Page 88 of Every Heartbeat After

Mine to claim. Mine to love. For as long a life as we get and as good of one as we make. If that’s the only certainty I get this side of heaven, then it was worth every moment spent thinking a love like this couldn’t possibly exist.

Because now I know.

Epilogue

Tess

I thoughtI’d experienced all the best things the beach had to offer, but that was until I saw baby toes buried in the sand.

Tilly giggles like mad, kicking and squealing, sending little tufts of sand flying into the air. Her Grandma Betty feeds into the excitement by scooping up handfuls to pour onto each chunky thigh. It spills like sugar down into her endless rolls. Bath time will be hell, but isn’t that what grandparents are for anyway? That is, if we can ever wake Pete, who’s stretched out on a towel a few feet away and snoring so loudly the seagulls leave us be.

I glance up to ensure Kit is seeing the immeasurable cuteness, but he and Gary have each taken one of Asher’s hands in theirs and are swinging him high above the waves rolling off the Gulf. Our son, who is the spitting image of his father with all his dark hair and deeply tanned skin, gazes up at his dad over an equally crooked nose. Turns out, he got my sense of adventure but Kit’s sense of balance. Last year on our annual family vacation, we went to Europe, and our son managed to break his nose just by tripping over a loose cobblestone in the road.

I shake my head, tutting. My parents would get such a kick out of him.

“Someone’s enjoying her first beach trip!” The adoring voice draws my gaze upward. I squint into the bright sky, where Mo graciously shifts his weight to blot out the sun. “I came to invite you all to dinner. Alex is closing down Topwater early so we can use the space.” He glances from us three girls, plus Pete, to our male counterparts in the surf. “With so many of us now, we thought that’d give us a bit more room.”

“I’d love that, Mo,” I say warmly.

“We all would!” Betty adds, elbowing her husband, who chokes on an inhale but otherwise doesn’t stir.

“Then it’s settled,” Mauricio says, clapping two bronze hands together. “See you tonight,Querida.” He bends to pinch one of Tilly’s fat rolls. “Gordita.”

I swat his hand playfully, laughing at his nickname for her. Sheisquite the chunk. And who doesn’t love a fat baby? He strides through the sand, which squeaks with each step, back up to the boardwalk that still makes me blush to look at.

“Mama! Mama!” Asher comes careening toward me, collapsing to his knees with his arms outstretched. “Look what I found!”

In the bloom of his small palms, a sun-bleached sand dollar appears. Completely unscathed by the elements. My throat thickens, and I work to swallow past the lump that has formed. I gather Tilly in my arms and stand her up on my thighs so she can see. “Look, Tills, your brother found a sand dollar.”

One chubby little finger darts out to stroke the smooth surface of the shell. Asher, who is more patient than any four-year-old has business being, smiles down at us as we admire his prize. I have to blink back tears just to see it clearly.

“Mama?” He tilts his head. “Are you crying?”

Betty leans in to peer down at the shell, not hearing her grandson’s question for the wind and shrieking children nearby that drown him out. But Kit appears over his shoulder, eyes trained not on his prize but on me.

“It’s okay, Ash. Sometimes people are happy and sad at the same time.” Kit smooths a hand over our son’s wild hair. “Remember what we always say, buddy?”

Asher nods. He’s turning pink on the apples of his cheeks and the precipices of his shoulders. By morning it’ll turn to a tan. “Crying is good. It lets the feelings out!”

“That’s right,” Kit says, grinning with pride. Then his gaze finds mine. “It was sitting right there on top of the sand, like your dad left it out for us to find. I’d say he’s happy we came.”

I press my lips together and nod, feeling the hot tear streak down my cheek. It took years for me to feel ready to come back to the Carmen. But like Gary once said, eventually I got to the point where I wanted my children to know my parents. To know me, or who I was for such a long period of my life. So when we started making plans for this year’s trip, I knew it was time.

It’s also the year Gage will go up for parole, a fact so stressful to Kit and his parents that a trip to the Carmen was the perfect distraction. A reminder that, no matter what happens, we have each other. We’ll get through it. All of us, Gary included, know a thing or two about surviving hardships, after all.

And Mom and Dad were here, of course, waiting for us to arrive. But I didn’t have to come here to find them. They are everywhere else, too. I see them in my children. The way they laugh unabashedly like my dad. In Tilly’s fascination with my rings. I don’t have to wonder what they’d think of me, or of us and this little life we’ve built for ourselves. Iknowthey’d be so proud. Iknowthey’d think it was perfect.

Because I am. And I do. All the good parts are simply sharpened by the bad, honing them into something even more beautiful. Breathtakingly fleeting. Sacred, because it’s all temporary.

Betty allows herself to be tugged toward the shoreline by her grandson, where she replaces Kit in their swinging game. Kit flops down in the sand beside me, throws an arm around my shoulder, and pulls me and our infant as close as we can get.

“I love you, Tess.” He kisses my temple, that smoldering sandalwood scent of his washing over me. Tilly squawks, and he tousles what little hair she has. “Love you, too, Tills.” Then his gaze finds mine, and he smiles knowingly. “Maybe tonight, the kids could have a sleepover with Grandma and Grandpa while you and I go crab hunting?”

“I thought they took care of that at your annual visit,” I say, brow crumpling.

He throws his head back in a boisterous laugh. “For the last time,I don’t have crabs!”

His mom and my uncle glance over their shoulders, casting confused glances our way. Even his sleeping father stirs. I’m too busy hiding my blush behind my baby, but at least Kit waves them off.

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