, what are you going to do now that your Halloween costume project is done?" Jack asks. "Start planning for next year?"
I laugh.
"No way," I say. "Of course not. I mean, I don't even know how big Elliot's going to be by then. I can't make it until I have his size. He’s growing like a weed. Who knows how big he’ll be in a year?”
He snorts.
"I don't know how I'm ever going to handle hand-making Halloween costumes for all of our kids," I mutter, glancing slyly out of the corner of my eye.
He raises a brow.
"All of our kids?" he repeats. "How many kids are you planning to have with me, ma'am?"
I smile.
"I don't know," I say. "I haven't decided yet."
"But you have decided that you want another?" he asks eagerly.
"I think so," I say. "Elliot's sleeping through the night. I'm feeling better and better…and maybe I'm crazy, but I think I could handle one more."
He shakes his head.
"You're definitely crazy, but if you want another baby, I'm happy to give you one. We can start tonight, if you want. There's just one thing."
I frown.
"What?" I ask.
"This little matter of you marrying me and making things official," he says.
"I know we did things out of order with Elliot.
The fast track to forever, like you said.
But if we're going to have another kid, I'm putting a ring on your finger and making this official.
We're all going to have the same last name, living under the same roof, officially a family.”
“We’ve been a family for a year already," I remind him.
"I know," he says. “And I know marriage isn’t a must-have for family. But humor me a little bit, baby. This is important. It feels like the missing piece. One last box to check to make everything complete, so that you're officially mine."
I smile at him.
When Jack first proposed after finding out that I was pregnant, I turned him down.
I was worried that he only wanted to marry me because he felt like it was the right thing to do, what men are supposed to do when they accidentally get a woman pregnant.
That's not the reason I would want a man to marry me.
So I told him I wanted him to wait, to be extra sure that this is what he wanted.
I guess he's decided he's extra sure.
Before I can overthink it any further, Jack is reaching into his pocket and pulling out a ring box.
"Picked this up at the jeweler last week," he says. "Figured you can't tell me no a second time if I've got the sparkly ring already. No refunds.”
I can't help it. Before I know it, I'm crying happy tears as he slides the ring over my finger.
It's beautiful. And even though I told myself that having the official title of “wife” wasn't important to me, it feels really damn good to see that ring on my finger. To have that final box checked off, like Jack said.
"I love you," Jack says. "Forever and always."
"Forever and always," I repeat.