Epilogue

Epilogue

Riding a Cloud

I was pouring coffee when Darius came in the back door with a stack of donut boxes from LaMars.

“Well, don’t mind if I do!” his Uncle Samuel said, leaning back on his stool at the island and patting his big belly.

“Lord Jesus. He ate a whole sweet potato pie at Dorothea’s yesterday, and he’s eyeing those donut boxes like he hasn’t had food in months,” Samuel’s wife, Miss Regina, sitting next to him, said.

“Donuts! Awesome!” Liam exclaimed, strolling in with Scrapper where Scrapper often spent his time. Tooling around on Liam’s wide shoulders.

I didn’t know how those two did it. How Scrapper stayed balanced while Liam did whatever Liam was going to do. But they worked it.

Yes, my kid stole my cat.

It took him two seconds after he got home from his date. They took one look at each other and both of them were gone. If Liam was home, they were inseparable.

The good news about this was that Darius wasn’t annoyed at Tex anymore for springing a cat on us.

There was no bad news.

Except I wanted to be a good momma and think it was cute my kid stole my cat.

But I was peeved.

I saw him first!

Darius put the boxes down, spread them out on the island and flipped up the lids.

After he did that, he said to his son, “Round up the cousins, son. Breakfast is served.”

And what did Liam do?

He walked two steps to the doorway to the living room and shouted, “Richie! Jacqueline! Donuts are here!”

I looked to Darius.

He was fighting a smile.

I fought grabbing a donut and throwing it at him.

Mister Sam leaned long and nabbed himself a cinnamon twist.

“One, Sam,” Miss Regina warned. “Thanksgiving is over. You heard what your doctor said.”

“Thanksgiving lasts four days, woman,” he retorted then munched into the donut and spoke through cinnamon and dough. “No doctor worth his salt would deny me this donut.”

She turned beleaguered eyes to me.

I stretched my lips out to say I couldn’t help her.

Anyway, I agreed with Mister Sam.

Liam sat by his father’s uncle, his grandfather’s brother, and reached for his own donut, and I reveled in watching them so close, soaking in the similarities.

Soaking in the fact not only Darius had the full force of his family around him, we were now able to give it to our son.

Scrapper sat down on Liam’s shoulder, and with interest, studied my boy as Liam bit into a custard-filled, chocolate covered.

Liam tore of a tiny bite and offered it to his cat, who investigated it with his teeny black nose, then turned that nose up from it.

“More for me then, bud,” Liam said to his furry friend.

Darius got close to me where I was leaning on the back counter, dipped his head and whispered in my ear. “Better get what you want. Richie’s worse than his dad. And Jacqueline will hoover through a box on her own. She may be skinny as a meth head, but the bitch can put it away.”

I’dnoticed that yesterday at Dorothea’s.

I stifled a giggle then hid my smile behind my coffee mug.

“Did someone say donuts?” Richie, Sam and Regina’s son, asked, strolling in, eyes homing in on the boxes.

Darius’s hand darted out and he stacked up a lemon filled, a cinnamon roll and a Boston cream.

He leaned back, set the cinnamon and Boston cream on the counter by his side and handed me the lemon.

My man.

Always taking care of me.

Jacqueline swanned her tiny behind in, body swathed in a short robe, face perfection, hair still in curlers.

Her gaze went to Darius. “Bad timing, cuz. You don’t interrupt a girl in the midst of her daily preparations.”

“You didn’t have to come down,” Darius pointed out.

“And let Richie and Dad eat them all?” she asked.

She leaned over the boxes delicately, perusing the selection like her decision would take hours, then snatched a jelly from right under Richie’s fingers.

“Hey!” he snapped.

“Snoozers are losers,” she said before making a show of biting into it, not taking her eyes from her brother.

“No wonder Tyler didn’t want to come to Denver with you for Thanksgiving,” Richie verbally slapped back.

“Oh, Lord,” Miss Regina called to the ceiling.

Jacqueline swallowed her bite of donut and sniped, “My man is tight with his family.”

“He’d reach for a turkey leg, and you’d gnaw off the poor brother’s arm,” Richie returned.

She smiled sweetly, and with experience from the last two days, I knew Richie was in for it.

“At least he doesn’t break up with me before every holiday because I’m too chickenshit to commit, even after six years together.” She lifted her hand and wriggled the big diamond on it in his face. Unexpectedly, her expression turned horrified, and she whirled on Darius and me. “I’m sorry. No offense. You all had extenuating circumstances.”

