Epilogue 2
Dillon
Three years later
Overhead, the cry of gulls fills the air, a flock of them circling the water where the waves gently break against the pilings of the wharf.
The wind picks up, making the wood creak under our feet and biting against any skin it finds.
It’s an overcast day, the fog having lifted earlier, but the dark clouds threaten to let loose their rain at any moment.
Mom leans against my side, her attention out over the ocean. A small smile plays around her mouth, but does nothing to lessen the lines of grief etched into her skin. It’s been a year now. I know they’re never going to go away—a visible mark of the pain she always carries with her.
“I don’t understand why you and Charlie love coming out here in winter,” she murmurs, snuggling deeper into her red wool coat.
It was a birthday gift from Charlie two years ago, and it’s the only coat Mom ever wears.
Charlie’s started looking for another one for when this one gets too worn.
My wife doesn’t realize that it’s not the coat that my mother loves.
It’s the fact that she bought it for her.
Charlie’s parents never came around after she left their house for the final time and made good on their promise to disown her.
The only person Charlie still speaks to is Kayla, but even that relationship is tenuous.
Kayla believes that Charlie should have just given in to the expectations of her parents.
Charlie believes Kayla is a product of her parents and that, one day, she’ll be forced to grow up.
I wrap my arm around my mom’s shoulders, pulling her more firmly against me. “It’s quiet.” There’s only a handful of other people braving the weather today, and none of them are anywhere near us. “Charlie says she feels like she can think out here.”
“The wind is like ice picks,” Mom complains, her shoulder digging into my ribs as she pushes into me, trying to steal my body heat. “I’m sure she’d think better next to a fireplace.”
I stifle a smile. Mom’s all heart, and she’s terrible at hiding it. She was the first one to jump on the idea of coming here when Charlie suggested it this morning.
“You’ll live,” I tell her. A laugh hits the air, carefree and happy.
It pulls my attention to the end of the wharf, where my wife stands, bundled into her own coat, and a green scarf wrapped around her neck—a gift from my mother to her, and one that matches her eyes perfectly.
She wore her light brown hair down today, and the wind is whipping it around her head.
I watch her, eyes narrowing as she leans over the wooden railing that lines the edge of the wharf, pointing at something in the water.
Gran is standing a step behind Charlie, her white brows drawing together as she firmly shakes her head, either unable to see what Charlie’s pointing at or refusing to get any closer.
I don’t blame her. This wharf is one that looks like the maintenance has been neglected, and the railing looks warped after years of being battered by wind and sea.
My abdomen tenses as Charlie leans even further over, putting a lot of trust in the hold of rotting wood.
My fingers dig into Mom’s arm, and she looks at me with a frown.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, following my gaze and huffing out a laugh. “She’s fine, Dillon.”
I don’t breathe until Charlie shifts away from the railing, my shoulders lowering a fraction as a sigh of relief leaves me.
Her mouth moves a mile a minute as she chats to Gran, turning to the side to face her.
My eyes drop, tracing over her form and to where the swell of her belly pushes out against her navy coat, the buttons straining.
“Can’t believe my baby is going to be a daddy,” Mom says, her soft eyes on Charlie as well, her expression filled with so much love that my breath catches. “Only three weeks to go.”
My throat is tight, trapping my words. I force them out with a quiet rasp the breeze tries to steal. “I worry sometimes.”
My mom hears me, eyes meeting mine with an understanding that grabs my lungs in a stranglehold. “You’re not him,” she whispers. It’s not the first time she and Gran have worked at convincing me, but the fear is rooted deep. “Your dad was a broken man, and he stayed that way until the day he died.”
Thirteen months ago, Mom was having dinner at Gran’s place with Charlie and me. It had become a new family tradition for us every week, but my father was never invited—something Gran and I never relented on.
While he was at home alone that night, he had a stroke, and he was gone by the time my mother got home. It’s a burden of guilt she lives with every day, believing that if she had made a different choice, Dad might have survived.
The months after his funeral were dark, especially when Mom turned her guilt and self-hatred on my grandmother. After several months of bitterness and anger, I was the one to step in and remind her that if my father had been at dinner that night, Charlie and I wouldn’t have been.
I would have put up with Dad’s behavior for my mother, but I was never going to subject Charlie to it.
Not after everything she had been through.
My wife spent years being beaten down, and she came up stronger for it.
I was never going to ask her to subject herself to that kind of toxicity again, even from my father.
She deserved to be surrounded by good and nothing else.
Mom fought back, desperate for someone to blame to absolve herself—even though it wasn’t her fault, either—but I refused to let her look back on Dad’s life with rose-colored glasses.
I wouldn’t let her change the narrative that he was a resentful, hate-filled man—one who had left invisible marks all over our family.
My mother misses him, I think. As nasty as my father was to her, there was a large part of her that loved him. Libby would say she was trained to love him, but either way, grief is grief. I won’t begrudge her that, even if I don’t let her hide from the truth.
“I almost became him,” I remind Mom now. “I was…I’ve never forgotten the words I spewed at Charlie all those years ago.”
Charlie’s grinning at my grandmother, and thinking about how close I came to living in a world where she wasn’t mine is almost enough to drive me to my knees.
“You were stronger than your father,” my mom murmurs. I startle, flashing a wide-eyed look her way. She smiles self-deprecatingly when she sees it, shrugging. “I know I haven’t been the best mother. Not this past year, or any that came before it—”
“Mom—”
“No,” she says over me, and I fall quiet.
