~ Epilogue ~
On a spring morning, in the eighth month of her pregnancy, with Sam on her side, and Colt behind her, moving slowly, carefully, hand cupping her ample belly, he heard her emit a sharp gasp.
Pulling back, frightened that he had hurt her, Colt sat up.
“Baby,” he said, his breathing still uneven. “What is it? You good? Did I …?”
Sam looked over her shoulder, her eyes alight with annoyance. “What’re you doing?” she demanded. “Come back here.”
“Nah,” Colt said shaking his head. “It’s freaking me out a little bit. You’re too close to your due date. I don’t want to …”
“I heard it makes labor easier,” Sam said biting her lower lip. “Maybe even painless. The more orgasms you have before delivery the better.”
Colt let his head fall to one side. “Lemme guess. You saw that on the ‘internets’?”
“C’mere,” Sam pouted. “Please.”
Except for the first trimester, their sex life had been ridiculously unaffected by the pregnancy. Some weeks it even hit a peak higher than their non-pregnant days.
“Why’d you make that sound then?” Colt challenged. “If I didn’t hurt you.”
“I had a thought, that was all.”
“I must be losing my touch. If you can think at all while I’m putting in work.” He made a lascivious movement with his hips.
Sam laughed and rolled onto her back. Seeing the massive mound of her stomach protruding in marked contrast to the rest of her always caused him to panic a little. His son was already big. How was he going to get out of there through that relatively narrow passage? Hell, how could he even be living in that tight, tiny space to begin with? How was Sam going to be able to bear the pain? The details of how all this worked was best left to faith in Divine design.
“I’m serious,” Sam said. “I was thinking something. Something that I want to … y’know share with you.”
“Then why didn’t you share it instead of scaring the crap out of me?”
“Help me …” Sam extended a hand, so he could pull her to a sitting position.
The sheets that had been covering her torso fell away and Colt looked at her with renewed amazement. Her breasts, larger since she got to the final trimester, were crisscrossed with visible veins, her face fuller and her nose wider. She was always fussing with her appearance these days, especially now that she had more time on her hands since taking maternity leave from her job.
That was what she did—fussed with her appearance, kept house and researched online for Masters in Public Policy programs. She had been toying with the idea of going back to school after the baby was born, instead of going back to work, and Colt was supportive of it, since it meant she would be home to raise their son.
“I want us to do it,” she said.
“Do what?”
“Get married.”
Colt’s eyes widened. “For real this time?”
When she was in the middle of pregnancy hormone insanity, there had been days when she insisted she wanted to jump the broom, and then changed her mind shortly after. Around her fifth month she’d even accused him of orchestrating her single motherhood and being the one who didn’t want to marry her.
Colt had learned to roll with the punches, once his father told him that this babymaking endeavor came with a certain degree of irrationality.
‘Just give the girl whatever she wants,’ he’d counseled. ‘No matter what it is. Give her what she wants.’
But now, Colt was too afraid to believe that what she wanted was what he had been wanting for ages now. With her swollen fingers, Sam didn’t even wear the engagement ring he’d given her on Valentine’s Day. Being able to say she was his wife … that would make the wearing of a ring insignificant. He just wanted her to be his wife.
“For real this time,” Sam said. “Except, I think we should just go do it at the courthouse and not tell anyone …”
Colt fell onto his back and looked up at the ceiling.
“Not that shit again.”
“No, hear me out.”
“Okay, keep talkin’. Maybe you’ll stumble across a good idea eventually.”
“We get married for us. Just us.” Sam smoothed her hand over his chest, making circles on his skin. “And then when the baby is here, we do it up. The big event for friends and family. Hopefully, I’ll no longer look like a whale and we’ll have a reception and there’ll be cake, and all our friends from high school, and …”
“Bet. When?”
“Really?”
“Don’t act like I haven’t been wanting to get married since last year.”
“So … we’re doing this?”
“We’re doing it,” Colt said. “Courthouse. Just for us. Big party later for everyone else.”
Sam grinned at him. “You sure? You’re into it?”
“I’m sure. I’m into it.” He nodded. “When?”
“Next week?”
“Sooner.”
“Sooner?” Sam smiled.