“No offense taken,” I told her.

“Kimberly understands a man needs to be ready,” Richie huffed.

Jacqueline whirled back to him. “Kimberly right now is checking out Chester because he’s a man who can commit.”

“Yeah, he’s proved that, with two divorces, and the brother’s my age, thirty-two fuckin’ years old.”

“Richard! Language!” Miss Regina shouted.

The front door opened.

“Yoo hoo!” Miss Dorothea called.

“In here, Ma!” Darius yelled.

Gah!

The shouting.

I blew out a breath.

She showed in the doorway, balancing a baking pan in one hand, holding her handbag at her shoulder with her other, and her mother, Grandmoms Beverly, who was up from Phoenix, was at her side.

“Well, look at you. You got donuts. And here, I woke up early and whipped up a batch of my cinnamon rolls.”

Whipped up a batch.

It took three hours to make her cinnamon rolls.

She held them forward and Liam and Jacqueline ran into each other in nabbing them.

But Scrapper, being the scrapper he was, held on.

“I love my life,” I said.

Darius grabbed my hand, and I started to smile at him, but he lifted it in a weird way as he shoved his other hand in his jeans pocket.

He then slid a cushion-cut diamond, surrounded by more diamonds, with even more diamonds embedded in the band, on my ring finger.

And the main diamond was way bigger than Jacqueline’s (she was sweet, and I liked her, but, as Toni would put it…huh).

Miss Dorothea gasped.

So did Miss Regina, Grandmoms Beverly and Jacqueline.

“Well, all right,” Mister Sam crowed.

“And I love my soon-to-be wife,” Darius whispered, staring into my eyes.

Oh well.

Fuckit.

I wasn’t holding these back.

I threw myself in his arm and burst into tears.

* * * *

Two hours later, after a bunch of other calls, and a bunch of other family showed, I called Tod.

“Heya, girlie,” he answered. “What’s shakin’?”

“All systems go,” I replied.

I giggled when I had to take the phone from my ear because he hollered so loud.

* * * *

I walked in the back door, put my coat on the hook, looped my purse and the strap of my attaché on top, then went through the laundry room to the kitchen.

I’d already smelled the fact that someone had lit my evergreen candles.

It smelled like Christmas.

And my kitchen was dripping in it (that was something from the old place we definitely used, my Christmas decorations).

My man was at a cutting board, cutting vegetables. My son was at a tray of yeast rolls, brushing melted butter on the top. Scrapper was where Scrapper was not allowed to be, batting the lid of a water bottle around the island about two feet away from the rolls.

“Son, your cat,” I said.

“He’s so tiny, I can’t see him when he’s on the floor, and I don’t wanna step on him,” Liam replied.

I looked to Darius.

“I don’t want to step on him either.”

These two.

Someone. Kill me.

No one was going to kill me, so I did the next best thing.

I went to the wine and poured.

“Woman, mouth,” Darius ordered.

I went to my man and gave him my mouth.

He didn’t take his time, but he still did it right.

My wine and I moved to a stool and asked them, “Wanna know what happened at work today?”

“Sure,” Liam replied at the same time his dad urged, “Shoot.”

“Jeffrey’s office was cleaned out before anyone got in this morning. Nothing in there. Just his desk and other furniture, which the firm owns.”

“Whoa,” Liam said, turning to the oven to set the temperature for the rolls.

“And Carrie was canned. I guess we have a no-fucking-named-partners policy.” I took a sip of my wine. “I must have missed that when I read our employee handbook.”

Liam looked to Darius, grinning. “Mom said fuck.”

Darius grinned back.

“Boys!” I called. “This is big news.”

“I know. You never say fuck. Or you don’t say it very often,” Liam replied.

Scrapper batted the cap my way.

I caught it, flicked it with my finger, and he scuttled after it, booty up in the air, tail swaying, front legs reached out, paws slapping the stainless steel, head jerking side to side, totally missing the danged thing.

Adorable little rascal.

Liam put the bowl he’d melted the butter in in the sink and then grabbed Scrapper and put him on his shoulder.

Scrapper instantly draped himself over the curve, close to Liam’s neck, front paws dangling forward, back paws dangling down his back, apparently deciding chasing caps was hard work, and it was time for a nap.

It totally sucked my kid stole my cat.

“Can you dump a named partner that easily?” my son asked.

