Desire and Despair

Epilogue

"Uncle Nathan!" Ava called.

Nathan turned with a smile. "Ava! You're getting so tall." He knew that was the cliche thing to say to relatives but he genuinely did feel shocked. Could it really have been so long since he'd seen her last?

Andrew was nodding proudly. "The doctor said she's in the 97th percentile for height...."

Nathan's mind began to wander as Andrew digressed into her latest report card (exemplary by the way), which inevitably led to a detailed retelling of the touchdown Jack had scored for his football team last week and Mackenzie's impending college applications.

Ava didn't seem too interested either. "I'm starving," she announced loudly.

"There's lots of food inside," Nathan reassured her.

She grinned. "Good. Cause you know you're about five years overdue on that cake you promised." And she was joking, she wasn't young or demanding anymore, she was tall and teenaged and all dressed up in the very same dress that had used to fit Mackenzie last time they'd all gathered here and it had been five whole years and time hadn't stopped for the rest of the world while he was getting himself together and a lot of things were five years overdue. So much had changed. He hadn't kept up with any of his old prison friends. It wasn't like they'd had some kind of big falling out, there just wasn't much to talk about these days. They'd only ever really been friends of necessity anyway, forced together by iron bars, making idle conversation to pass the time, they'd never said anything groundbreaking, always going in the same tired circles. Besides, they'd been part of the darkest time of his life, inadvertently of course, none of it had been their fault, but still, he hardly needed those reminders every day-though he'd admit at times he wanted to check in on them, he was possessed by a certain morbid curiosity, like watching the stock market crash with nothing invested, nothing to lose, only wanting to see how far it could fall. But there was something deeper too, a kind of survivor's guilt: he could laugh at the miserable prison system most of the time, but every now and then he had to take a moment of silence. It was easy to mock bigoted administration and corrupt governance-but those idiots had actual power, and actual people had to live under it. The guilt was never enough to make him wish he could trade places-he was glad to be the survivor-but every now and then he had to wonder about those who hadn't been so fortunate.

And then again it kind of felt like nothing had changed, like the past five years had never happened, like he had some kind of do-over, to stay in place and say the right things and actually serve out the cake. He wondered how it would all end this time around.

"I can't believe we made it here," Rochelle marveled. She hadn't thought they'd make it back here. It felt like reliving the past, repeating every last mistake, only now no longer able to even claim naivety. She felt kind of stupid in all the deja vu. Hadn't they been here before? Hadn't she seen the ending? Didn't she know where all this led? Mackenzie, who had about a million applications to fill out, had made several pointed comments about how it wasn't her fault Nathan couldn't make a marriage last, and it really should've been enough that she'd come to the first three. And Rochelle's entire family, extended and otherwise, had clearly been holding back jokes about whether the wedding would "actually happen this time" when she'd invited them. She couldn't quite blame them. She knew they thought she was an idiot for doing it all over. But then she didn't really expect it to end any better this time. She'd just said yes anyway. She wasn't sure if that was more or less stupid.

Her mom had straight up told her not to go through with it. She said she'd had her doubts since the beginning and when Nathan walked out the first time that should've been the end right there. She said he didn't deserve this patience, this forgiveness, this gorgeous second wedding.