Epilogue - Sierra
Four Years Later
The sound of the smoke detector going off sends me sprinting from the laundry room into the kitchen, my heart in my throat for exactly three seconds before I realize it's not an actual fire, it's just Ruby attempting to make pancakes again.
"I've got it!" she yells over the beeping, standing on a stepstool and waving a dishtowel at the detector. At eleven years old, she's gotten tall enough that she almost doesn't need the stool anymore, but she's not quite there yet.
"Ruby Anne Lawson," I say, trying to sound stern and failing miserably as I open the kitchen window to let out the smoke. "What have I told you about watching the burner temperature?"
"That medium-high is not the same as high?" she offers sheepishly, looking down at the decidedly blackened pancake in the pan.
"Exactly that." I take over at the stove, scraping the ruined pancake into the trash. "Also, maybe wake me up before you decide to make breakfast? I don't love starting my Saturday morning in a panic."
"Sorry, Mom." But she's grinning, completely unrepentant. "I was trying to surprise you and Dad. He's on night shift and I thought he'd want pancakes when he got home."
My heart squeezes at the thoughtfulness, even if the execution was questionable. "That's very sweet, baby. But your dad won't be home for another two hours, and—"
A wail from upstairs interrupts me, the distinctive cry of a two-year-old who's just woken up and is not happy about being alone.
"I'll get him!" Ruby's already moving, bounding up the stairs with the energy only an eleven-year-old possesses at seven in the morning.
I follow at a more reasonable pace, my body still not quite used to the early morning chaos even after four years back in this house. Four years since Cade moved back to town, since we combined our lives and our furniture and our complicated histories into something that resembles a family.
Ruby's already in the nursery, though we really need to stop calling it that since Owen is firmly in toddler territory now, lifting her little brother out of his crib with ease.
"Hey, Owie," she coos, carrying him on her hip like she's been doing it her whole life instead of just two years. "Did you have good sleeps?"
Owen's tears stop immediately at the sight of his big sister, his chubby hands reaching for her face. "Wuby," he says, which is as close as he can get to her name right now. "Hungry."
"I bet you are." I take him from Ruby, pressing a kiss to his sleep-warm cheek.
He smells like baby shampoo and the lavender lotion Cade insists on using because it helps Owen sleep better.
"Let's get you changed and then we'll have some breakfast. Non-burned breakfast," I add with a pointed look at Ruby.
"It was one pancake," she protests. "And I was going to get it right this time."
"I'm sure you were." I lay Owen on the changing table, making quick work of his nighttime diaper. "But maybe we table the solo cooking experiments until you're a little older?"
"Dad lets me help when he cooks."
"Dad supervises when you help," I correct. "That's different from leaving you alone with open flames."
Ruby rolls her eyes but doesn't argue further, instead making faces at Owen to keep him entertained while I wrestle him into fresh clothes. He's at that stage where he wants to do everything himself but doesn't quite have the motor skills yet, which makes getting dressed an adventure in patience.
"Dada?" Owen asks, looking around the room like Cade might materialize if he just looks hard enough.
"Dada's at work," I tell him, lifting him up and settling him on my hip. "But he'll be home soon. Want to make him a welcome home sign?"
"Sign!" Owen agrees enthusiastically, probably with no real understanding of what that means but excited nonetheless.
We head downstairs, Ruby already pulling out the art supplies from the cabinet we designated for exactly this purpose. Life with two kids means being prepared for spontaneous craft projects at any moment.
I get Owen settled in his high chair with some cereal to keep him occupied while I restart the pancake process, this time without the smoke detector incident.
Ruby sits at the kitchen table with markers and poster board, her tongue poking out in concentration as she draws what I think is supposed to be a fire truck.
This is our life now. This kitchen, this house, these Saturday morning moments that are chaotic and imperfect and exactly what I'd dreamed of for so many years.
The house is a modest three-bedroom on a quiet street, with a backyard big enough for Owen's play set and the garden Ruby tends with almost religious devotion.
We'd looked at bigger places when Cade first moved back, but he'd wanted to start small, to make sure he could handle being back in this town before we committed to anything permanent.
That first year was hard. Harder than either of us had anticipated.
Cade got his job back with the fire department—his old chief, Bill, welcomed him back with open arms and no questions asked.
The rest of the crew was more skeptical at first, remembering the young man who'd fled town without warning eight years earlier.
But Cade showed up every day, did his work, faced his demons head-on, and slowly, they came around.
The town itself was trickier. People remembered the warehouse fire, remembered the seven people who died, remembered Cade as one of the firefighters who'd been there. Some were kind, understanding. Others weren't. There were whispers, sidelong glances, a few people who made their disapproval known.
But Cade weathered it all. With therapy twice a week, with me and Ruby by his side, with his old crew from Blackwater Falls visiting every month without fail, he faced down every demon and came out the other side stronger.
The nightmares still come sometimes. I'll wake in the middle of the night to find him sitting on the edge of our bed, his head in his hands, trying to breathe through a panic attack.
