Epilogue

Epilogue

Seven Years Later…

Evangelina felt the cool lap of the water against her swollen ankles. This baby was a handful already, and he was still three weeks from coming. The blistering sun made trickles of sweat run down Evangelina’s spine, but the water was blessed relief. She waded deeper, letting the thin, white chemise soak up the water and flow away from her sticky skin. Slowly, she sunk past her protruding belly, letting the water lap over her aching breasts, onto her chest. Her hair was as thirsty as the rest of her, saturating as soon as each stray tendril touched the shimmering surface. Evangelina let out a sigh of relief as the coolness seeped into her, and she bent her head back to dunk herself totally under the water.

She stayed under a moment, relishing the sense of weightlessness that filled her. With the pregnancy, she was always hot, always big, always less than graceful, but in the water, she was one with her surroundings. Her head broke the surface again and she smiled as she heard the sound of approaching voices. Two small ones and another, a deep, reassuring baritone that coiled low and intimate inside her.

Turning slowly, she spied Zeke approaching with Leonora on his shoulders, her small fingers clasped around his head as she giggled with each step. Samir darted from side to side in front of his father, chattering like a chickadee. Zeke stilled when he saw his wife in the water, and he smiled.

“Children, your mother is a crocodile,” he remarked.

They descended into fits of laughter.

“We caught frogs, Mama!” Samir cried, proudly holding one up in his lightly closed fist.

Evangelina laughed. “For food or for companionship?”

Samir balked at the question. “Arjuna is my friend!”

“Of course,” smiled Evangelina. “Apologies.”

Zeke swung Leonora down from his shoulders and urged the children inside.

“Don’t make trouble for Bhakti!” Evangelina shouted after them, but it was no use.

The five and two year olds ran circles around Bhakti, who, along with her husband Mohan, kept the household running. The two children tore across the expanse to the bungalow, vanishing through the gate a moment after Samir waited for Leonora to catch up.

“Don’t move,” Zeke said, sitting down on the bank and producing a sketchpad, which he never went anywhere without.

“Gladly,” sighed Evangelina, letting herself go weightless again.

She floated in the water for some time, letting sun and water soak into her as they would, soothe her as they could. Some time later, she didn’t know how long, but Zeke could make a rough sketch, and a very good one, in a short time, she heard him splash into the shallows. Evangelina opened her eyes, smiling as her husband strode naked into the water.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, sinking down until only his head remained above the surface.

“Big. Hot. Ready to have this child out of me,” confessed Evangelina, smiling.

Zeke reached out, his movements unnaturally slow and distorted under the water, and touched her ever-growing belly.

“He’s strong,” said the proud father.

“He’s a handful,” said the smiling mother.

Zeke laughed, drawing her closer until she was against him, or, at least, her belly was. Zeke towed her back closer to the shore, until he could plant his feet on the ground. Evangelina gasped as he drew her up, fingers sliding along the slick length of her thighs. One hand dipped between them as the other held fast to her back, keeping her anchored. She moaned softly as he brushed her, as he slid his fingers inside her. She was somehow wetter than water, and he groaned his approval.

“Lean back a little,” he told her. “I’ve got you.”

Evangelina obeyed, letting the water and Zeke cradle her as he opened her hips to him, and he nudged softly inside. She gasped at the inrush of his heat combined with the cool water, and she fought to relax herself around him. Zeke rocked slightly back, keeping them in a delicate, lapping balance as his hand continued to work the peak of her sensation. That, combined with the small, deliberate undulation of his hips matched with her own, drove Evangelina over the edge. She came apart in a slow unraveling, and the force of her finish drew out Zeke’s along with her.

He pulled her up against him and kissed her neck, her shoulders, her breasts, full and leaking even before the arrival of their child. Zeke brushed the wet fabric aside and drew a nipple into his mouth, suckling her, tasting her. She tangled her fingers in his hair as she felt the powerful connection of his warm mouth, his softening member still buried inside her.

“I love you,” she murmured as he drew the strap down, exposing her other breast to him, to the sunlight and the air and the water.

“I love you,” he echoed, and kissed her long and deep.

In the depths of that night, Evangelina’s labor pains started. She stared at the ceiling, counting, for several hours before waking Zeke. The first time, she’d woken him immediately, scared and excited and everything that went into birthing a child. But that had lasted fifteen hours until Samir – named in honor of her sister – came into the world. The second also started in the night. She had waited to wake him until dawn, and still, another eleven hours passed before Leonora – Zeke’s choice for the famed Leonardo – was born. Now, Evangelina waited, determined to hold off until Zeke awoke at his usually appointed hour. But as she counted, she found her pains were progressing faster than usual. Finally, her shifts and grunts through the pain woke the man beside her, and he sprang into action.

By the time three hours had elapsed, Evangelina held a squalling baby girl. The sun peeked over the horizon as Zeke wrapped his arms around his wife and daughter.

“You did beautifully,” he kissed Evangelina’s salty forehead. “Both of you.”

Evangelina burrowed against his chest as he stroked her hair, as his hand closed over hers as it cradled the baby.

“Born at dawn,” Evangelina kissed the little girl’s head.

“That’s what we should call her,” Zeke whispered. “Our little Dawn.”

The baby cooed at that, and Evangelina beamed. “I think it’s perfect.”

Evangelina brought the babe to her breast and the little thing suckled, making soft, grunting noises.

“She sounds like her father,” whispered Evangelina.

Zeke laughed, the sound round and warm and filling her completely. He kissed her head, then her lips.

“Does this still mean what we said?” he asked.

Evangelina breathed slowly. After the birth, they’d told each other, then they would go back. The letter from Rowan telling them all was safe had arrived months ago, but in the middle of Evangelina’s pregnancy, they had not wanted to take a sea voyage.

“When she’s a little older,” she said. “That long on the water with a baby…the chance of disease, a storm? We’ll wait. The time will be right someday, and we will see them again.”

Three years after, they made the journey back to England. They stayed for nearly a year in the place that had once been home, but they knew well and truly that India was their home now. Cousins met and played, sisters and brothers reunited. All was well and beautiful, and they then returned to the place that had become theirs.

In the year 1869, when the Suez Canal opened for travel, on one of the first vessels available, were Rowan and Samira Marston. Their older girls, ensconced in their own lives with families of their own, did not journey with them, and their eldest son, who was twenty-two and fresh out of university, stayed back to run their estates while his father was gone. Rowan and Samira brought with them their daughter Myka, who was seventeen.

Meeting them were, along with Zeke and Evangelina, Leonora, who was a renowned artist herself and recently wed. Their younger sons, Jaiden and Zayn, who were fifteen and eleven, stood by them and greeted their aunt, uncle, and cousin. Samir was traveling all around the world, writing back to them when he could of his adventures, while Dawn was away in Paris as a companion to an elderly friend of theirs, seeing the world and finding her art.

“I’ve missed you so!” Samira cried, flinging her arms around her little sister.

Evangelina squealed like a schoolgirl, holding her close. Since their mother had passed two years earlier, since Evangelina had not been there to bury her, she felt even more needy of Samira’s loving presence.

“Tell me everything,” Evangelina clasped Samira’s hands in hers.

The sisters walked arm-in-arm, talking endlessly, laughing, watching their husbands embrace, their children talking and meeting and laughing and getting to know each other. Pride swelled in Evangelina at all she and Zeke had built, and excitement threaded through her that she would be the one to reacquaint her sister with the homeland she loved so much.

The End