Extended Epilogue
Ten Years Later
Trent
“Daddy, you have to stay still,” Henrietta says, peering at me over the top of her mom’s camera.
I grin at her, jiggling from side to side. “I am staying still.”
Behind her, Russ and Jacob laugh and shake their heads.
“Silly Daddy,” Jacob says.
“Silliest Daddy ever,” Russ says.
The twins are going through a phase of following their big sister wherever she goes, so it’s only natural that they trailed us into the garden and over to the cherry blossom when Henrietta suddenly decided she wanted to take my photo.
My wife sits on the back porch with Lila in her arms, rocking our baby softly from side to side, smiling down with so much radiance in her expression I almost shed a tear. I used to fight that instinct sometimes, that whelming of emotion inside of me, but somewhere along the way – as the delight in my life grew bigger and bigger – I knew I could never fight it.
I’m a man who sometimes, not very often but sometimes sheds a single tear of gratitude at how amazing his life has turned out.
Jackie is in the swimming pool, as she is every day. Our eight year old loves swimming more than anything else, and that fills me with so much pride I want to clap my hands together and roar and run crazy circles around the garden.
She loves water as much as any SEAL I ever met.
“You are not,” Henrietta says, pouting at me.
She’s got her mother’s hair but my eyes, glimmering with the same playfulness Tessa says sometimes fills my expression.
“Okay. Try now.”
I jiggle from side to side and she groans, but she’s giggling. She can’t stop herself from laughing when I act silly like this, even if sometimes she says she’s getting too old for my dad games.
Finally, I settle down, posing for her photograph, but then the twins come barreling over to me. They are two little terrors and I love wrestling with them, rolling around among the leaves and the grass as Henrietta snaps away.
I lift Russ over my head with one hand and tickle Jacob with the other, causing his infectious laughter to rise higher and higher in the air.
Blessed doesn’t come close to describing how I feel.
My wife won an award for photography last month and my daughter won an Oscar last year. My mother-in-law is happily married to Liam and they live on the west coast and visit often, and their visits always fill our lives with even more brightness.
My business is flourishing, with east and west coast offices.
But I’d trade everything we’ve worked for over the years for these moments, wrestling with my sons as my daughter makes laps around the pool and my other daughter snaps photographs and my other daughter lies content in my wife’s arms.
“Daddy, do the monster,” Russ giggles when I put him down.
I sit up, tapping my chin, pulling the silly face they all like. “What monster?”
“Mommy,” Russ calls. “Tell Daddy to do the monster.”
Tessa smiles, lighting me up inside, tapping her chin in the same way I just did. This is all part of the game, both of us pretending to have no clue what they’re talking about until I finally unleash the monster…
And then I spring to my feet and snap my arms together like a crocodile.
“Nom-nom-nom,” I roar, chasing them around the garden.
I catch Jacob and we fall to the ground in a fit of laughter, and then Russ walks to the edge of the pool. Little Jackie stops swimming, grinning up at us with her mother’s eyes and Angela’s smile.
“I bet you won’t follow me in here,” Russ yells, laughing as he leaps into the pool in his T-shirt and his shorts.
“Wanna bet?” I chuckle, sprinting to the water, not giving a damn that I’m still wearing my suit from work.
I dive in after him.
From the porch my wife laughs and then there’s another splash as Jacob joins us. Jackie giggles and leaps at me, getting involved in the fun, as Henrietta snaps photographs that will fill us with even more happiness in the years to come.