But he doesn't run anymore. He lets me help, talks through what he's feeling instead of bottling it up until it destroys him.
We got married two years ago, a small ceremony in my parents' backyard with just family and both fire crews in attendance.
Ruby was our flower girl, taking her duties so seriously that she practiced her walk for weeks beforehand.
Dallas cried during his speech as Cade's best man, which made all the other Blackwater Falls guys give him shit for months.
Owen came along a year later—a surprise, but a welcome one. Cade had been terrified he'd miss something, that his schedule at the firehouse would mean missing important moments. But he's been there for everything, every doctor's appointment, every milestone, every middle-of-the-night feeding.
"Mom, how do you spell 'congratulations'?" Ruby asks, pulling me from my thoughts.
"Congratulations for what?"
"Dad's been back at the department for four years this month," she says. "That seems like something to celebrate."
She's right. I hadn't even thought about it, but it's been four years almost to the day since Cade walked back into the fire station he'd fled from eight years earlier. Four years of proving to himself and everyone else that he could face his past and build a future anyway.
"C-O-N-G-R-A-T-U-L-A-T-I-O-N-S," I spell out, watching as Ruby forms each letter in her neat handwriting.
The pancakes are done, and I'm plating them when I hear the familiar rumble of Cade's truck in the driveway. Owen hears it too, his whole face lighting up.
"Dada! Dada home!"
The front door opens, and Cade appears, still in his uniform, looking exhausted but breaking into a smile when he sees all of us in the kitchen.
"What's all this?" he asks, taking in the scene: the pancakes, the poster, Owen bouncing in his high chair.
"Welcome home celebration," Ruby announces, holding up her sign. "And congratulations on four years back."
Cade crosses the kitchen in three strides and pulls Ruby into a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
"You remembered," he says softly.
"Of course I remembered." Ruby hugs him back fiercely. "It's a big deal, Dad."
"Not as big a deal as you three," he murmurs, then releases Ruby to scoop Owen out of his high chair. "Morning, buddy. Were you good for Mom?"
"Good," Owen agrees, even though he absolutely had a meltdown about his diaper change. "Pa? Cake?"
"In a minute." Cade moves to me, wrapping his free arm around my waist and pulling me in for a kiss that's probably more thorough than it should be with our kids watching. "Morning, beautiful."
"Morning, yourself." I brush a smudge of soot from his cheek. "Rough night?"
"Couple of calls. Nothing major. A smoke detector going off again because the woman refuses to stop cooking bacon at two in the morning."
"That woman is going to give someone a heart attack," I mutter, but I'm smiling.
We settle around the table, Cade still in his uniform because he's too tired to go change yet.
Owen climbs into his lap, getting syrup all over Cade's shirt, but Cade doesn't even flinch.
Ruby tells him about her plans for the day—baseball practice at ten, then hanging out with her best friend Mia this afternoon.
It's mundane. Normal. The kind of Saturday morning that probably happens in thousands of households across the country.
But for us, it's a miracle.
Four years ago, I didn't know if Cade could do this. If he could move back, face his demons, be present for our family. Four years ago, he didn't know if he could do it either.
But he did. He does. Every single day, he chooses to show up, to do the work, to be the father and husband he committed to being.
"What are you thinking about?" Cade asks, catching me staring at him.
"Just that I'm proud of you," I say honestly. "Four years, Cade. You've been back for four years, and you're still here. Still fighting. Still choosing us."
His eyes soften, and he reaches across the table to take my hand. "Always going to choose you. All of you. That's not even a question anymore."
"Gross," Ruby says without any real heat. "Can you guys not be romantic while I'm eating?"
"Yeah, no 'mantic," Owen agrees, though he definitely doesn't know what that word means.
Cade and I laugh, and the moment passes, but the truth of it settles warm in my chest.
We made it. Through all the fear and uncertainty, through the hard conversations and harder adjustments, through his nightmares and my doubts, we made it.
This life, this family, this ordinary Saturday morning covered in pancake syrup and marker stains, this is everything I never let myself fully hope for during those seven years of raising Ruby alone.
And now it's ours. Messy and imperfect and absolutely beautiful.
"Dad, after you sleep, can you help me with my science project?" Ruby asks. "It's about chemical reactions and Mom's hopeless with that stuff."
"I'm not hopeless," I protest. "I'm just—"
"Hopeless," Cade agrees with a grin, earning him a smack on the arm. "But yes, Ruby, I'll help. What's the project?"
As Ruby launches into an explanation of her volcano experiment, Owen finishes his pancakes and demands "Down!" so he can go play with his trucks, and I pour myself another cup of coffee, I take a moment to just observe.
My family. In our house. Building our life together.
It took eight years of separation, seven years of single parenthood, and four years of hard-won healing to get here.
But we got here.
And I wouldn't change a single thing.
Well, maybe the part where Ruby sets off the smoke detector every other week. That I could do without.
But everything else? Everything else is perfect.
Thank you for reading it!