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He chuckles, kissing me softly.
“This is just the beginning, angel,” he says softly. “We’ve got so many bright days ahead of us.”Extended EpilogueTen Years LaterMarkus“We’re making souffle,” Charley says, grinning gap-toothed up at me, his little chef’s hat askew. He leans against his plastic kitchen set, wearing his superhero costume, cape flapping behind him. “That’s right, Jack-Jack?”
Jackie smiles at her little brother and then gives me a little eye roll. The scent of my wife’s dinner comes drifting in from the kitchen, which is quite a feat considering it’s on the other end of the ground floor. But even our six bedroom house is no match for Millie’s cooking prowess.
I swear to God, her chili con carne gets better every year.
I listen past the sound of Charley and Jackie to the baby monitor, little Isaac making a cooing noise in his dreams that makes me smile like my damn face is going to set on fire with the happy heat of it. Past that, I can hear Micah’s video game from the nook in the room, the screech of car tires and a comedic high pitched voice, and then his carefree laughter.
It’s all warmth and closeness and safety in the walls of our household, the cold of the world a separate thing beyond the winter crusted glass.
It’s time like these that I almost shed tears, the joy is so overwhelming—almost. I’m still a SEAL, after all.
“Daddy,” Charley says, tugging on my hand, pulling me back to the moment. “You gotta help.”
“Alright, little man,” I laugh, kneeling down and letting him guide my hand over the plastic burner.
“Ow,” I yell, leaping back.
Charley falls into a fit of giggles like he does every time I do that, his eyes going wide, his hand slapping down on his knee. He finds the knee-slapping thing hilarious, ever since I did it once not as a joke. But now every time he laughs he makes himself laugh even more by slapping his knee and throwing his head back.
“You’re a crazy one, aren’t you?” I chuckle, scooping him up under his arm and flying him around the room
“Airplane chef, airplane chef,” he giggles, holding his arms out to the side as I run behind the couch, to the nook – Micah looking up with a grin – and then back to his game station.
“Uh oh,” Jackie says, looking so much like her mother as she stands there with her long dark hair. “The dinner’s going to be ruined, Char, unless we act quick.”
“Uh oh,” Charley says, imitating his big sister. “What’d we do, Jack-Jack?”
“We have to close our eyes.”
“Yeah,” Charley says, closing his eyes.
“And wish really hard.”
“Yeah.”
“And hope and pray that everything’s going to be okay.”
I smile warmly at my daughter, and she smiles back as Charley closes his eyes, wishing that everything’s going to be okay. When he opens them, his laughter lights up the room, joining the warm crackling orange from the fire.
“It worked, it really worked,” he cries. “Everyfin is better’n okay!”
My heart feels like it’s melting, and then it does melt when Millie walks up behind me, laying her hand on my shoulder.
I turn and face her, as beautiful as the day we met—getting even more beautiful, somehow, with the added years of motherhood and experience. Pride whelms in me every time I drink in the sight of her, my Michelin-star wife.
I love you, I mouth.
She smiles and then mimes hmm. I laugh and then she leans close, and whispers just so I can hear, “I love you so much, my beast.”
She’s right.
I am a beast.
And just because I’m tamed for her, it doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop protecting her, our family, and everything we’ve built here.
Because that’s what a man does.
