Epilogue
Colby
Mia throws back her little head and bawls at the top of her lungs.
“Aw, honey,” I say. “It’s okay. I’ve got a whole jar of worms. We’ll just put another one on the hook and you’ll be good to go.”
“It’s okay, Mamma Mia,” six-year-old Beatrice echoes. She kneels on the sand of the lakeshore to address her little sister at eye level. “Daddy will just put another worm on the hook for you. That’s how fishing works. You don’t get one worm to last you all day. Daddy always brings lots and lots of worms, just in case we lose one.” Beatrice gets up and grabs the nearby worm jar off the ground. “See, Mamma Mia? Daddy has a whole jar. He has infinite worms.”
Just that fast, Mia becomes mesmerized by the jar in her big sister’s hand and her tears dry up.
“Thanks, Bea,” I say. “You’re the Mia-whisperer.”
Beatrice looks at me like, “Stick with me, kid...” and I chuckle.
“I don’t think we’re gonna need more worms,” Ryan says as he casts his line out into the lake. “Surely, after Mia’s Wilhelm Scream just now, every fish in the lake just hightailed it to the other shore.”
“No worries,” I say. “Fishing isn’t about catching fish, anyway.”
“Oh, it’s not?” Ryan says, a smirk overtaking his lips. “What’s it about, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“It’s about hanging out with the ones you love the most. Making memories.”
Ryan chuckles. “Wow, Master Yoda. You’re so Zen these days. I seem to recall you getting awfully annoyed with Keaney for being too loud during a fishing trip to Green Lake back in the day. Remember that?”
“Wasn’t me.” I reel my line in and begin casting out again when I catch Mia’s movement out of the corner of my eye. “Mia, honey, don’t eat that! Bea, will you take that from your sister, please? Mia, sweetie, that’s for the fish to eat, not the people. That’s fake cheese, not real cheese.”
“I’m hungry,” Mia says simply, her hazel eyes looking forlorn.
“I know. But Mommy and Auntie will be coming back with sandwiches and juice boxes any minute now. Just hang tight and leave the fish food for the fishies, okay?”
“I told you she’s too young to come fishing,” Ryan says dryly.
I roll my eyes. Smart ass. As we both know, it was Ryan who insisted my tempestuous two-year-old could survive one day of her life without taking her usual morning nap. I’d planned to stay at the vacation rental with Mia while Ryan took the older kids down to the lakeshore, since Lydia and my sister-in-law were off at a nearby market to pick up supplies. But, no, Ryan insisted Mia and I absolutely had to join in the fishing.
“Come here, Mamma Mia,” Theo says calmly to Mia, taking her hand. He stands behind her and helps her cast out her line. And then he helps her hold her rod, sacrificing his own chance to fish for the sake of the greater good.
“Thanks, Theo,” I say, shooting my boy a grateful look.
“Daddy! Noooooo!” It’s Ryan’s almost-three-year-old son, Zachary. He’s standing on the far side of Ryan on the lakeshore, energetically palming his forehead like Homer Simpson.
“What’s up, buddy?” Ryan asks.
Zachary holds up his empty hook. “My worm! He’s gone!”
“Oh no! Where’d he go?” Ryan asks.
“I dunno.” Zach makes a presto-change-o motion with his free hand and whispers, “He just... left.”
My brother and I both chuckle.
“He just... left,” Ryan says, mimicking Zach’s exact inflection and hand gesture and we both laugh our asses off.
“Daddy!” Beatrice calls from her spot next to Mia, drawing our attention over there. Beatrice has her line pulled out of the water and her mouth is forming a flabbergasted O. “My worm left, too!”
Ryan yells, “It’s the Worm-ocalypse! God help us all!”
Theo laughs. “Or maybe it’s an uprising—a Worm-olution.”
I sigh. “Well, either way, it sounds like we need a whole lot more worms.” I look around the shore for the worm jar. “Anyone seen the jar? Bea had it a minute ago.”
“I put it right there.” Bea points to an empty spot on the ground.
“Well, they’re not there now.”
“No worms?” Mia says breathlessly. She sounds like she’s responding to someone telling her, “You’ll never eat ice cream again!”
“No worms,” I confirm evenly. I’m not proud of it, but, on occasion, I kind of like pushing Mia’s buttons.
And push them, I have, apparently. At my confirmation of The Great Worm Shortage, Mia throws down her rod, drops to the sand like she’s been hit by a tranquilizer gun, and wails.
Ryan and I exchange a dry look that says, “Fuck my life.”
“See?” Ryan says. “I told you making her skip her usual nap was a bad idea.”
I scratch my nose with my middle finger. “Paybacks are a bleep, mofo. When Claire gets here, she’s going to teach you all about the innate differences between boys and girls. You’ll see.”
