Epilogue
“Good Lord. Have you seen your youngest daughter, Knox? Janie was completely dressed for the birthday party, but she’s been out there in the pigpen. She has rolled in the mud with those new piglets,” Lottie fussed.
“How come when Janie does something wrong, she’s my daughter?” He chuckled as he took four-year-old Janie by the hand and led her to the bathroom. “Now, you’ll have to wear your least favorite Fourth of July outfit because you have completely ruined this dress.”
“But, Daddy,” she whined. “Do we have to wash my hair, too?”
“You look like you have muddy hair,” Lottie fussed.
Janie’s big blue eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want muddy hair.”
“We’ll have it fixed in a jiffy,” Knox said and winked at Lottie. “You think this is a hot mess, wait a month until the next one gets here. It’s a boy.”
“Yes!” Eight-year-old Amanda pumped her fist into the air. “I want a brother like Garrett. Two sisters is enough.”
“I want twin brothers. Amanda says that she will get to hold our brother all the time and I don’t, and that’s not fair, but if we have two, then one can be mine,” Six-year-old Mia declared.
“No arguing, or we won’t go to Aunt Bernie’s party, and y’all all know that will make her cry,” Lottie said. “Go sit on the sofa until your daddy gets Janie cleaned up. And your aunt Bo and some of her sisters can have twins. I can barely keep up with one child at a time.”
In a few minutes, Knox emerged from the bathroom with a little girl in a cute red-and-white polka-dotted sundress, her curly hair still damp. Lottie nodded at him and then toward the suitcase.
“I married a smart woman,” he said.
“We have to be prepared,” she said and leaned out over her enormous belly to kiss him on the cheek.
“Dirt seems to reach out and grab them. But maybe if we’re lucky, they’ll be clean long enough for family pictures.
Mary Jane has hired a professional photographer, and I’m hoping we can get a good one. Let’s herd them out to the SUV.”
The broiling-hot sun poured down on them like it was coming right out of an oven. The SUV had barely cooled down by the time Knox parked at the Paradise. The photographer had set up his equipment on the porch and was taking pictures of Bernie.
A decade hadn’t changed her very much. A tiara was perched on top of her freshly dyed and styled red hair. Her hot-pink ball gown would make any queen jealous, and someone—probably Mary Jane—had draped a wide 90th Birthday ribbon across her body.
She waved at Knox and Lottie and yelled, “You all are the last ones here, so come on over here and get your picture made with me, and then one with just your family. Ain’t this a grand day to celebrate Independence Day and my birthday at the same time?
I am officially retired now, and I’m going to get me a new Chihuahua puppy to celebrate my ninetieth.
I miss Pepper…” She rolled her eyes toward the sky. “God rest his precious little soul.”
“Happy Birthday, Aunt Bernie!” Amanda squealed as she bailed out of the SUV. “You are gorgeous.”
“Of course I am, and you will be, too, when you are ninety,” Bernie said.
“You and Mia can stand on either side of me and hold my hands. Janie can sit in my lap and kiss me on the cheek for one of the pictures. When we are done here and y’all get your picture done, Mary Jane wants the whole family to gather round me out by the Christmas sleigh, only it’s a Fourth of July one today. ”
Lottie eased out of the truck with Knox’s help. “Was she really born on Independence Day?”
“Who knows when she was born?” Knox answered and led her up on the porch. “She changes it to suit her whim, as well as how old she is. Mary Jane says she is past ninety by a few years, but we humor her.”
They lined up behind and around Bernie, and the photographer snapped half a dozen pictures.
When he finished, Bernie popped up out of the chair with the agility of a sixteen-year-old.
“It’s y’all’s turn now. You girls smile at the camera.
Mary Jane is going to make me an album with pictures from today, and I want to remember you with smiles as pretty as your dresses.
I’m going on out to the sleigh, but when you are done, Knox needs to help me up on the seat.
I could climb up into the seat myself, but I might snag my dress.
We need to get these pictures and dinner all done so I can get this thing off and put on my red-and-white overalls for the rest of the holiday,” she said.
As soon as the photographer finished taking several shots of his family, Knox hurried out to the sleigh, put his hands on Bernie’s waist, and set her up in the seat.
Someone must have been watching from the window because he had barely gotten that job done when Mary Jane and Joe Clay led the long parade out of the house.
Joe Clay helped Mary Jane up onto the seat beside Bernie, and he took his place on the other side.
Mary Jane motioned toward the photographer.
“I want the eleven children in order of age and their spouses to be standing, and the grandkids all sitting in front. You tell them what to do, and no boyfriends or girlfriends. This is a family picture that is going to hang above the fireplace. You never know how long romances will last.”
“Granny Mary!” Daisy, one of Rae’s older twins, groaned.
“Hush!” Rae said. “She’s right, and that’s the reason I only wanted my four kids in our family picture.”
Several minutes passed before the guy was satisfied with the dynamics, but he finally got everyone lined up just right. Twenty-five adults, counting Bernie, Mary Jane, and Joe Clay. Thirty-eight grandchildren and three more on the way before the end of the year.
After the pictures were taken, Joe Clay helped Bernie and Mary Jane down off the sleigh and looked around at the family. “Okay, kids, let’s all dance out to the barn where our dinner is waiting. I’m starving. How about all y’all?”
“Yes!” The cry went up from all of them.
Mary Jane laced her fingers in Joe Clay’s, and they led the troops that were old enough to walk to the barn where hot dogs, hamburgers, and smoked brisket, along with all the trimmings, were ready to be served.
“Remember what that fortune teller told you?” Tripp asked Willa Rose.
“She said I would have five sons, and she was right. I didn’t expect to adopt them all, or that there would be two sets of twins.
” She smiled as her two boys who were fraternal twins and her set of identical boys with bright red hair and freckles followed Joe Clay and Mary Jane across the massive backyard.
“I knew it would come about,” Bernie declared and held out her arms for Knox to help her down from the seat. “She also said I would live to be a hundred, and when I do, I will wear this dress again, and you will all give me another party. By then, we should have great-grands in the mix.”
“Shhh…” Rae groaned. “I’m the one with the oldest kids, and they’re about to go off to college in another year. They’ve already got boyfriends, and I’m not even ready for that!”
“I can’t imagine my ten-year-old girls being in high school, much less graduating from high school,” Endora said with a sigh.
Bernie shook her finger at all of them. “They grow up in the blink of an eye. Don’t take a single second for granted. Not even you, Ivy, with the youngest baby here today.”
“I promise I won’t. Seems like only yesterday Mary Jane and Joe Clay adopted me. Best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Ain’t life grand?” Knox hugged Lottie to his side.
“Absolutely,” Lottie agreed, “and it’s only going to get better, but honey, this is our last time around the maternity ward.”
“I’m good with that,” Knox agreed and lowered his voice. “And, darlin’, I’m so glad that you asked me to be your fake boyfriend. Just look at all the happiness it brought into our lives.”
“It was only fake until it wasn’t. Our kids and this one”—she laid her hand on her belly—“are proof that it is very real.”