Epilogue
Six months later
“Can you please tell me where we’re going?” Valerie asked impatiently.
“No.”
“You’re the worst.”
When they turned at the familiar street, she knew where they were headed. “Did you finally finish the house? I’m sad to see
it go.”
“But we’ll be rich,” he said. That’s what she always said to him when they talked about the house.
“My baby daddy will be rich.”
“What’s mine is yours even if you refuse to marry me.”
“Marriage is a piece of paper. We don’t need marriage. We’re together. We have a baby, and neither of us is going anywhere.”
He hadn’t proposed because she had told him many times she didn’t want to ever get married.
She had also said she didn’t want a baby, and here they were with Adam sleeping in the back seat. She also said she was selfish and would make a terrible mother. She was the best, most caring mother he’d ever seen, and he’d had a wonderful mother himself. So he knew what being a good mother entailed.
Valerie wasn’t a woman who made decisions. She was a woman who stayed in the same spot in her life as long as she felt comfortable
and content. He didn’t need her to marry him to feel assured that they were together. He also had no doubt that, in due time,
she’d marry him.
But meanwhile...
“I made a decision,” he said as he parked the car.
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“Well, you gave me Adam, so I wanted to give you something in return.”
He opened his door, jogged around the car, and opened her door. She unbuckled her seat belt and started to exit the car, but
he knelt down. Her eyes opened wide. He did this to her every once in a while, and it always made him chuckle. One day he’d
do it and she wouldn’t look terrified, and that would be the day he’d propose. Today wasn’t the day.
“Andrew—”
“Relax. It’s not what you think. I am giving you a home.”
“What?” she asked, looking at him and then at the house.
“I’m keeping the house. I want you to officially move in with me. I’m selling my house, and you need to get rid of that shitty
apartment. I grew up in this house, and you love it as much as I do. I want it to be ours.”
Her eyes watered. He leaned in and kissed her, then stood and took their baby from the car. “Come on, I have something to
show you.”
She was speechless, but he could hear her sniffles as her feet crunched on the pebble driveway behind him.
He led her to the nursery, which he had painted teal and orange. “Oh my God, I love it!” she said, delighted. “I can’t believe
you did this.”
“There’s more,” he said, and he led her through the house, out to the back, and to the big banyan tree.
“This can be your spot. You can paint here with Adam when he’s older, and maybe one day with another one of our children.
Or you can just sit and relax and look for squirrels or whatever weird thing you used to do with Ol’ B.”
He’d had a pergola built out by the property line. There was furniture too, and it faced the beautiful tree.
She was crying as she took it all in. “Anyone can give someone a ring. That’s easy. But you’ve given me a family, love, and
a home. I don’t need anything else, ever. If this is what I can expect from our lives together, Wexler, I’m in.”
“I can’t promise we won’t fight. In fact, I can promise you that there will be arguing. We’ll drive each other crazy at times,
but I’ll always love you, sweetheart.”
He put one arm around her shoulder and brought her close, and they both looked down at Adam.
Yeah... life couldn’t get much better than this.