Epilogue
I blew a bubble, popped it, and chewed a little more. “I like it.”
Corbin held out a napkin and I delicately spat the gum into it. We had been friends for long enough that this type of behavior was now normal.
“Really?” he asked. “It’s good?”
I nodded. This newest flavor was promising, a mix between floral and fruity, and despite how long I’d chewed, it had retained its pretty blue color.
“You’re my first tester besides Trevor, but he always says that it’s good,” he told me. He and his boyfriend had been together for a few years and it was correct that Trevor was much too nice to be as critical as I was. But you needed that in a business partner.
Gum was only part of what we did. It felt like a million years ago that Corbin had suggested that I apply for a job with his father’s import/export company.
I’d been hired shortly after I moved into the duplex.
Maybe he had exerted some pressure, but the advancements I’d made within the ranks had been due to my efforts alone.
When his dad had retired, I was right there beside my friend and we were doing great. It was hard work but I loved it.
“When do you leave?” he asked me, and I checked the time.
“Oh, shit,” I said. He laughed as I rushed out of the office and to my car. We had a flight to catch!
“Molly,” Shane said when I ran into our house, his voice deep. He shook his head.
“I know. I know, and I’m sorry.” I kept running, right over to kiss him.
He picked me up. “If I didn’t love you so much…”
“What would you do?” I asked. I kissed him again, a longer one.
“You made me forget,” he told me. We both smiled. “Are you ready to go?”
We were on our way to visit his parents in Arkansas for Christmas.
Now that our lives didn’t revolve around the football season, it was much easier to make plans and stick to them.
Shane had worked for two years as a Woodsmen coach before he’d decided that he was done.
By that point, I had moved into his side of the duplex, and he had made a lot of plans.
One of them was to put a ring on my finger.
We’d had a beautiful wedding. A lot of the guests were guys he’d reconnected with, former teammates and old friends.
My brother had walked me down the aisle because Dad had already taken off—it had been years since we’d heard from him.
After he’d disappeared from our lives for a second time, we hadn’t bothered to search or even to miss him.
Walter’s was doing great with a new cook and Max’s management.
The other plan that my husband had devised was about his career.
He’d decided to go back to school to become a sports psychologist, working with a lot of the guys he’d formerly scouted and coached.
In my mind, he was perfect for that. He was compassionate and caring, but he didn’t shy away from getting tough when his patients needed it.
Of course, I thought he was perfect at everything—almost. It still annoyed me how quick he was to pick up our dishes. What if we weren’t totally done?
But right now, everything was wonderful as he nuzzled my neck in exactly the right way. “You smell…like strawberries?” he suggested.
“New gum,” I explained. “Oh, I love that.” I didn’t mean the gum, but what he was doing with his tongue. “How much time do we have before the flight?”
“Not enough,” he was saying and at that point, we were interrupted.
“Ew,” our daughter Morgan said. She rolled her blue eyes, the same color as her father’s, in exactly the same way that I had done at her age. I was impressed with the level of disgust she was able to convey.
“Hi there, honey!” I said. She shrugged. “How was your day?” Another shrug.
“Morgan, did you pack like I asked?” Shane asked her.
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Really?” he prompted, and she turned on her heel and went back to her room. “I heard in her voice that she hadn’t done it.”
“You read her like a book,” I complimented.
Her namesake, my sister, was also good at reading her niece.
Morgan the elder now lived in Europe with that Daniel guy, who wasn’t my favorite.
I blamed him for being too nice and cute, so that my sister had decided to take off for another continent to be with him.
We did visit but I had hopes that one day, they’d decide to give life in Michigan a try.
Mom had moved to Florida for the weather but came back to stay in the summer, and Avonlea and Max had provided us with five—five! —nieces and nephews who lived nearby.
“Daddy?” a little voice called. Our son John wandered into the room and unlike his big sister, he was very happy to see me. “Mama!” Shane and I received a tackle of love.
“Hi, buddy!” I said, kissing him. He was fortunate to look like a tiny version of his father, but with my dark hair. “You know, I think you’ll need to put on pants before we go on the airplane.”
“Grandma! Papa!” he sang happily, and we put him down so that he could return to his bedroom for more clothing.
“I had also reminded him about pants,” Shane told me. He returned to my neck. “We could go to our room and I could take off mine.”
“I don’t know why you ever wear any. I like you a lot without them,” I said.
“Is there time?”
I sighed. “No, unfortunately. We better get going.”
He called the kids and they came back to join us (everyone was now fully dressed).
We’d had our children after a lot of genetic counseling.
Morgan wasn’t a carrier and with how the disorder was passed down from parent to child, our son couldn’t have inherited it.
We had decided to stop there, happy with our family as it was.
“Ok, let’s count the bags,” my husband said briskly.
He was, as always, neat and organized, and we were ready.
He took the heavy suitcase in one hand and his cane in the other, and then walked confidently toward the garage.
Our house was set up to make it easier to move so freely.
It had taken a while for him to reach the point of acceptance without anger, and that hadn’t been easy at all.
I had cried into a lot of T-shirts and we had done a lot of talking and some therapy, too.
“Let’s go,” I urged the kids, but Morgan had to make a stop at the bathroom first. We’d traveled frequently before having them, like to see the pyramids and Mount Rushmore, and we had continued taking trips with them, too. They were used to us hurrying out the door.
“Everybody buckle up,” Shane directed and listened for the clicks. Then he turned to me.
“Are you ready?”
I reached for his hand. The best thing about this journey through life was that I was on it with him and our children, and it meant that I was ready for anything.
“Let’s do it,” I said. There was still so much ahead of us, and—
“I need to go to the bathroom,” our son called from the back seat.
There would be problems, but we could fix them. Together.