“Gender stereotyping,” Ryan says. “I don’t believe in it.”
“Yeah, let me know how not believing in it works out for you two years from now when you’ve got an emotional little girl on your hands sobbing her eyes out about whatever is her equivalent of a shortage of worms.”
“It’s okay, Mamma Mia,” Theo says. He’s bending over, talking to Mia on the ground. “Dad? Mia says can she pretty please have another worm. She says she begs you.”
I laugh. “Yeah, but we have to find them first.” I look around the immediate vicinity for the worm jar again but to no avail. “Dang it. I can’t find that jar.”
Well, that does it. Mia’s now utterly inconsolable.
Ryan laughs. “Whose bright idea was it to rent a lake house for a long weekend in the first place? Whoever he is, he’s a moron.”
Again, I roll my eyes. The moron of which Ryan speaks is Ryan, of course. About a month ago, Ryan and I, along with our beautiful wives, Josh and Kat, Zander, Keane, and Keane’s fiancée, were hanging out backstage before a 22 Goats concert in Seattle—the band’s world tour had finally come through the boys’ hometown. And that’s when Drunk Ryan somehow got the brilliant idea the Morgan siblings absolutely, positively had to rent a lake house for a long weekend as soon as humanly possible. “The missus is gonna be popping out Baby Claire in two months,” Ryan said, “and after that, the Rum Cakes will be out of commission for a solid three months. We’ll call it a last-hurrah lull before Hurricane Claire.”
And so, since Captain Morgan is a guy who always goes after everything he wants in life, big or small, we’re now here for that long weekend. Although, unfortunately, only the Rum Cakes and the Cheese Heads could make it. Dax couldn’t join us, obviously, since he’s still being his rock-star self on tour. That goes for Zander, too, since he’s working on the security staff for the 22 Goats tour nowadays, thanks to a chance encounter with Reed Rivers one fateful day a few years ago when Zander and Keane visited Dax in LA. Keane isn’t here, either, thanks to some exciting job he just landed. And, of course, Kat and Josh aren’t here, thanks to Baby Jack’s arrival two weeks ago.
“No woooorms!” Mia screams from her spot on the ground.
I put down my rod, intending to go to her, but Theo puts up his hand.
“I’ve got her, Dad,” Theo says. “Just help Bea and Izzy. Their lines are crossed.” Without another word, he scoops his baby sister up and begins making silly faces and she immediately calms down.
My heart flutters. I swear to God, that boy is my hero.
“Anyone want a sandwich?” a voice calls out. It’s Lydia, thank God. Our family’s patron saint. She and a rather pregnant-looking Mrs. Rum Cake are walking down the narrow pathway from our vacation rental, holding large plastic bags.
“In the nick of time,” I say. “I think Mamma Mia maybe needed her morning nap, after all.”
“Ya think?” Lydia says. She mock-glares at Ryan and he laughs.
I take the bags of food from the ladies and Lydia heads straight to Mia and Theo.
“Are you tired, missy boo?” She takes our baby girl from Theo and, instantly, Mia crumples into her mother’s arms, absolutely exhausted.
“Aw, what’s going on, little Mamma?” Lydia asks. “Give me the lowdown.”
Without taking a breath, Mia tells her mommy about the tragic worm situation and how daddy was mean because she wanted to eat the funny cheese but he said she couldn’t eat the funny cheese because it’s for fish, not people, and now she’s sad. Lydia nods and expresses sympathy, all while trying her mighty best not to laugh in her adorable daughter’s sweet face.
“I got a bite!” Izzy shrieks. “A bite! A bite! A bite!”
I race to Izzy and try to help her reel in the fish, but quickly realize her hook isn’t being assaulted by a fish—it’s caught up in some lake grass.
In a flurry, several kids express various fishing-line and hook-related catastrophes and fiascos, and for the next ten minutes or so, I find myself doing nothing but troubleshooting while Lydia gets Mia fed. Finally, all problems have been solved, except, of course, for the mystery of the disappearing worms. Everyone seems happy again, so I tiptoe away from the kids and pull my wife aside.
“Did they have pregnancy tests at that little market?” I whisper, nuzzling my nose into Lydia’s.
“They sure did.”
“And did you buy one?”
“I sure did. And then I peed on a little stick the minute I got back to the house.”
I hold my breath.
“And I was right,” she says, beaming. “I am, indeed, officially ‘with Morgan’ again.”
I whoop with glee. “Lucky number five!” I laugh and kiss my wife enthusiastically. “I’ve always wanted five.”
Lydia laughs. “Yes, I know. You’ve mentioned your dream of having five kids once or twice or a hundred times, my love.”
“Wouldn’t it be fun if it’s another girl? Four girls and a boy—the exact opposite of my family.”
