Epilogue
Moore
The auditorium smelled like new furniture and teen flop sweat.
Moore and Colleen took their seats in the sixth row, the tickets torn by a fourteen-year-old kid with electric-blue hair, half their head shaved.
The student wore a white shirt, black bow tie, and black pants, using an exaggerated sweeping arm gesture to usher them to their seats.
Smack in the middle of the row, they were crammed like sardines in the sold-out theater, Moore beaming like the super-proud parent he was.
For once, he could watch Jordy at a performance and not have to take two planes to get there.
For once, he’d been part of Jordy’s play from start to finish, from tryouts to curtain call.
And for once, he was here with Colleen, holding her hand, who was as proud as Moore and as beautiful as ever.
For the last six months, he’d felt complete. Jordy moved in back in August and started school. Colleen and Moore went public with their relationship. His parents traveled back and forth to Florida on their seasonal migration, but they were here for Jordy’s role in Brigadoon.
And today was the one-year anniversary of the horrible car accident he and Colleen had been in.
“You happy?” she whispered, squeezing his hand as people milled about, settling into seats. Clad in a red cardigan, navy turtleneck, and jeans, she wore snow boots and a scarf, her blonde hair in a thick braid.
Her eyes glowed.
“Always, when I’m with you.”
She tilted her head toward the stage.
“I mean about this.”
“Of course.”
Colleen looked around, catching people’s eyes, waving over and over to people she knew.
The performing arts high school was a good thirty minutes from Luview and at first, Moore had made the drive nearly every day.
Within a month, though, they’d made a decent carpool arrangement with two other families.
Jordy expanded Moore’s world, exposing him to new families in different towns in the western Maine area, all united by love of theater, dance, and music.
All offering their children a chance to explore what they loved most.
This was Jordy’s first performance, though there would be another in May. Cammie had sworn she’d come to that one; she was watching online tonight, on the streaming channel the school set up for parents and family members who couldn’t attend.
Their dueling lawyers had come to a decent agreement; his dad’s comment about not having a legal battle had been a bit too optimistic, but in the end, everything favored Moore, for once.
Cammie would have Jordy for eight weeks in the summer, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, as well as February and April school breaks.
Moore got him the rest of the time.
And Jordy was happy with it all.
Moore’s phone buzzed with a text.
Dad?
I’m here. Sixth row, center, with Colleen.
Awesome. I need help.
Anything, kiddo.
Can I borrow your tie and belt?
“He wants my tie and belt?” Moore said to Colleen, hopelessly confused.
Her hand went to his knee, gliding up, fingertips playing.
“Mmmm. If it gets you undressed, I like it.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he growled in her ear before standing, his bad leg protesting slightly. The fall off the ladder last year had taken its toll. His dark hair was missing along a thin scar line on his scalp, though he wore his hair a bit longer now to cover it.
The compound fracture in his leg took longer to heal than he liked. Skiing was no longer a daredevil sport for him.
But he had more than enough to keep his leisure time occupied now.
Looking down at Colleen, he had to take a deep breath to control himself. The last thing he wanted was to walk around with an erection at his kid’s high school play.
“I never make promises I don’t keep,” she retorted, and he had to give her that.
“Fair enough. Let me go find Jordy and I’ll be back.”
Winding his way through the crowd, he was stopped four different times by fellow parents he knew, either folks who had bought jewelry from the store or people he’d come to know because of Jordy’s involvement at the school.
Sights and scents in the auditorium made him reflect back on his own high school years, the building in Luview older but really not that different. He couldn’t think of a single memory from those formative years without Luke in it, and most of them included Colleen, too.
Which made him smile.
“Dad!” Jordy rushed down the small flight of stairs off stage right, his hair pulled off his forehead by a headband, some kind of covering taped to his head. Jordy wore a wig for his performance, and Moore stifled a laugh. “You wore a tie! Whew!”
The relieved grin had no metal in it. Seeing Jordy smile with his pearly whites, straight and aligned, was still a jolt.
“I came straight from work.”
“You’re a lifesaver! The person in charge of my costume in Act II left her bag on the bus and now we need some stuff.
” Jordy touched Moore with an ease that had only developed since they’d started living together.
He toughed the knot at the base of Moore’s throat.
“Can you just loosen the tie and I’ll put it over my head? ”
“Why?”
“I don’t know how to tie it the right way.”
“I’ll teach you.”
“Not now! No time!”
“Fine. No problem. Take a deep breath.”
Moore flipped his collar up, loosened his tie, and pulled it over his head, taking care around the scar tissue from his surgery. Then he put it on his kid and tightened the knot.
“Colleen’s here, right?”
“Yes, why?”
“We need a pair of women’s high heels, size ten.”
“Sorry. She’s wearing flats.”
“Are Grandma and Grandpa here?”
“They’re coming to tomorrow’s show.”
“Okay, Dad. Thanks!” Jordy fled, disappearing backstage.
Mission accomplished.
Shuffling back to his seat, tieless and beltless, Moore laughed when Colleen looked up at him and said, “Keep your pants on, buddy.”
Settled in his seat, he whispered, “Only in public.”
They held hands, fingers intertwined, until his phone buzzed again.
Cammie.
What’s the live-streaming link? Locke, Soria, and Zelda and I want to watch it.
Moore had already sent it to her three times this week. He knew this was Cammie’s way of intruding in his life, especially mentioning Soria, Locke and the baby. Getting Jordy here had been a struggle, with Cammie using every trick she could think of to make it hard for Moore.
All he replied with was the link.
Then the house lights blinked three times and he shut off his phone.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer began, “welcome to–”
Welcome to the rest of his life.
Because the best was yet to come.