Epilogue #3
“I want to be like you when I grow up,” I told him with a smile.
He glanced back at the abandoned building, then at me again as he slid into his backseat.
“I think you already are.”
And on that smooth note, the driver closed the door.
Yeah, no. I’d never be that cool.
But I was okay with that.
I made my way to the car and drove back to the apartment, figuring I would get a few hours of cleaning done before I had to pick up Denny and take her to karate class.
Self-defense classes were, it seemed, mandatory for the club kids.
I was pretty sure they all did it. And, given the family business, I got that.
As a woman who’d been relentlessly tracked and attacked, I wanted my daughter to be much more prepared for that sort of situation than I had been.
But the scent of lemon cleaner met my nose as soon as I opened the apartment door.
And there was… Spiro in my apartment.
“Jesus Christ,” I hissed, my hand flying to my heart.
“Welcome home, honey,” he greeted me, arms spread, wearing—I kid you not—elbow-high pink gloves and an apron.
“Spiro, what the hell are you doing in my apartment?”
“Endearing you to me, so when you’re super rich, you might consider buying me a sweet ride?”
“Don’t listen to him,” York said, coming down the hallway, shaking his head. “He’s on punishment, so I’m taking advantage of the free labor.”
“On punishment? Again? What did you do?”
“Listen, if entering in a float competition for the town parade was against the rules, there should have been a sign.”
“Oh, God. What was on the float?”
York reached up, rubbing the back of his neck, looking downright bashful.
“Stripper poles and live dancers,” he told me.
“There are children at the town parade!”
“That’s why they were dressed as teachers!” Spiro said, shaking his head.
“Oh, Lord.”
“He just barely skated by without getting charged,” York admitted.
“How can you have gotten in this much trouble in such a short period of time?”
“Now you know how I managed to max out my sentence in prison,” Spiro said, not looking the least bit penitent.
“Well, your home is spotless. There is a load in the wash and one in the dryer, and I made a note of supplies you’re running low on.
Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he said, pulling off the gloves. “I have to go organize Che’s garage.”
With that, he made his way out of the apartment.
“Was the float at least good?” I asked when he was gone.
“He built desks, giant pencils out of painted and shaved pool noodles, and made the entire side borders with fake schoolbooks. It was fucking incredible. I have no idea how he even had the time.”
“He’s such a character,” I said. “Well, there goes my whole afternoon. I planned to do a deep clean.”
“I can think of a way we can spend a few hours,” he said, grabbing my hips and pulling me close.
York - 2 years
I walked out the back door to find Denali sitting on the side of a chaise beside an orange-haired Maud.
Both had skeins of yarn at their sides. Denali had her tongue between her teeth as she worked giant plastic knitting needles with chunky purple yarn.
Maud wasn’t much faster with her arthritic fingers.
It was nice to see her with Denali, who didn’t have a grandparent figure.
I knew Maud got a lot out of it since her children didn’t bring their children down to see her.
She connected mostly over phone or video calls.
She craved connection with the next generation.
And Runa and I really loved watching Denali absorb the love, stories, insights, and skills of older generations.
She’d picked up so much from the retirement community across the street.
She’d spent an afternoon making pasta from scratch with Eddie and Maria, who hailed from Italy.
She’d been invited to help make jam with a bunch of the ladies.
She helped one of the older men make a duck on a stick with little leather feet on wheels that slapped the ground as you pushed it.
She was working on making her very own quilt with another of the women.
And had become a pretty good birdwatcher with another of the men.
Denali had really bloomed in the club, making tons of friends, finding aunts and uncles in the bikers and their wives, and finding adoptive grandparents.
“Oh, your father is here,” Maud said, giving me a smile.
“Daddy, look!” Denali said, holding up her knitting.
“You’re doing great,” I told her. “But maybe we should let Maud have a little break.” Then, knowing she would complain, I added, “Eddie is making tacos.”
Those were the magic words.
She flew inside, and Maud took a moment to put her knitting away along with Denali’s before she reached into her purse, found a joint, and lit it.
“Don’t you lecture me. It helps with the joint pain.”
“I wasn’t gonna say shit. It’s nice that you’re teaching her to knit.”
“She’s good. She could probably use real needles in another year or so.”
“How’s Calvin doing?”