She was luminescent. Her hair was back in its natural state and looked wild as hell. He loved it. Grabbing it while he was behind her, yanking her head back … that was the real good-good.
“Yeah,” Colt said. “As soon as we can. Maybe even tomorrow. If that’s possible.”
“You love me, don’t you?”
“I love you bad,” he confirmed. “Something awful. C’mere …”
“Why?” Sam shot him a flirtatious sideways glance.
“I think I want to try again,” Colt said looking down at her body. “And this time, I’ma make sure you won’t be thinkin’ ‘bout shit.”
Laughing, Sam moved closer, pulling him toward her.
The one thing Colt had never liked about when he was over at Sam’s house was the movies. She, and that annoying Leah, mostly had girl movies. Whenever he saw anything that looked even halfway interesting, Uncle Tony would smoothly slide the DVD out of Colt’s hand and laugh.
‘Whoa there, little man,’ he’d say. ‘That there’s a little too … advanced for you.’
“Advanced” meant there was cussing and maybe some kissing and stuff. Sometimes even people naked in the bed, rolling around all over and on top of each other. Once in a while, in “advanced” movies, you’d even see a butt. Colt was turning ten soon, so he knew they were having sex.
He knew because he’d found some magazines inside a box his father had from when he was away in the service. In the magazines, there were naked women, like, all the way naked. It made Colt feel weird inside when he looked at those pictures, but he couldn’t help going back every once in a while to look some more.
At Sam’s house, Colt had to rifle through the stacks of Strawberry Shortcake and ballet dancer movies and other boring stuff like that, hoping to find something fun. The most fun DVDs of theirs he’d ever found was Rug Rats. They were kind of funny. But he was older, so he wanted live action movies, and not just something like the Power Rangers, either.
But now Sam didn’t even watch Power Rangers DVDs. She was into princesses. All kinds. She watched ‘Beauty & the Beast’, ‘Aladdin and the King of Thieves’ and ‘The Return of Jafar’ the most, her eyes glued to the screen like she hadn’t seen them all a hundred billion times each. It was like she was deaf and blind to the rest of the world when she was watching those stupid movies.
Ma Maxine had to come in and turn the television off a few times and tell them to go play outside instead. Colt was always happy when she did that. Even though he sometimes did the same thing to her when she was at his house, Colt didn’t like it when Sam wasn’t playing with him. If they were together, it meant they were supposed to be playing together. That was the rule. He hadn’t told her it was the rule, but it just was.
One Sunday, when Ma Maxine sent them outside to play, all Sam could talk about was Belle from ‘Beauty & the Beast’ and how she looked a little like her because Belle’s hair was brown with reddish colors in it, and Sam had reddish parts in her hair too.
‘Could you just shut up about that movie!’ Colt erupted at her. ‘It’s so stupid!’
Sometimes he was mean to Sam, though he didn’t even know why. He didn’t want to be mean to her, he wanted to just have her with him, and playing all the time. Like, it would be cool if she could even live in the house next to his, so they could wave at each other in the morning, and before bed. Maybe, if they lived next-door to each other he would even throw some of the treats he kept in his room across the way into her room, so they could share.
‘‘Beauty & the Beast’ isn’t dumb,’ Sam said. And her lips were all wobbly like she wanted to cry.
‘It is. The love story part is so dumb. No one would fall in love with an ugly beast.’
‘She loves what’s inside him,’ Sam said. ‘She doesn’t care if he’s ugly on the outside.’
‘And it’s old-fashioned, anyway,’ Colt persisted. ‘People don’t fall in love like that anymore. With all that dancing and stuff.’
‘Yes, they do,’ Sam said, her voice gaining strength. ‘My mom and dad still dance.’
Colt didn’t have an answer to that, because his mom and dad sometimes danced as well. When he was supposed to be sleeping, and they didn’t know he was watching, they danced to old-fashioned songs, swaying with their eyes closed, and barely moving.
Watching them made Colt embarrassed, but he still watched whenever they did it. He was never going to do anything embarrassing like that. And if he ever had a love story, it wouldn’t be old-fashioned. Anyway, he wouldn’t have a love story. But if he did, it wouldn’t be like that. It would probably be a modern one. And the only girl he could maybe dance with was Sam.
Yeah.