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EPILOGUE
Five years later...
The sun was on its way down when they pulled up to the front of the Griffin’s Vermont home. Joann, Becca, and Joey raced out to greet them. Anna waved at them through the windshield. It had been a long drive with their three-year-old son asking a million questions. A small replica of his father, Alex took after her when it came to curiosity. Or at least that was Skylar’s belief.
“Don’t move.”
“Sky, I can get out of a car by myself.” Anna stroked her growing belly. “I’m not the size of a whale... yet.”
“Humor me.”
The back door popped open, and Joann undid the straps holding their son safely in his car seat. “Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t wait another second to get my hands on this little guy.”
“Gamma!” Alex squealed and threw his tiny arms around Joann.
“I think you’ve grown a foot since I last saw you.”
Skylar rolled his eyes at Anna, but they twinkled. “It’s only been six weeks, Mom. Not six months.”
Joann set Alex down, and he ran to his cousin Joey. She ducked down again and spoke to Skylar. “They grow like weeds at this age. If you blink, you miss something. I wish you lived closer.”
Skylar groaned. “Boston isn’t that far.”
“It’s like to the moon and back,” Joann said with pouting lips that reminded Anna of her son. “I don’t expect you to move here, but you could buy a summer home or at least visit more often.”
Skylar circled the car and helped Anna get out even though she didn’t need any assistance. He was a great husband even on his worst day, but he got seriously over-protective when she was pregnant. He treated her like a fragile doll that might shatter at the slightest breeze.
She humored him because it came from a place of love.
Becca waddled down the steps and tried to hug Anna. Their stomachs bumped. They couldn’t get that close, so they patted each other on the shoulder. “Are you sure about your due date?” Becca asked. “You’re bigger than I am.”
Anna asked her husband, “Should we tell them now or later?”
He held his hands up in mock surrender. “Until they’re born, all decisions are up to you.”
Joann’s eyes widened. “They’re? Are you...”
Anna nodded. “We are having twins.”
Squeals of delight hit the air. Skylar left his mom and sister to gush over her while he carried the bags inside. Happiness washed over Anna like gentle waves, and she realized it was her usual state these days. Since marrying Skylar and becoming an official Griffin she hadn’t known anything but sweet happiness. Even on her off days when nothing seemed to go right, all she had to do was picture her beautiful family.
“Oh, here come the waterworks,” Joann said as she waved a hand in her face to dry tears before they fully formed. “This is such wonderful news. I can’t wait to tell John. Do you know the gender of the babies?”
Skylar answered as he returned to the car for the last suitcase. “We are having two precious baby girls that I pray look exactly like their beautiful mother.”
“We’re naming one after my sister Lily,” Anna said.
“I wanted to name the other Rose or Daisy,” Skylar said. “But Anna doesn’t want to name our children after plants.”
Anna explained, “My sister and I were named after our grandmothers.”
“So, we have decided to name the other one after her grandmothers,” Skylar said. “Sarah Joann.”
“We’re calling her Sarah Jo,” Anna said.
Tears of joy filled Joann’s eyes as she tried to hug her son and daughter-in-law at the same time. “I can’t wait to meet them. Grandma is going to spoil them rotten.”
Tongue-in-cheek, Skylar stage-whispered to Anna, “And she wonders why we don’t move closer.”
