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She leans in and kisses me, and then she kisses our daughter’s head. “I think your daddy is wishing that were true while I was on camera.”
“Your daddy loves everything about your mommy. Everything,” I tell her. I look up at Tatum. “Let’s get us home.”
She smiles. “Home.”
The End
Bonus Scene
Five Years Later
Angelo
The world around us has changed dramatically, and as with any change, some is good and some very bad. But inside the walls of our hearts, the change that comes with age, time and self discovery, has become a story of beauty and love.
We’ve become strong as individuals, as a couple, and as a family.
Our beginning has inspired twelve novels, all hitting lists, toping charts, and bringing in enough money to afford to raise our family. The bonus, off the charts closeness in and out of the bedroom.
That being said, it’s also inspired us in other ways. Adelyne now has four siblings. Don’t try to do the math, it won’t work, I’ll break it down.
Three grew in Tatums belly; Adelyn is four, our first son; Shaw is three, and Tanner is seventeen months. Our other two, Dempsey —ten years old— and Darcy —nine— came into our hearts and subsequently, family by way of an investigative piece Tatum was working on between our fiction writing.
The boys mother, a cop, who was killed in the line of duty. Both she —a single mother— and her partner—were killed.
The boys sperm donor wasn’t named on their birth certificate, but Tatum used her skills and connections to find out that he is a drunk and petty criminal who is a repeat resident of the crowbar hotel. Further investigation taught us that he’d never had contact or met our boys.
At the time, we had just found out she was pregnant with Tanner, and couldn’t sleep because what she was learning and what she knew about the flawed system, the kids, —good kids with a hero of a mother, — were going to end up in separate homes and at their age, possibly never be adopted.
I knew before she said it what she wanted to do, so I beat her to the punch, “They’re ours.”
“Are you sure? It will open up doors to your past and—”
I pulled her head to my chest, “And we’ll explain it to our kids when they need to know.”
She looked up at me. “Which story?”
“The truth.”
The truth.
Once restrained by the invisible chains I’d wrapped myself in, —needing to punish myself for killing a man, even though he deserved it—does in fact set you free.
The fact that Tatum is connected, and that everything was a mess and shut down, it never was questioned. They were ours before Tanner was born.
“Dad,” Shaw calls my attention from the road to the rearview. “Is that Detroit? Is that where you’re from?”
I nod, “Sure is.” I catch Dempsey messing with his hair, wrangling it all in and then sliding the elastic band from his wrist to tie it up. I give Tatum’s knee a squeeze and glance at her —a look that only parents on the same, page exchange— triggering her to look back.
She smiles proudly when she sees what he’s doing, something he’s been doing from the day Shaw was born, emanating me, and loving our family, deep. Real fucking deep, to the soul.
Adelyn asks, “Do we have to wear our masks at the Caldwell’s house?”
And Darcy emulates Tatum answering. “It’s the polite thing to do.”
I grab Tatums hand and pull it up to my lips, smiling against her skin.
“Mommy gonna kiss Daddy,” Tanner laughs.
“Is going to,” Adelyn corrects leaning down to grab her back pack, sitting up and righting her glasses. It should be noted that she has twenty twenty vision and there are no lenses in the frame, but she has decided that she’s going to be an editor and that all good editors wear glasses.
Tatum grins at him, then turns back and gives me a loud and quick kiss.
“And we’re staying here for awhile?” Darcy asks the same question she’s asked since we left New York for our little version of Van Life adventure, working our way across country while schools were closed down, to hit as many state parks and historical areas as we could before heading back east.
The whole trip was brought on by Darcy’s anxiety which worsens whenever she see’s a New York State Trooper vehicle. Add that to the fact we can travel, work, and the kids can do school remotely it worked in theory. When we had our family meeting, which we do on Saturday nights, the kids went crazy at the idea and we all had a blast in planning it.
Tatum and I also want the kids—mainly Darcy— to see where our loved ones rest, she they know moving from one place to another, isn’t leaving anyone behind, that they’ll always be there.
