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Epilogue One
Landon
It took a few weeks for Ricki to heal from her gunshot wound. Still, here we are five years later, standing in front of the tattoo/piercing shop Ricki and Lexi own together, holding our six-year-old twin girl’s hands in mine. Her father was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after the truth came out that he had, in fact, killed Ricki’s mom. We won’t ever have to deal with his evil in our lives again.
Unfortunately, the gun and that night left a few scars. The bullet did a lot of damage, and we found out Ricki wasn’t able to have kids. She was devastated, but I did everything I could to help her heal from a loss she would never know. We fostered for a year and then found we couldn’t live without Ava and Abbi, so we adopted them, and as of today, they are officially ours.
We planned to have a small get-together for all my brothers and their families to celebrate with us at our shop. I’m picking up Ricki, so we can head there now. I walk in the door and am instantly on alert when I see Ricki kneeling on the floor, crying softly.
“Mommy?” Ava asks, tears in her voice, and I lead them over to the couch, handing them each a coloring book to distract them before rushing over to Ricki.
“Baby, please talk to me. What’s wrong?” I plead with her when I see the tears rolling down her face. I don’t know what’s wrong or how to get her to talk to me. I just hold her in my arms and rock her, begging her to answer me. Instead, she lifts her hand, and in it, I see a little stick with a pink plus mark on it.
“What?” I ask in disbelief, looking down at Ricki. “How is that possible?”
“I don’t know,” she hiccups before giving me a full-on smile. “I was late, like, really late. I was getting nauseous, and Lex told me to take a test. I told her it wasn’t possible. I can’t have kids. She shoved the box in my hands, told me doctors didn’t know everything, and made me take the test. Turns out she was right,” Ricki tells me, breaking down in another round of crying. This time I feel tears leaking down my cheek as well.
“Daddy, is mommy okay?” Abbi comes over asking us as she wipes the tears from my face. “Is she leaving us like our last mommy did?” I can see the fear and anguish on her face as she remembers the car accident that took her biological mom.
We still make sure they remember her and talk about how much they love and miss her. We never want them to forget her; we just want them to forget the pain they’ve had to endure in their short lives.
“No, baby, mama’s not leaving us. She’s giving us another little brother or sister to take care of. We are going to be a big happy family,” I tell her, kissing her on the cheek as her face lights up and she starts jumping around screaming about being a big sister.
Ava joins her, and soon, we are all laughing and running around. How is this possibly my life? Leaving that town all those years ago was never a decision we had to think twice about, and to this day, there is no regret. We got our family and brought them out of hell, and we all found our happiness.
