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Epilogue
“Come on,we’re going to be late. Again.”
I pull my head out of the kitchen cupboard and look up at Freddy stood by the kitchen door. He’s holding a helmet in his hands and has an expectant look on his face.
I grin up at him from my squat on the floor. “I can’t go anywhere. I can’t find Elsa’s Tupperware.”
“Amber Bale, you’re making excuses and you know it.”
I groan and stand up. In two long strides, Freddy is across the room, his arms winding around my waist. Looking up at him, I can only admire the awesome attractiveness my husband still maintains at nearly forty. I’m a lucky woman; there’s no denying it. Today is the twentieth anniversary of the day my car died outside his garage and I stomped my soggy boots all over his workshop floor.
Also, today is the day that Isaac, our son, is going to race for the first time. I always knew he would, it’s in his genes and in his blood, I just wish he’d wait a while longer… like another ten years, maybe twenty. Actually, I just wish he’d wait until I was no longer around to see it.
Now I’m wasting time so I can try and miss most of the race, something that Freddy apparently isn’t going to allow.
“He’s messaged, read it.” Freddy grins his intoxicating smile as he hands me his phone. I skim the messages. They are all directed at me and all reassuring me that everyone possible has checked the car, including Bailey: Isaac’s best friend, right hand man, and cousin. Bailey shocked the family by not following his mathematic genius aspirations and instead joined Isaac playing with cars every day. His father was so proud… not.
“Okay,” I grumble, turning to grab any old container out of the cupboard, ready to fill it with carrots and cucumber batons.
“Elsa!” Freddy hollers through the house and we hear a heavy-footed response as the girl in question races down the stairs.
“Time?” A blonde head ducks around the door.
“Yep.” I grimace.
“Mummy, be okay.” Our three-year-old comes up and squeezes my legs. Laughing, I sweep her into my arms and rain kisses down onto her fair hair.
“Elsa Bale, the knower of all things.”
“Exactly!” Freddy smiles as he lifts her from my arms into his, positioning her on his hip. She’s a daddy’s girl and will happily be carried all day. I can’t blame her. I’d have Freddy carry me around in his arms of steel all day as well if I could.
My heart gives its usual skip when I see them together. I spend a whole lot of time walking around feeling very proud and smug. Elsa also adores Isaac. He’s a god in her eyes and I’m quite concerned about how she’s going to take it when he leaves for university. There are going to be tantrums galore and that’s just from me.
It took us a long time to get Elsa. It was a shock no one was expecting after the fact I fell pregnant at eighteen so easily. But that’s life. We got there in the end and now we get to live a little slice of perfection every day.
“So, Mrs Bale, are we going to trust your car today or mine?” Freddy leans in and plants a quick kiss on my cheek.
“Very funny.” I glance at the sky through the window and see that it’s blue and clear, perfect for racing and no snow in sight. “My car.”
“As you wish.” Another kiss that makes me smile. “Elsa, go get your bag. Isaac will be waiting for us.” Freddy takes control and I just wander about aimlessly until Freddy has us ready to leave.
I can’t bear the thought of my baby racing a car. This last week, I’ve been haunted by nightmares of Freddy’s crash nearly twenty years ago. It’s hard for me. I lost Freddy for ten years because of that accident. We may have survived the incident together, but the ramifications it had splintered us apart and stopped us from being the family that we now are. Watching my son getting into a car is going to be the single hardest thing I ever have to do. Harder than watching Freddy in the hospital. Harder than living without him for ten years.
The drive to the track is silent other than of Elsa tunelessly singing her Disney classics as I focus on breathing and functioning. When we’ve parked, Freddy leans into my space, catching my face in his hands. “He’s going to be great. He’s far more talented than I ever was.”
This is a lie. Freddy is naturally gifted with driving. Believe me, I’ve watched enough of his races over the years to know. But I also know he’s trying to reassure me, so I smile.
“I know. You should be proud.”
“We both should.” Freddy’s eyes crinkle with his smile, and my heart swells and beats harder as it always does with him.
The day Freddy rescued Isaac from the woods and saved my boy, was the day that changed our lives. From that point on we were never anything other than a family. A year later I was divorced and remarried. Elliot stopped getting in the way after Isaac’s accident, once he realised I’d never stop Isaac seeing him if that was what my son wanted. Now I was married to the right guy. The only man for me.
“Amber Bale, would you go out on a date with me later?”
“A date? What about the kids?”
“Taken care of. I feel that twenty years can’t be ignored.”