“No. Unless he did something very, very wrong.”

My gaze went to Darius.

His eyes were alight.

“Is Ally that good?” I asked.

“What do you think?” he asked back.

I didn’t have to think.

I knew.

I smiled at him.

He winked at me and then turned with the cutting board to dump the veggies in a pot of boiling water on the stove.

* * * *

We sat in the four armchairs in the Reserve, Toni across from me, Tony across from Darius.

The table between the chairs had a board covered with cheeses and cured meats and olives and nuts and fruit.

I held a glass of an exceptional red in my hand.

Toni decided tonight, like many nights, was a martini night.

Tony and Darius were talking about something. Sports. Current events. I didn’t know.

I didn’t care.

I loved that they got along. That they could carry on a conversation without their women, like we could do the same.

Toni’s eyes came to me, and I read in them what I felt in the hug she’d given me outside Fortnum’s a few months ago.

I got it. I lived it.

My happy-goodness cloud never went away, and I knew now it never would.

“Daddy!” Talia shouted from the door.

I twisted to look around my chair at her.

She seemed peeved about something.

She didn’t make us wait to share what that was about.

“Liam is cheating!” she accused.

“I am not!” Liam yelled from the lounge in the other room.

“Liam isn’t a cheater, baby,” Tony said.

She glared at him, then shifted targets.

She walked to Darius, put her hand on his forearm, turned her ankle, looked up at him with wounded doe eyes, and pouted, “Uncle Darius, Liam keeps winning at the TV games.”

Instantly, Darius pushed out of his chair. “All right, sweetheart. Let’s go have a chat with him.”

She smiled a gleeful smile, took his hand, and they walked out.

“When you give him another kid, you are gonna be in a world of hurt,” Toni warned.

“I already know that,” I said blithely, then took a sip of my wine.

And I did know it.

I just didn’t care.

* * * *

“You see it?”

“Shoosh, I see it.”

“You haven’t always seen it.”

“I so have.”

“You totally haven’t.”

“Gah!”

I tore my gaze from Kenneth, who was cuddling his and Lena’s brand-new daughter, Michelle, to his chest while sitting tucked up next to Lena in her hospital bed, and as was not unusual, the world had melted away for Kenneth.

The only people in it were him, his wife and his daughter.

“You think he’s touched. I think he’s got it goin’ on. He only has space for what’s important to him, what’s interesting to him, what matters to him, and the rest fades away. It’s genius,” Darius whispered.

I couldn’t argue.

I watched Mom try to get in there and get her hands on Michelle.

Kenneth ignored her, making googly eyes at his wife in turn with doing the same to his daughter, so into it, Mom had no choice but to back away.

“See?” Darius was still whispering. “Genius.”

I gave him the side-eye.

He grinned at me when he caught it, then dipped down and murmured in my ear, “I want one of those.”

When he pulled away, I promised, “When the time comes, I’ll do my best.”

He smiled at me before he kissed me.

He kept his arm around me as we returned our attention to the newly expanded family.

Lena rested her head on Kenneth’s shoulder and touched her daughter’s cheek.

My cloud gave me a hug.

I sighed.

* * * *

Not too long later…

We didn’t have near enough tickets for everybody in Liam’s family.

Still, we managed to scrounge around and get Mom and Dad, Lena and Kenneth, Toni and Tony, Miss Dorothea, Gabby, Danni and Grandmoms Beverly in the stadium.

After Liam accepted his diploma and moved his tassel across his mortarboard, his steps determined, like he was already walking into the brilliant life he would lead, his honors stole flapping off to his sides, his gaze came direct to me.

I waved, hopping in my seat, and blew kisses.

His big smile got bigger, spreading across his face.

Then he stopped dead and sharply dropped his head, before he looked up at his father. Only after he did that did he pound his fist to his heart.

My throat closed.

Darius pounded his fist too.

Liam strode off.

I looked up to my man and I didn’t have time to deal with the tears in my eyes.

I had to deal with the ones in his.

* * * *

It wasn’t really a worry we couldn’t get tickets for everybody.

When we went through the back gate after the graduation ceremony, I saw the RCHB had been busy. Our backyard was transformed. There were balloons and streamers and banners everywhere, tables groaning with food, more groaning with wrapped gifts, feet thick on the ground and booties resting in every lawn chair in the neighborhood and some brought in from other places besides.

