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So I called in a realtor, since the house now belonged to me. Rhode Island was one of only eleven states that still recognized common law marriages. And in the eyes of the state, Simon and I had been living as husband and wife for eight years. It was all mine to do with as I pleased.
And what pleased me was the idea of a new family moving in. A happy one. With a loving husband and a well-treated wife.
So that was what I pictured as I packed what was left of my things, and I got in a car, then I followed Seth and the kids back to Navesink Bank.
Where I planned to be a well-treated wife with a loving husband and three—or more—happy children.
“It feels good to be home,” I said as the kids ran around the yard with the fall leaves starting to drift down from the trees, and I sat with Seth behind me, leaning into his broad chest, as Clara slept peacefully on mine.
And, God, it did.
CHAPTER TWENTY
EPILOGUE
Seth - 1 day
It had been a really long fucking process to get everything settled in the end. With Simon and his estate, all that shit. Even if he and Lana were from a state that made shit easy in the common law department. But it was still a process.
Sure, we’d still been playing house. At the rental place I’d found, where Lana would come for most of the day, even coming back at night to put the kids to sleep. A few times, she would even stay. In bed, with me. Most of the time, though, she crept out, then back in before the kids woke up, so they never suspected a thing.
They would never know what was really happening in the weeks following their biological father’s death. But it had been taxing on us as adults.
We did tell the kids about him, of course.
Hazel had asked if he was coming back because someone had introduced the idea of zombies to her. When we’d assured her that he wouldn’t, she was indifferent to it. Why wouldn’t she be? She’d been so young. And it had been over six months since she’d seen him.
Isaac had visibly relaxed.
It was a sad day when a kid reacted that way to the news of his father’s death. But, let’s face it, Simon had never been any sort of father to him.
And if we didn’t tell him, there would have always been that worry that Simon might come back. We didn’t want that. We wanted a clean slate when we went back to Navesink Bank.
That was what we had, too.
Lana, free to not be staying in the place where so much of her abuse had taken place, slept hard and long. So deep, in fact, that Clara’s crying from the monitor didn’t even wake her up.
So I got up, turning it off, and changing and feeding Clara myself, before heading downstairs to get the other kids some breakfast as they rolled out of bed.
“I know, I know,” I said, going to the fridge, as Hazel looked down at her eggs. “Here you go,” I said, doing circles of ketchup over the scrambled eggs. “I think you have ketchup running through your veins, not blood, at this point, kid,” I told her, shaking my head as she dug in with gusto.
“Can we practice today?” Simon asked as he reached for his orange juice.
He didn’t need to clarify.
Every day for the past few weeks, we’d been practicing his baseball skills in the yard. Sometimes pitching, or catching, and other times hitting. He enjoyed hitting best, but he was a better pitcher. I didn’t know how that would shake out when baseball season began, but we’d cross that road when we got to it.
“Sure, bud. But we have to do it before dinner, okay? I asked. “I have to go to work for a while today.”
In my absence, Finn, Callow, and Sutton had taken over the responsibilities there. I thought I would care more. That it was growing without me. But suddenly, it just didn’t matter as much anymore.
Sure, yes, I still wanted it to succeed.
I eventually wanted to make my money back from it. But I didn’t have to be there micromanaging it nonstop.
That said, I was glad to be back, to check it out, to see the books, to get a feel for how things had been progressing in my absence.
And we did have to get into a new routine with the kids.
Lana was going to be enrolling Isaac in school.
Hazel, too, would be going for the first time, something that was making Lana anxious, but we both agreed Hazel would approve. She was high energy and social. She would thrive in school.
It would also free up some time for Lana, with only Clara with her during the mornings and early afternoons.
