Page 27 of 518 Hope Ave
Lucas and I make our way to the front of the church, and when it’s time the church organ plays its first note, signaling that my bride is about to enter the hall. Everyone stands from their seats and turns to the entrance. My body explodes with excited anticipation.
"Here we go," I mumble to myself after breathing out a puff of air.
There will be struggles and compromises to make, but you will get through them if you truly believe in one another…
We've made Madame Lovehart's words the motto of our relationship. And now here we are, getting married in front of all our loved ones, both on Earth and beyond.
And as I recite the words and promise to love and cherish my now-wife forevermore, I lift my eyes skyward and say a silent prayer.I hope you're proud of me, Mom, Dad.Because I sure am…
Epilogue 2
Quinn
Ten years later…
"Everyone! Dinner in ten!" I holler from the kitchen. A variety of responses come back from various parts of the house.
"Do you need help setting up, Quinn?" Cora asks from the breakfast counter.
I sigh. "Oh, yes, please."
"Everything still in the same place?" she asks with a grin.
"You know it," I reply with a wink. Stephen, our little boy, runs into the kitchen with his model airplane, makingwooshnoises as it rises and falls. "Stevie, honey, could you please help your Aunty Cora out and set the table?"
"Oookaaaaay," he replies with a playful pout. He places his plane on the breakfast counter then runs up and hugs his aunt tightly, causing her to burst into laughter.
She pets him on the head and hands him some placemats. "Here you go, Stevie. You can put these at the right places, right?"
"Yesyesyes, gimmegimmegimme," Stephen says as he bounces up and down. He takes the placemats and carefully places them around the dining table like it’s a well-practiced dance.
Cora laughs at how Stevie wiggles his bottom while she picks up plates for six from the kitchen cupboard and then goes off to help him set the table. Cora has been working her butt off at the performing arts school in New York, and although she always says that it's tiring, I can see that she loves it. She's even gotten a few offers to audition for various small plays and musicals on Broadway.
Ezra couldn't keep his tears away when he heard the news. He’s so incredibly proud of his siblings, just like they’re proud of him.
"Knock, knock," Lucas calls from the entryway. "The door was unlocked so I let myself in. Oh, wow, that smells amazing!" He comes into the kitchen and kisses me on the cheek. "How are you?"
"Oh, you know," I start, then cringe as Stephen screeches in delight while Cora chases him around the dining room table. I burst into laughter at the sight of it. "Same old, same old. And yourself?"
He bounces a shoulder. "Same old, same old. We're writing a couple of papers at the lab now, and they're finally letting me stick my name on one of them. Which is fair enough because I pulled most of the weight on that one," he says with a grin.
Cora spots Lucas and comes crashing into her brother. Lucas recoils with a bigoofand hugs his little sister. Since Lucas graduated from college—he was valedictorian, of course—he's worked on the Mathematical research team at Stanford and has apparently been making a name for himself. Over the last six years, he's been involved in quite a few projects but has never been able to add his name to the list of authors since he wasn'ttechnicallypart of the ‘research’ aspect of them—which is total bullshit, if you ask me.
"Sooooo, where's Tammy?" Cora teases, causing Lucas's face to turn as red as a ripe tomato. Cora gasps and smacks him on the arm. "Lucas, youpromisedI could meet her!"
He clears his throat. "She couldn't make it this time. But she said to say hi."
"Oh well, next time then," I say with a shrug, knowing she’d make it if she could. She and Lucas have been dating for a solid year now, so things are as serious as can be at this stage. I think she’s lovely. "Not like this is the one and only family get-together that we have in a year, anyway," I wink at Cora who grins back.
"Aw, what? Tammy isn't coming?" Ezra playfully whines as he comes into the kitchen. He gives his younger siblings a bear hug each then comes over to me and kisses me deeply. "Sorry, honey, the new guy needed alotof guidance, and I've just spent the last two hours telling him how our systems work."
"That's fine, dinner's just finished cooking anyway." I give him a big kiss in return. I'm so proud of Ezra, the love of my life. He started a technological consulting firm a few years after gradulating from college and loves being his own boss. And I suspect that he loves being the boss of others, too. Business has been booming as more and more people and companies are looking for more digital solutions as they get with the times.
"Ewwwww, guys, get a room!" Laura, our ten-year-old, giggles as she finally appears. We all laugh along with her. We named our kids after our parents, Laura for my mom, and Stephen for Ezra's dad. "Oh hey, Aunt Cora! Uncle Luke! You're here!" She runs up to them and pulls them both into a hug.
What can I say? We're averycuddly family.
"Ah, Laura, Stevie, I brought something for you!" Lucas suddenly says and he jogs over to his luggage in the entry hall. The kids both tail him like little puppies as soon as they heard the magic words. Rips of paper, followed by squeals of excitement emanate from where the three of them disappear to, and it isn't long before little Stephen runs up to his mommy and daddy with his new toy.