“I’ve had to face a lot of really hard truths since finding out about my grandbaby.
You think about how you almost lost Charlie.
” Mom looks at me, and I nod. “Well, I think about how I almost lost all of you. I might have missed out on watching you grow, Dillon, becoming this amazing man and husband. And then I imagine a world where I wasn’t invited to be part of your wife’s family, or a grandmother to that baby.
And all because I was so focused on not losing a man who wasn’t worth the dirt on my shoes.
” She swallows hard, watery eyes locked on mine.
My mouth parts on a quiet gasp, unsure of what to say.
She’s never spoken so frankly about my father, at least not to me, and she’s never acknowledged that the rift in our family lay on his shoulders.
Hearing it now brings every buried feeling rushing to the surface, my heartbeat whooshing in my ears.
“I didn’t blame you,” I choked out.
“I blamed me,” Mom says softly, looking away. “And I was right to. Not because I deserved what your father was doing, but because I wasn’t strong enough to put a stop to it.”
I shake my head, stepping in front of her and ducking my head, forcing her eyes to lock with mine. “You were strong,” I tell her fiercely. “You kept yourself afloat without losing yourself. You might have gotten lost for a while, but you’re here now.”
Mom blinks at me, her cheeks flushed red. I don’t know if it’s the cold or emotion, but her lips tremble, her lashes wet and spiky.
“I have to be here,” she says quietly. “Your gran is a menace, and Charlie’s family can kick rocks.”
“Hey!” I say sternly, making her eyes flare with alarm.
“We’re Charlie’s family. Don’t talk badly about us.
” The tension visibly leaks out of her as she glares at me, but I continue, “Those other people were just placeholders. It was too bad they sucked at their jobs. Charlie’s strong, though, and she survived.
” I pin a meaningful look on her. “Just like you. You survived him, Mom. Now you get to see what life is supposed to be like.”
Mom ducks her head, sniffling. “I love you, baby.”
I hook an arm around her neck, dragging her into me. “I love you, too, Mom.”
“What’s happening here?” Gran interrupts stridently. “It looks like you both need a brandy.”
I look up, finding Charlie standing a couple of feet away, her smile soft as her eyes bounce between the two of us. Gran is at her side, eyeing us with interest, her mouth pursed.
I pull back from Mom, keeping an arm around her shoulders. “I’ll take a brandy.” I shoot my grandmother a sharp grin. “Just hold the damn tea.”
Gran sticks her nose in the air, acting like her eyes aren’t twinkling with mirth. “Don’t push me, boyo. I’ll put an advert in the paper about you. See if I don’t.”
I roll my eyes dramatically as Mom ducks away from me, linking her arm with Gran and walking back down the wharf with her. “Come on, Mom. Let’s go find somewhere for lunch.”
“Good,” Gran grumbles, allowing Mom to lead her away. “It’s cold as the dickens out here. I can’t feel my toes.”
“I told you not to wear those…”
Mom’s voice is lost to the wind as I turn back to my wife, finding her already watching me.
“You okay?” she asks softly, closing the distance between us when I hold my arms open for her.
Her firm stomach bumps against my abdomen, making me chuckle as she angles herself to the side to fit more comfortably against me.
“I am now,” I reassure her, sliding my hand up under the hem of her coat and over the tight ball of her stomach. “How’s our boy?”
Charlie tilts her head, green eyes sparkling as she grins up at me. “He’s kicking the absolute crap out of my bladder, and I’m about to pee my pants.”
I smirk. “You just get sexier every day.” I lean down, brushing my nose against hers. “You’re also cold as hell.”
Charlie doesn’t protest as I lead her after Mom and Gran, but her voice is dry as she tells me, “I have a hot water bottle living in my stomach. The last thing I feel is cold.” There’s a pause. “I could use some nachos, though. Or maybe pasta. Or an ice cream.”
I look back at her, arching an eyebrow. “That’s an interesting mix, Angel.”
She rolls her eyes. “Not together, obviously. A three-course meal will do.”
I shake my head. “Where will you fit it all?” I tip my chin toward her stomach. “He’s kind of taking up all the room, isn’t he?”
A stubborn glint flashes through Charlie’s eyes. “Don’t you worry about that,” she says smoothly, patting her stomach. “If this kid knows what’s good for him, he won’t get between his mother and her food.”
By the time we catch up with Mom and Gran, they’ve picked out where they want to eat. A quick glance at the menu shows that Charlie’s appetites will be appropriately satisfied, so we follow the hostess to a free table.
I stand behind my wife, pulling her coat down her arms. In front of us, Mom is hanging hers off the back of her chair when she goes eerily still, eyes flaring with alarm.
“Charlie?”
I frown at the panicked note to her voice, heart jolting. I grab my wife’s shoulders and whirl her around, finding her face pale and mouth open, dropped open in shock.
“Angel?” I cup her face in mine, our eyes clashing. “What is it? Wrong’s wrong?”
She blinks rapidly, her lashes fluttering. “I fucked around and found out.”
I inhale slowly, forcing calm throughout my body. “I don’t know what that means.”
“I set our son a challenge, and he came out the winner,” she says, and frustration mounts because I still have no idea what that means. Charlie sees it, her shock fading away as a curious smile tilts her lips up.
“It means,” she drawls, “that my water just broke.”