EPILOGUE
Our stories will exist beyond the time we remain on this earth. Make it worthy of being retold.
It’s a warm summer day, and the sun is reaching its apex in the sky.
A breeze picks up strands of my hair and blows a few of them across my face, so I’m constantly tucking those wayward pieces behind my ear.
A couple of the hairs are now gray, not a lot, but a few, and I quite like them.
I refuse to dye it because I see them more as a badge of honor than anything else.
The tattoos on my body, the gray hairs, the wrinkles around my eyes and mouth speak of a life well-lived, and tell a story. Mine. And that’s not something I would ever change. Not a chapter, page, any line, or any single word written in it.
Every so often, a bird or two draws nearer to keep me company while I sit on the blanket and read to him.
I know you’re not supposed to feed the bird, but I do.
I bring dried bread every time I come here and break off little pieces and sprinkle the breadcrumbs in the grass for any bird brave enough to venture closer.
Finn used to give me hell about. He doesn’t anymore. So I do what I want, and anyone who has the balls enough to tell me otherwise, I pretty much tell to fuck right the hell off.
I flip to the next page of the book, and tell him about the day we revisited the waterfall and how that too fell into what Finn liked to call the abyss in his mind, where memories would sometimes disappear into.
I skim the naughty bits because I imagine hearing about that would be torture, considering the circumstances.
Still, I tell him how during our little picnic by the lake, and how we got into a grape fight and how I ended up pelting Finn in the cheek so hard it left a mark, and how he tackled me down to the blanket and tickled me until I damn near peed my pants.
Then he’d kissed me for a solid ten minutes straight, and when he pulled back, he told me there was something he’d been thinking about for a while and wanted to talk to me about it.
It was when he told me he was ready. Ready to have kids with me, or at least try. Maybe just the one, and he wanted to know if that was something I was open to.
Through my tears that bubbled up out of nowhere, I had nodded rapidly and yanked him down for another long kiss. It had been on my mind for months.
I’d often study little kids and mothers in particular.
At first, I didn’t understand the feelings it had stirred up inside of me, but as time passed, I realized that the warm feeling, the flutter in my stomach, the swelling of my heart as I saw the two interact, was something I began to ache for and want for my own.
But I was scared. I hadn’t had the best mother, and although I had many friends with their children. I had even helped them out a bunch. I’d become the best aunt any kid could hope for. Being a mother, though, that was a dance and a role I didn’t exactly know how to fill.
I’d seen it everywhere I looked. With Ember and Willow, and her other two little ones. With Bethany and her brood. Bodie and his crazy duo.
But yeah, I just wasn’t sure if I’d be any good at it, but I wanted to try. I wanted to see where that road led, and just like I put my heart and soul into everything I did, I planned to do that with motherhood too.
As I tell him this part of the story, tears begin to fall from my face as I read the words out loud.
They’re happy tears. I keep reading and flipping through the pages.
I tell him about the pregnancy. The god awful pregnancy that had me rethinking motherhood.
I tell him how I got as big as a house and how Finn made sure to tell me each day how fantastic and sexy I was, even though I clearly wasn’t.
I tell him the miserable ten hours of labor, and then about her birth, and how Finn had picked out the name Madison. He chose it because it was a play on both his dad’s middle name and Mateo’s name. Frankly, Finn thought it was hilarious. We’d have two mad kids, and it sort of fit us.
I pause at the end of the chapter, and speak freely so I can relay the truth and explain how the one thing Finn didn’t count on with naming our daughter Madison, or Maddie for short, was how freaking confusing it was, because no one knows who we were talking about—our older son or our little girl.
It’s at that point that I hear footsteps and look behind me to see Lacy, my little sister, walking towards me. She’s more wiry than I am, and taller, with honey blonde hair that rests just below her shoulders. She’s wearing ripped jeans, flip-flops, and a hippie-themed graphic T-shirt.
“Hey,” she says as she takes a seat on the blanket beside me.
“Hey, yourself”. I pull her immediately into a hug. When we pull away, I smooth some hair away from her cheek and smile. “How’d you find me?”
“Stopped by the new house. Finn said I’d find you here.”
“I thought you weren’t getting into town until tomorrow.” I eye her nude makeup and the slight sunburn on her skin, which is probably from her driving here in her Jeep with the top down.
“I decided to take a sick day so I could get here a day earlier and spend a four-day weekend with my favorite niece.”
“She’s a handful, isn’t she?”
She laughs and nods. “Yeah, she’s like a mini you. When I pulled away from the house, she was doing cartwheels on the lawn in her Tinker Bell wings and a purple tutu. She did so many she fell right back down the minute she stood up.”
I shake my head and laugh along with her.
“And Finn?”
“He was on the porch step, drinking coffee and watching her. Are you kidding? She wouldn’t let him out of her sight. She was all ‘Daddy, watch this. Daddy, look what I can do.’”
A grin overtakes my face, and I huff out a laugh. Because, yes, she has him completely wrapped around her finger, and if that girl loves anything, it’s playing dressup and performing for not just Finn, but anyone who comes to our house to visit.
I indulge her, and sometimes, I even put on a costume of my own, and we play make-believe. Whether we’re fairies, pirates, or superheroes, we go all in, and every so often, we wrangle Finn into participating in our adventures.
“So whatcha doin’?” Lacy eyes the open book on my lap and Finn’s dad’s headstone.
“Just reading to him. It’s something Finn and I do.” I close the book on my lap and shrug.
Lacy tilts her head and gives me a warm smile. “Do I ever get to hear this story of yours. Well, I guess yours and Finn’s.”
“You can buy it and read it, you know. It’s online.”
“Yeah, I know, but I want you to tell it to me.”
Moisture builds behind my eyes, and I shake my head and look up for a moment as I try to fight the tears back.
“Fuck. I hate getting older. The hormones are the freaking worst. It’s like being pregnant all over again.”
“It’s called being in touch with your emotions. You’ll get used to it.”
“Yeah, no thanks. I’d rather not,” I say as I get to my feet.
“Yeah, I’m not sure I’m going to like that part either.” She bites her bottom lip and looks down at the ground, and then back up at me. Her eyes dart away.
“What?”
For the first time, I fully take her in. When she rests her hand over the small bump showing from under her shirt, my brain nearly explodes.
“No…”
She takes a long inhale and nods. “Don’t be mad.
It just sort of happened the last time I came to visit.
It was that night you and Finn left early from Hodge’s.
Bodie and I started talking and dancing, and one thing led to another.
That’s the other reason I’m here. Bodie wants to give things a go and wants to take care of me while I go through this part. ”
“Bodie’s the father?”
She pauses and bites her nail, then nods slowly.
“Son of a…”
Fear and concern flood into her features. Ohhh… she should be concerned because I’m going to fucking kill him.
I snatch up the blanket. When I stand, I tuck the blanket and book into the crook of my arm and start marching toward the parking lot.
“Where are you going?”
“To murder him. I warned him if he touched you, I’d shoot him in his dick.”
She chases after me. She even jumps into the passenger side of my Range Rover so she can try to talk me down from killing my husband’s best friend.
My best friend. But between the out-of-control hormones I’ve been experiencing, the hot sun, and the fact that he broke the one rule of our friendship, he’ll be lucky if he has a dick tomorrow, or sees another day.
THE END