Lydia giggles. “That’d be great. But we’ve got to root for a boy for Theo’s sake. You know how much he wants a baby brother.”
“Bah. He’ll take what he gets. He’s already got Zach. Zachy is more like a baby brother than a cousin. And now he’s got Jack, too. He’ll be fine.”
My wife slides her arms around my neck. “Hey. Let’s not tell everyone about the new cheese ball in my oven for a couple days. I always love having a little secret with just you. It turns me on. Makes me want to do crazy things to you.”
“With a pillow shoved over your mouth?”
She giggles. “It can’t be helped.”
I lean into Lydia’s full lips and kiss her. As my tongue and lips lead hers in slow and sensual movement, a deep sense of gratitude and serenity fills every nook and cranny of my soul.
Love.
That’s what I feel.
Love.
It’s what I always feel these days.
It fills me so completely, it seeps out my pores and drips down my flesh.
Love.
It’s coursing through my blood.
Love.
It fills my lungs. My thoughts. My belly. It’s fused to the very tissue of my heart.
Love, love, love.
I pull away from Lydia and smile at her. God, I wish I knew how to explain this love I feel for her. This sense of rightness. But my paltry words just aren’t enough. After much contemplation on the topic, a lot of it done while staring at Lydia’s face while she sleeps—or at Izzy’s, Mia’s, Bea’s, or Theo’s—I’ve concluded there are no words in the English language to fully encapsulate the perfect communion of love, joy, serenity, and certainty that exists inside me these days. The clarity that comes from a man knowing, without a doubt, he’s living the life he’s meant to live. And so, as usual, I fall back on saying the words that aren’t nearly enough but are all I have: “I love you, Lydia.”
“I love you, too,” my beautiful wife replies. She’s my life. My savior. My patron saint. “More than all the words invented could possibly describe.”
We share a smile.
“This is fun, isn’t it?” I say.
“It’s awesome,” Lydia replies. “Although I sure wish Mia had had her morning nap.”
“No, not the mini-vacation. This.” I motion to her and me. “Us.” I motion to the kids. “Them.” I put my hand on her flat belly—acknowledging the new Morgan we’re soon going to love with all our hearts. “Him or her.”
A huge smile spreads across Lydia’s face. “Yes. This is most definitely fun.”
“Daddy!” Beatrice yells. “Mia’s melting down again. We need to find those worms! Stat!”
We burst out laughing. Beatrice just learned to yell “Stat!” the other day when she dressed up as a doctor for Career Day at school and someone taught her to say it.
“Okay, okay,” I say, pulling myself together from laughing. “I’ll find that jar, if it’s the last thing I do.” I look and look and finally find the jar underneath Izzy’s jacket... far, far away from where Bea said she left it... and it’s empty. And, just like that, I know exactly what happened to those wiggly creatures. The Great Wiggler herself became The Great Emancipator. I look at Izzy’s sweet face and her guilty expression confirms my suspicion.
“Looks like the worms made a break for it,” I say, my eyes trained on Izzy’s.
“What?” Zach says incredulously. He begins looking down at the ground beneath him like he thinks he’s about to get mobbed by a gang of worms.
I continue staring at Izzy, not saying a word. Her face is getting redder and redder. I raise an eyebrow, inviting her to confess her sins.
“I did it!” Izzy finally blurts, throwing her hands over her face. “It was me! I freed the worms! I felt sorry for them!”
Lydia and I share a chuckle.
“What about the fish?” Theo asks. “You don’t feel sorry for them but you feel sorry for a bunch of frickin’ worms?”
“That’s different,” Izzy says. “We eat fish. It’s called the food chain.” She rolls her eyes like she thinks her brother is a supreme dumbass.
“Izzy, worms are part of the food chain, too,” Theo says. “Humans eat fish. Fish eat worms. See? Food chain.”
Izzy puffs out her little chest and boldly explains to her big brother that feeding worms to fish without making the fish work for their meal isn’t part of the frickin’ food chain. It’s the same thing as calling a human who eats a Big Mac a hunter. Theo disagrees and, soon, the conversation escalates, which leads to Beatrice jumping into the fray to defend her big sister—not that anyone asked Beatrice’s opinion, of course, but she’s always got one handy. Soon, Theo is telling Beatrice to please kindly butt out, which prompts Beatrice to shout that Theo’s a big ol’ meanie and she can talk if she wants! Which means Mia begins crying because she hates it when Beatrice is unhappy and, damn, the poor kid just needs a fucking nap...
“You’re honestly excited to add one more to this insanity?” Lydia asks, sliding her hand in mine.
“I couldn’t be more excited. You?”
“Same.”
I squeeze Lydia’s hand... and sigh contentedly... and let the love I feel in every fiber of my being, every cell of my body, every beat of my heart, waft over me and consume me.
Love.