“Good. He should be coming home tomorrow. He’s going to need a lot of therapy to get his mobility back, but I’ll be happy to have him home. This is the longest I’ve gone without him in bed with me at night.”
“You might want to remind him that doing tricks on motorcycles is a young man’s game. Or a dumb man’s game.”
“They tend to go hand-in-hand,” Maud said with a smirk. “He has been properly lectured. We both want to really live these last years of our lives, but we have to have some guardrails so we can have as many of them as possible.”
“I like the sound of that. Denali needs you around as long as possible. So long as you promise to keep the sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll away from her for a few more years.”
“Did I hear something about sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll?” Spiro asked, walking around the side of the house. “Maud, you sexy thing, you. See that husband of yours is still laid up, you wanna consider running away with me?”
Maud cackled at that and waved a hand at Spiro.
“How’d punishment go today?” I asked as he shucked off his shirt and toed out of his shoes.
He was covered in sweat and dirt from spending the day working on the grounds at the women’s shelter.
It wasn’t open yet. But they’d been making big progress on the interior, and Runa wanted the grounds in tip-top shape by the time they were done with construction.
“I got bit by an iguana,” he said, flashing his bloody finger before undoing his pants, stepping out of them, then diving in the pool.
“I really like that boy,” Maud said with a saucy little smile.
“Oh,” Spiro said, surfacing. “I’m supposed to give you a message from your woman.”
“What’s that?”
“She wanted me to remind you that you have to be at the airstrip by three.”
“If I can peel Denali away from Eddie’s tacos,” I said.
We were heading back to Wyoming for the first time in two years. We’d always been talking about going but never made it back, relying on information that was fed to us from other members of the club on how the house, grounds, and operation was going.
It just hadn’t felt like the right time. There was always something going on with Denali’s school or extracurricular activities, the construction of the shelter, the club, or with our house.
We’d hemmed and hawed the process for many long months, nothing ever feeling quite… right. Despite the ability to afford just about anything.
Then, out of nowhere, a house hit the market not far from the club. It was smaller than all the other houses we’d been looking at, older, needing work. But when we stepped across the threshold, it just felt like home.
So we bought it.
Worked on it.
Made it ours.
And we loved being close to the club.
But because it was old, something new was always popping up that needed work.
Still, it was time to go back, to check on everything, to show it to an older Denali who only had vague memories of being there.
At twenty to three, with Denali stuffed to the gills with tacos, we met up with Runa at the airstrip, once again borrowing Teddy’s plane for our travels.
“There’s my girl,” she said, rubbing Denali’s head as she rushed up the steps of the plane. “And my man,” she said, wrapping her arms around me and angling her head up for a kiss.
“You’re in a good mood,” I said after giving her a long kiss.
I thought she might feel a lot more conflicted about the trip. Because of the attack and the killing, because of her murdered family, because of her rough childhood.
In fact, I’d been gearing up for a complicated trip full of big emotions—both good and bad.
So her excited, upbeat, almost antsy mood didn’t seem to mesh. But the plane was fueled up and staffed, so it was time to go.
It wasn’t until we were told over the intercom that we were going to begin the descent that I knew something was wrong.
A flight to Wyoming took six hours, on average, without stops.
We’d barely been in the air for three hours.
“Did you schedule a stop?” I asked, confused.
“I guess you’ll have to wait and see.”
“What are you up to?”
The only answer I got to that was a smile.
We landed and climbed down the stairs, and I knew immediately we were nowhere near Wyoming. Or even the Midwest. No, we were in the Northeast somewhere.
“Come on, Daddy,” Denali demanded.
“Do you know where we’re going?”
“It’s a secret.”
“You brought our daughter into your lies?” I teased Runa.
“Only because it’s a good one.”
We made our way to the rental car, sticking the suitcases we’d packed in… and some extras that must have been put on the plane before I arrived.
I wanted to press for more information, but Runa clearly had something up her sleeve. And I didn’t want to ruin her fun.
She made me ride passenger as she discreetly hid her phone so I couldn’t look at the navigation.
I knew about twenty minutes into the drive that we were in New York State. But I think I was imagining we were heading into the town where we’d first met, but we turned off before then, driving into the woods, where the trees closed in tighter and tighter, nearly blotting out the sun at one point.
“Babe, there’s no more road.”