A year ago, I never would have pictured such a life. Now, the more I think about it, the more I want it—just a little house in the country with Cherry as my wife and a whole pile of children. Violence won’t have a place in our lives, and everything we do will be legitimate—I won’t risk my kids having their parents hauled off to jail or killed. They will not want for anything, and I will always be there for them.
With Cherry, I’ll be able to raise our children the way they should be. They’ll never doubt who they are or where they came from. Our children will be raised knowing exactly how much they are loved and accepted.
Always and forever.
Epilogue—New Life
“Cherry? You in here?”
“Yes!” I call out. “Almost done.”
I trim off one more tiny branch from the bonsai tree I’ve been working on for the last six months. It’s really starting to have a nice shape, and if I can get this one right, I can start on a couple more.
“Someone is looking for you!” Nate slips through the greenhouse door with little Natalie in his arms. She rubs her eyes, looks at me, and calls out.
“Mama!”
“Hello there, little one!” I smile at my daughter, who is dressed in her favorite yellow T-shirt with the dragon on the front and her belly sticking out of the bottom a bit. I can imagine the tears when she realizes she can’t wear it anymore, and I wonder how in the world she grew so big so quickly. Was she really about to turn three years old? I can’t imagine where the time has gone. “Did you wake up just in time to help mommy?”
“Water!” Natalie reaches her little hands toward the watering can on the floor next to the table full of orchids.
“All right,” I say, “you can do the watering.”
“But not on the cactuses.”
“Cacti.” I shake my head at Nate, but he just laughs.
“Dumb word.”
“Dumb cactuses!” Natalie wriggles out of Nate’s arms and points at the table of prickly pears. “Ouchie plants!”
“We’ve learned to stay away from those, haven’t we?”
I help Natalie fill up the watering can and point her over to Vee and Vee’s offshoots. It’s one plant she can’t really overwater, as opposed to the orchids she drowned right before my final exam last spring. It’s not easy explaining to your professor that your experiment was ruined by your toddler. I might as well have told her that the dog ate my homework.
“Dinner will be ready in a few minutes,” Nate says.
“Oh, good! I’m starving!” I stand on my tiptoes and kiss his cheek. “You’re the best househusband ever!”
“Hey, I’ve got my work cut out for me.” He wraps one arm around my waist and rubs my belly. “I’ve got to get my shit together before the work is doubled.”
“By that I assume you plan on finishing the deck this weekend?”
“If someone will take a nap and let me, yes.”
“No nap!” Natalie wails. “Already had nap today!”
“Not now,” Nate says with a smile. “It’s time to wash up and eat.”
“Yay!”
After Natalie finishes watering the floor as much as the tropical plants in the greenhouse, she scurries out of the structure and down the walkway to the farmhouse. She stops at the wraparound porch and yells at us to hurry up. Nate is all smiles as he takes my hand, swinging our arms between us.
Clearly, we don’t move fast enough for Natalie, and she rushes back to shove herself between us. Nate and I each take one of her hands, and we all head down the short path to the house. We pass the large garden area, which is mostly bare after the fall harvest, and a grove of trees. I glance around the six-acre property—“Our little haven,” Nate calls it—and smile.
Nate has spent a lot of time fixing up the outside of the house, including landscaping, making the box gardens, and even building a deck. However, he’s proven to be nearly useless when it comes to inside handiwork. Thankfully, I’ve managed to figure out some basic plumbing and electrical skills, so we don’t have to call someone every time something breaks.
My husband gets nervous when we have a person we don’t know come to the house for any repair work. He’s still a touch on the paranoid side though we haven’t had any indication of anyone in the Ramsay family trying to find us or take revenge. Antony and Nora swear the Ramsay family is completely disbanded, and we have nothing to fear, but there is always an outside chance. Nate doesn’t talk about it, but I know those old feelings occasionally resurface.
At least he’s found a good counselor here, and he’s never had a relapse of his sleep disorder or hallucinations of his father.
“Nora called earlier,” Nate says as he serves dinner. “She wants to know when we’ll be there for Thanksgiving.”
“My last class is over at two o’clock, Wednesday. We should be able to leave here by five and get to Cascade Falls around midnight if you want to drive straight through.”
“That’s my preference.”
“Did she tell you what to bring?”
“Apparently, my pies went over well last Christmas,” he says, “so I’m going with pumpkin and sweet potato. The sweet potatoes are taking over this year.”
“You’d better make a test pie this weekend though,” I say with a sly grin, “so I can make sure it’s okay.”
“I want pie!” Natalie pulls at my hand and then demands to be held.
“See? You can’t deny this face.” I hold Natalie up, and she gives her daddy