The confetti floated dense in the air among whoops and hollers when Liam showed his face.

Lee was the first to grab him by the back of his neck, give him a manly shake, then pull him into a hug, beating his back so hard, I swear, Liam would have bruises.

Liam would never, not ever, complain.

He loved his Uncle Lee.

Eddie moved in next and did the same.

Liam wouldn’t complain about that either, because he felt the same about his Uncle Eddie.

Daisy shouldered in next, reaching high, even if she was wearing Lucite, platform, stripper shoes that gave her at least an extra six inches (my boy was as tall as his daddy, and then some). She grabbed his face in both hands.

“Look at you, honey bunches of oats, makin’ your momma and daddy proud. Headed off to Harvard!” She turned, bent double, and shouted, “Harvard!”

Everyone who had a glass raised it (which was most of them) and everyone who didn’t (which was barely any) shouted, “Harvard!”

I laughed.

She turned back to Liam and smacked him gently twice on the cheek. “Proud of you, kid. Done good.” Then she whipped around again and yelled, “Now, where’s my margarita?”

“She’s like a demented cheerleader,” Liam muttered after she tottered away, but he was smiling, because she was, and he loved his Aunt Daisy.

It was Darius who grasped the back of his neck then, and he held on, walking his son forward, into the bosom of a whole bunch of people who loved him, saying, “That she is, son. That she is.”

* * * *

Not too long after that…

He knew I was there.

Nothing got by my man.

But he didn’t look up from his task.

“‘And the baby elephant said to the bunny, “But why does the frog have to stay on his lily pad?”’”

He was rocking in the Jill bedroom.

Our daughter was on his chest, her big eyes drooping as her daddy’s deep voice sounded around her and rumbled up into her as he read to her.

I left them to it.

I got all this goodness all to myself when I had Liam.

And I’d learned Darius would give me anything, but he was a baby hog.

I didn’t mind.

Not even a little.

Instead of going downstairs to my chair and my book in the study, I went to the kitchen, because I’d had to give up wine for pregnancy and breastfeeding purposes, but now, I got it back.

I poured myself some then went to the turntable in the living room.

I put on the album.

And I curled on the couch and waited for him.

He showed not much later with a baby monitor in his hand.

His eyes came to me, but his body went to the kitchen.

He came out still with the baby monitor, but also with a glass of wine.

He set the monitor down on the side table then he curled his long body around mine from the back.

“Well?” he asked into my ear.

I knew what he was asking.

We had a big decision to make.

I rested against his wide chest.

“Life’s an adventure, right?” I asked back.

“That’s not an answer, baby.”

I twisted my neck to look at him. “What do you want to do?”

No bullshit or prevarication, he said, “I wanna go.”

“Lee and Eddie won’t be there.”

“Yeah, they will. They’ll always be there. Maybe not as close, but they’ll always be there.”

He was correct.

“Mom’s gonna retire soon. The weather is better there,” he told me. “She’s sick of snow and cold.”

He was correct again.

“I’m sick of it too,” he added.

“What’ll we do with the house?” I asked.

“Rent it.”

I made a face.

He smiled and said, “We can build a wine cellar anywhere, sweetheart.”

I glanced around the space before saying to him, “It’s not just that.”

“We’ll take the stuff with us,” he said. “Or Danni and Gabby wouldn’t turn down another job.” He smiled again. “I’m outnumbered now. You and Antonia can make it what you want it to be.”

“We want to be surrounded by you.”

He closed his eyes and dropped his forehead to mine, and close up, I could see those long, curly lashes I fell in love with years ago in a row of books at a used bookstore resting against his cheeks.

When he opened them, I whispered, “Let’s go to LA, baby.”

He kissed me.

“So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright” ended and the arm of the turntable lifted up and whirred back in place.

Darius left me, flipped the album and set the needle.

He came back and curled around me.

And together, we listened to Darius’s life in a song (for the most part), sitting close, sipping wine, our son across the country, preparing to take on the world, our daughter upstairs, sleeping and dreaming and carefree.

And Darius and me, on our couch, but riding a cloud.

The End

* * * *

Also from 1001 Dark Nights and Kristen Ashley, discover After the Climb, Chasing Serenity, Taking the Leap, Making the Match, Fighting the Pull, Sharing the Miracle, Embracing the Change, Wild Wind, Dream Bites Cookbook, Wild Fire, Quiet Man,Rough Ride, and Rock Chick Reawakening.