I had Granger’s footprints tattooed on the back of my left shoulder.
And any more kids we would be blessed with, I was going to do the same.
I might be my husband’s Incandescent, but he was simply my everything.
I didn’t have to change Granger. Carter did that.
I didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night with him. Carter did it.
His only response when I had asked him why he said, “First, you hogged him for nine months. And second, I didn’t do a fucking thing to bring him into this world. You did that.”
And that was that.
To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.”
– David Viscott.
Epilogue II
Frank
Taking my wife’s hand in my grasp, I brought it to my lips, placed a tender kiss to her knuckles, really to her wedding band, and winked, “We didn’t do too bad, did we?”
My wife of forty-one years smiled at me, as we watched Carter spin his beautiful wife, Harlee, around the dance floor, set up in our back yard, then she looked at me, and winked, “No, we definitely didn’t.”
Misty
I walked over to my daughter-in-law, Harlee, and wrapped my arms around her and hugged her close.
“Love you, sweet girl,” I said.
I could hear the smile in her voice as she whispered, “Love you too, Mama G.”
My eyes strayed to my husband.
The love of my life, the father of my children, the very man who had paled at the idea of me ever being in pain again after I had Talia.
The very man who had shaken his head and in no uncertain terms had said to me, right there in the doctor’s office, “Absolutely fucking not. My woman had five children. My woman risked her life for forty-five months to bring them all into the world; she’s not going to experience any kind of pain again. Whatever you need to do, set it up for me to get snipped.”
My eyes had misted over as I looked at my man.
Then he winked, “Besides, I told you forty-one years ago, tell you the same thing now, I was put on this earth to be your man, nobody fucking else’s.”
If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day, so I never have to live without you.
– Harlee’s Secret Thoughts
Epilogue III
Harlee
Five Years Later
“You sure?” I asked my husband.
He nodded, “Totally fucking sure. Spent thirty-eight years not having everything. Finally, fucking have it. I don’t want something to happen to me and leave you holding the cards. So yeah, I’m retiring. Besides,” he winked, then tossed me a plastic bag, “I wanna be here to experience everything as you round with my child, and I wanna be here for it all.”
If my husband said something, he meant it.
