Epilogue
Braxton
Four years later …
I lie perfectly still as she tips the last bucket of sand on my chest and pats it down tightly, just like I taught her. I’m buried right up to my neck. She’s beaming as she stands and admires her handiwork. I smile at the joy I see reflected in her beautiful blue eyes. They’re my mother’s eyes, and every time I gaze into them, I feel like a part of her is still with me. My beautiful daughter even bears her name … Grace . Grace Isabella Spencer.
The moment she was born was one of the happiest of my life. I can’t even put into words how overwhelmed I felt looking down at my precious baby girl in my wife’s arms. After losing our first child all those years ago, and then almost losing Jemma, that moment seemed surreal.
My mind drifts back to that day. “She looks just like you,” Jemma whispered. “I know we already had a girl’s name picked out, but would you mind if we called her Grace instead … after your mother?”
I remember wiping the tears from my eyes as I tried not to completely break down at her suggestion. “I’d love that.”
“Daddy buried,” Grace says, pulling me back to reality.
The smile on her sweet face grows as she rubs her chubby little hands together to remove the sand that’s stuck to them.
“You did a great job, princess.”
I turn my head slightly and watch as she toddles over to her bucket, the one full of shells. Every weekend we walk along the beach together and collect them. It has become our ritual. Some mornings I wake and she’s already standing beside my bed waiting, with her pink bucket in her hand.
She giggles as she pretends to sneak back to me. I twist my head back, gazing up at the sky like I’m oblivious to what she’s about to do. She does this to me every time. She saw Jem do it once and squealed with delight when I broke free from my confines, playfully tackling her mother to the sand.
“Hey, what are you doing?” I ask as she places two cone-shaped shells on my chest. She buries the base in the sand, so the pointed ends are facing upwards.
“Daddy boobies.” She covers her mouth with her hand to stifle her laugh.
“No! No boobies for Daddy.”
“Yes boobies,” she says giggling, as she backs away again. She already knows what’s coming.
“Roarrrr!” I bellow, breaking free from the sand.
She squeals as she scoops up her little pink bucket and runs towards the house. She’s only three, so her legs are tiny. It only takes a few steps for me to catch her. She squeals again when I scoop her into my arms.
Her body squirms when I bury my face in the crook of her neck and blow a raspberry against her soft skin. “No, Daddy,” she cries out through her laughter.
We are still laughing as I brush the sand off her tiny feet when we reach the back deck, before placing her down. “Mummy, I have shells,” she calls out, running towards the sliding doors.
I love that little girl so much. I love both of my girls.
After brushing off my own sand, I head into the house. I find Jem sitting at the kitchen table with my dad going through the memory book she made for him. She does this every day.
It’s an album full of pictures of his life. His parents, my mother, me, Jemma and Grace. It even contains pictures of the hardware store and Samson. Every day she sits with him, retelling him stories of his life, things he’ll never be able to remember on his own.
His memory has gone now. There are no more good days, but he still seems happy, and I can’t ask for more than that. He lives with us now.
Jem never left after that night she spent here with me. We’ve been back together, in every sense of the word, ever since. A month later, we brought my dad home. Jem wasn’t ready to go back to work, and she wanted him here, with us.
I hired a nurse to come in three times a day, to make things easier on her, but she still gave him all of her time. When she fell pregnant with Grace, we hired a full-time nurse. My father stays in the spare room downstairs, and I converted my office into a bedroom for his carer.
The bond that my wife has with my father is strong. Her memory has never fully returned, so she gets him.
I stand in the doorway and watch Grace climb onto my dad’s lap. It’s her favourite place to sit. They watch television together, and sometimes she reads to him. Well, she turns the pages and names all the pictures. Although he doesn’t know who she is most of the time, it’s plain to see how much he adores her. His face lights up every time she enters the room.
“Morning, Pop.” I lean down and plant a kiss on his hair. He just looks up at me with confusion in his eyes, but he still smiles. He’s always smiling.
“That’s me, Pa,” Grace says, pointing to the picture in the album on the table.
“It is,” he replies, grinning down at her.
I make my way around the table to Jemma. Bella-Rose is lying at her feet. “Morning, babe.”
I bend down and brush my lips against hers as my hand gently rubs over her very pregnant belly. Pregnancy suits her. I love seeing our baby growing inside her. We found out two weeks ago that she’s carrying our son. His impending birth will complete our family perfectly.
“Morning, handsome,” she replies, eyeing me up and down.
