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Epilogue Two: Ruth
Ten Years Later
Ihear our daughter counting out loud and I duck behind the shrubs in our backyard, chuckling. Our son is trying to count along with her and the twins are just toddling around wildly in the house.
It’s been ten years with the love of my life and I haven’t regretted it for one day. We’ve had our four kids and it’s been insane watching them grow into the little people that they are today. Our daughter is like my husband. She’s the oldest and she takes everything so seriously. She wouldn’t dare to break a rule. At eight years old, she’s the most serious child I’ve ever seen. She has my blond hair and her daddy’s green eyes and I know in a few years she’s going to be an absolute heartbreaker.
Our middle son, Dante is almost like his sister. Suitably serious but with just enough of a wild streak to make him act up every now and then. With his dark hair and honey eyes, he’s the perfect blend of the two of us.
And then there’s the twins. Luke and Lester. They are wild to a fault which is why they are currently toddling as two year olds but ripping the couch cushions off and bouncing on them like crazy people, laughing hysterically. They have dark hair and hazel eyes and mischief dances in their green-gold depths.
I hear my boys start screaming “daddy daddy”and I know Tate’s home. We’ve moved out of town now. He finally took a job with the security company his friends ran and it’s been a godsend for us financially. But also emotionally. I couldn’t stand being in the town anymore after Adam.
We were all startled when Jackson Price gave Tate the information after everything went down.
Adam had actually been put in an institution when he was younger for stalking a girl at his school. The girl and her family moved away and he couldn’t find her once he got out. But when we saw a picture she looked very similar to me. I apparently looked like his mother. He found a picture later when he went searching for his mom and found her in jail. It was her mugshot.
Because of her diagnosis he was never able to get in and see her, but I actually shudder when I think about what the two of them getting together might be like.
“Ruth! Where are you?” I don’t answer because I’m not giving away my hiding place. I play to win even against our children.
But their father is another story and less than a minute after he’s home, he’s tugging me out of the bushes and into his warm embrace.
His lips slash across mine and he breathes in deeply, like he’s at peace. I, on the other hand, am now a raging mass of throbbing emptiness needing him.
When he lifts his head, I swat his arm. “You gave me away!”
“Never!” he laughs. “You’ll always be mine.”
Only slightly mollified, I laugh. “You know what I mean. She was never going to find me.”
A giggle behind me tells me that Destiny has found us. “I got you, Mommy!” she hollers, leaping at my legs.
We named her Destiny because it seemed fitting, considering how our life together started.
It’s all been entwined fate and destiny, tangling and weaving to bring us to the happy culmination of love.
And looking at Tate’s brilliant smile and the kids happily clambering up his big body, I know that there’s no place in this world I’d rather be than with the love of my life. My own true destiny.
