EXTENDED EPILOGUE
Joshua
One year later
“J5,” Brianna says.
I look down at my Battleship board. “Hit,” I say.
Diana and Brianna look at each other and pause…before bursting out laughing.
“A4,” I say.
“Miss!” Brianna says.
“J4,” Diana says.
“Hit,” I say. This is not looking good for Brian and I.
Our family had come up with a plan. Brian and I were on the fence about adopting a baby. Brianna and Diana were totally for it. We decided the only fair way to choose which direction to take was to play a board game.
If the boys won, we could decide whether or not our family would adopt.
If the girls won the adoption was guaranteed, and here’s the kicker…they also got to pick the sex of the child.
We wrote down the names of all the board games we had on a piece of paper and put them in a hat. We shuffled them up and Battleship is what came out.
“C9,” Brian says.
“Miss,” Diana says.
“I6,” Brianna guesses. But why would she guess that? She knows I have one battleship running vertically in the J column. Now she goes off and guesses horizontally. It makes no sense, except it does.
“Hit,” I say. “How in the world did you know to guess that?”
Brianna and Diana grab each other’s forearms and literally lay back and start rolling on the floor laughing.
If Brian and I don’t get the ship righted, no pun intended, this game is going to be over fast.
A full minute passes and the girls are still laughing.
“OK. What’s going on?” I ask.
“I have to be honest,” Diana says, wiping the tear from her eye. She’s literally laughing that hard. “When we drew the Battleship game I knew we were going to win.”
“What makes you say that? I’m the king of this game. I used to play it all the time.”
“That’s why I knew why we were going to win.” Diana’s takes a drink of water after all that laughing. “You used to come over and play my dad every chance you got. One night when I went to say goodnight to my dad, you guys were playing. My dad excused himself and went upstairs with me to tuck me in. I asked him about your game and he told me he could beat you in five minutes if he wanted to. I asked him why, and he said you always put your ships in a J pattern on the board…usually the back of the J is lined up along one of the edges. If you’re feeling really frisky you do the J backwards, but either way…it’s always a J.”
“Wait. I never told him that!”
“Dad,” Brian says, motioning with his head towards our arrangement of battleships.
“You’re cheating,” I say to the girls.
“We’re not cheating, and you’re right…you never told him that. You’re just predictable. Isn’t that a downfall in battle?”
“But—” I begin.
“And I have to let you in on another Battleship secret.”
“There’s more?”
“So many more,” she jokes. “But just one in particular. Remember that first time I came over and whispered something in Brianna’s ear?”
“How could I forget.”
“That’s exactly what I told her.”
“So after all these years I finally figure out what was said that night.”
“That’s it, dad,” Brianna says.
“All my attempts to make you laugh and that was all it took?”
“It was cute,” Brianna says. “Guys always put their names on everything. They have to claim things, take ownership, all those manly things.”
“Wait a minute. Honey, you whispered to Brianna twice that night.”
“I sure did.”
“What was the second thing you said to her?”
Diana bites her tongue, before her expression changes to a why the heck not look.
“I told her that you don’t think anybody noticed your J pattern.”
“This story just gets better and better doesn’t it,” I say sarcastically.
“My dad told me the next morning he picked up on it about the third or fourth time the two of you played. He just pretended not to know in case one day you guys made a bet on a game. That way he could beat you and win some of your money. But just a friendly wager of course…something like who pays for pizza. That and he just wanted to relax, so knowing what not to guess made the game last longer, which gave him more time to unwind after a long day at work.”
“Well, I’ll be,” I say.
“Don’t be mad, dad,” Brianna says, as she uncrosses her legs and gets off the floor, coming around to our side of the table.
“What are you doing? You’re going to see our ships.”
“Come on. I already know where they all are,” she says, as she hugs me. “And just think, if it wasn’t for this silly little story we may have never become the family we are today.”
“Or the family we’re about to come,” Diana says. She winks at me. “So there’s Brianna and Diana so far. Both end in ana and we skip every other letter in the alphabet.”
“Maybe Fiona,” Brianna says. The ending is ona instead of ana, but we can mix things up a little. We wouldn’t want to be…too predictable after all.”
I grab her with one hand and tickle her with the other.
“Dad!” she yells, as I tickle her good.
It’s just another thing I love about my family. Even when I’m the butt of the joke, and even when I lose, I always win.
I’ve got an amazing son, and amazing daughter, and it’s all because of my amazing wife. There’s nothing I’d like more than to welcome another addition to our always exciting home.
“If the girls get another girl, then I want to get a dog,” Brian says.
“That’s right!” I say, pretending to be in charge. “The boys are getting a dog! And we’ll name it whatever we want.”
“Maybe BJ, dad? It would be a good way for both of you to put one of your initials in the name.”
“Now you’re really gonna get it!” I say. I pin Brianna’s hands over her head while Brian tickles her relentlessly.
Diana pulls out her phone and starts recording a video. “We may never finish movies, and we rarely finish board games, but it’s only because we’re always too busy having too much fun with each other,” she says, as she talks over the video.
I love that she’s recording this so we can go back and watch it later. Our family may not make it all the way through most of the movies we start, but I know for sure we’ll all want to watch one of our classic family moments together again and again and again.
And once we welcome a baby girl into our life there’s going to be a lot more memories to be made.
Just our little family having fun together…like always and forever.