“I’m just going to have a quick shower and wash the rest of this sand off, and then I’ll help you organise breakfast.”
“Okay,” she says. That sparkle that was always present in her eyes when she looked at me has returned.
“Hey, buddy,” I say, patting Lucas on the shoulder as he waltzes through the front door.
“Where’s my little munchkin?” I should have known that would be his first question.
“Oh, hello to you too,” I say sarcastically, and he laughs. “She’s on the back deck with my dad and Jemma’s parents.” He heads in that direction, so I turn my attention to his wife. “Hi, Rach.” I lean forward and kiss her cheek. “Jem’s in the kitchen.”
“Okay. How are you, Brax?”
“I’m fantastic.”
“You look happy.”
“I am.”
After Grace was born, Rachel’s career took a turn away from women’s fashion, when she started to design her own line of children’s clothes. They took off, and are now in all the major retail stores throughout Australia. She’s happy and doesn’t seem to regret giving up her dream job in New York.
Jem and I tried every trick in the book to get Rachel and Lucas together when she first moved back to Australia. But they were both so stubborn that every attempt by us failed. In the end, we got desperate.
We invited them both over one afternoon and locked them in one of the spare rooms upstairs. We told them we weren’t going to let them out until they talked. It worked. They didn’t emerge until the following morning, and they’ve been together ever since.
Jemma and Rachel are talking babies as they prepare the food in the kitchen, so after brushing my lips against my wife’s cheek, I head out onto the deck.
I see Lucas has already claimed Grace. They’re walking hand-in-hand down to the water. Bella-Rose is trotting closely behind. He’s going to make a wonderful father. He told me last week that he and Rachel are trying for a family of their own.
“Let me fill up your wine glasses,” I say to Jemma’s parents. Stephen ended up moving in with Christine a few days after Jem moved back in with me.
Jemma still makes her Sunday roasts, but instead of it just being us, we have our entire family over.
The earth’s axis has finally aligned.
Jem and I weren’t the only ones to get our happily ever after. Lucas and Rachel, Christine and Stephen … and in a way, even my dad. He may not remember us, but he’s out of the nursing home and surrounded by people who love him.
Jemma still wears the memory bracelet I gave her and reads the letters often. I have a letter as well. She gave it to me when we flew back to Kauai, in Hawaii, where we renewed our vows. She was three months pregnant with Grace at the time. Rachel and Lucas came with us.
The morning of the accident, I promised I would take her back there during the Christmas break, and I’ve never broken a promise to her.
Jem read out her letter to me as part of her vows. It choked me up then and still does to this day.
Dearest Braxton,
The nineteenth of January 1996 was the day I was given the greatest gift I would ever receive … you.
On the nineteenth of January 2015, exactly nineteen years to the day after we met, we became one.
Nineteen days later, I was in an accident, and I almost lost it all.
When I woke from my coma, I felt empty inside, and now I know why—I had no memory of you, our love, or anything we had shared. Up until that fateful day, you had been my heart and the air that I breathed. Without that, my life had no meaning. I felt completely lost.
You fought for us when I didn’t have the will or strength to fight. You continued to love me, even when I didn’t love you back. You never gave up on me, or on us, and for that, I will be forever grateful. You proved yet again that you are, and always will be, my forever boy. I couldn’t imagine my life without you in it, because you are my life.
The nineteen letters you sent became my lifeline. They helped remind me of everything we once shared, by giving me back pieces of our past. They gave my life meaning, a purpose, and the promise of a future. A future with you by my side. A second chance at life and love. I will forever cherish what we once had, what we have now, and you … always.
What we have will never be forgotten.
Your forever girl,
Jemma
This renewed my faith in the number nineteen. It was our number , there was no denying it. Grace was even born a few minutes after midnight on the nineteenth of June. It was fate.
In the weeks and months that followed Jemma’s accident, not only did I have to struggle to go on without my best friend, my soul mate, I had to fight tooth and nail to rekindle that magic we once shared. I was lucky enough to get her to love me once, and incredibly fortunate to get her to fall in love with me for a second time.
Things are different this time around, but with a lot of love, persistence and understanding, we have built a better us … a stronger us. We now know how fragile life can be. That’s why we live for every second, every minute, every hour, and every day.
Love with your entire heart while you have the chance, because life is far too precious to waste on an uncertainty.
This was our second chance at love. Our happily ever after.
Nineteen letters was all it took for her to realise we were meant to be.