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“Hmmmm.”Tony hum, snuggling up to me while feeding me brown M&Ms.
Chapter fifty-six
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.
TONY
The mighty Dexter clan has fallen into shambles. Liam’s Dad is in prison, Noah’s in prison, James has turned into a roaring alcoholic, and Muriel, if you asked me, is “happily” married to her gold-digger.
It took less than two months for everybody (incarcerated and otherwise) to realize that Christopher was the bloodline of the Dexter Diamond Empire. Once he was gone, the house of cards started crumbling. Thank goodness they caught it in time before it all went to pots, and Noah was able to negotiate a buy-out with Sir Knightleigh for pennies on the dollar.
Once everybody got their “cut,” the family unit was no more. I have never seen anything like it. It all went downhill so fast; billionaires one day, ordinary people the next.
There’s a lesson to be learned here, but I am so happy I won’t need to teach it to my child. We will be far, far away in the junglesomeplace in South Africa, living a life filled with simplicity, harmony, nature, and adventure.
The last of the suitcases we are taking with us on the plane click shut— a definitive sound that seals away the last remnants of our life in Coral Gables. Liam hefts it with ease, muscles straining against his shirt as he carries it to the door. Our eyes meet, and his lips curl into a tentative smile.
"Ready, babe?" he asks, his voice betraying a hint of the churn beneath his calm exterior.
"Almost," I reply, scanning the empty room one last time. The walls stand bare, stripped of the memories that once clung to them like shadows. "Feels weird, doesn't it?"
"Like we're ghosts leaving behind a life that's no longer ours," he agrees, setting the suitcase down with a thud that echoes through the hollow space.
I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat. "We'll build a new one," I say, more to convince myself than him. We are headed to the great unknown.
"Hey," Liam reaches out, fingers brushing mine, grounding me. "We will. Together."
"Right. Together." The affirmation strengthens my resolve. We step over the threshold, closing the door on the past with a soft click.
"Three days at the hotel, then off to Johannesburg." I can't help but let out a breathless, pregnant sigh. "I have never been happier, are you?"
“More than words can say. I wish we were going tomorrow. I can’t wait to get started . . . living our new lives.” Liam says.
“I can’t wait for the time there will be three of us.” I rejoin.
“Then four, then six, then—”
“Hey, mister. I’m not a rabbit,” I say, laughing and hugging him. Lola brought it to my attention one day when she came to stay with us for a fortnight when our baby was trying to kill me with morning sickness that went all the way to midnight; she said, “Do you know the many different times you say’ this is when I love him the most?’ You say it all the time and everywhere. It doesn’t seem to be a constant . . . it is a moving target.”
Since that day, I am so aware of when I say it, and she was right. I say, and think it a lot.
This man defines me; this man fulfills me; this man completes me. I am nothing without him. I know if I have a girl, I hope she doesn’t see us and think this is the norm, nor would I want her to feel this way, but I do. I was without him all those years . . . I hated him all those years, but now . . . looking back, I know now that I was just existing. I didn’t start living until I fell in love with Liam.
That does not mean that life is always a bed of roses . . . oh no. We have our moments. We fight, like everybody else . . . we get mad at each other, we even have occasions when one doesn’t want to see the other . . . thank goodness these occasions are very rare and far in between, but when they do happen, we have a pact, that we can be mad, scream, shout, even not talk to each other but come bedtime, we sleep in the same bed.
That is my favorite thing about him. We don’t fall asleep angry. We sit and talk and find a middle ground. Now,thatis something I will definitely teach my daughter; I hope he remembers to teach our son.
Later tonight, we are having dinner with my family, Dick, Jenny and Lola. When we had that big fallout, I kept telling myself that I didn’t need them, that Liam was enough, and he is . . . more than enough, but family is family. The way I see it, a family is like the roots and the trunk of the tree, and your significant other is the beautiful flowers that bloom on the tree. You can’t have flowers blooming in thin air. You need your tree.
I was prepared to live my life without them if the choice came down to either them or Liam; but thank God we sorted out all that was wrong between us, for even though my life couldn’t have been wanting without them, it is so much richer with them in it.
After everything came out in the open and they learned that Liam did not kill our Dad, they made the first move. They sorted us out and came and fell on their swords and apologized. We are all good now; they are very excited to be coming down to South Africa in November when the baby comes. Dick and Lola want a boy . . . Jenny wants a girl, and we just want a baby. If there truly is an afterlife, Ma and Pa are definitely celebrating up there, for we are all in a very good place.
All’s well that ends well.
