Abandoned

72. Epilogue

Four years later.

Meredith.

It's been about four years since I found out I was pregnant with our fourth.

It turned out to be another little girl. She came out with very light, almost white hair but as she grew older her hair became a golden blonde shade.

She has her dad's curls and eyes but she has my face and looks.

The twins are now nine starting third grade. I still can't believe it was nine years ago this all started.

Hope is now six years old and starting kindergarten. The older she gets the more she looks like Derek.

She still has her blonde curls and green eyes but she definitely has Derek's face.

I think we're pretty much done with kids but ever since Ellie turned three he's been talking about how she's not our little baby anymore and how she's growing up too fast.

Ellie is still in pull-ups, she only wears diapers at night in case of any accidents.

She's been doing pretty good with potty training if she wakes up before and wakes one of us up.

She's still scared of the dark so we were thinking about putting a night light in the bathroom connected to her room so she's able to go alone.

Mallory and Miles still both go to soccer and Mallory still does ballet and Miles did baseball for a while but he's been talking about quitting and starting hockey.

Ever since Derek started telling him stories about how he used to play hockey in high school he's wanted to start.

I think we'll keep him in baseball for a bit until he decides which one he would like to do.

Hope is still in gymnastics and she's gotten really good at it. She likes showing off to her siblings, especially Ellie.

Ellie looks up to Hope since they are so close in age.

Ellie took up gymnastics about a year ago and she's been doing pretty well so far.

In the beginning, she wasn't too sure about it but Hope started helping her at home and she started to really improve.

The kids get along pretty well for the most part. Miles only really fights with Mallory.

He doesn't usually go for the younger girls. Derek's put it in his head that Hope and Ellie will have enough boy troubles when they're older, they need him on their side and not rooting for the other side.

But he was never really violent with any of the kids. They just have small arguments here and there but he usually gives in with the younger girls.

He has gotten into one or two fights at school though. They were both about Mallory.

There was this one boy who liked Mallory but she told him she didn't like him back when he told her so he spread a rumour about her.

Eventually, it got back to Miles and when he asked Mallory about it she told him the truth and beat up the kid.

The second time was when Mallory had a crush on a boy and he found out from one of her friends and when he confronted her about it he said she was too ugly for him.

It upset her pretty badly and this boy was also on the other team of his soccer game so he tackled the kid on the ground during the game.

Derek, me and the kids were all at the game, Derek coaches the soccer games so he let it go on for a bit until the kid looked like he couldn't take much more.

And then when the kid's dad got upset about how Derek let it go on for so long he started something with Derek and then they got into a fight.

It wasn't too big, the guy insulted Derek and Miles so he punched him a few times until he dropped it and walked away.

Miles' team still won despite there being a fight in the middle of it so the game went pretty well.

Miles is the most like Derek, he always has been. He's all Derek, he only slightly looks like me in his face but the rest is all Derek.

"Hey, Mer, have you seen Ellie anywhere?" Derek says as he comes into the room.

"I thought you were playing with her?" I say. "I am, we were playing hide and seek and now I can't find her," he says.

"Can you actually not find her or am I just supposed to play along?" I whisper.

"I actually can't find her Mer," he says looking around the room.

"Well, she's not in here," I giggle. "How do you always lose at this game? She's three years old," I say.

"She's too small, she can fit everywhere. That's what happens when you put too much stress on yourself and go into labour early," he says looking under the couch.

"It's not my fault, there was a big storm, there were a lot of accidents and surgeries," I say.

Ellie was born a month early so she was a preemie and she's always been a little smaller ever since.

"I'm not saying it's your fault, I'm just saying she's small and now I can't find her," he says standing up.

"If you were a three-year-old hiding from your dad where would you go?" I say.

"My father and I never played hide and seek, he taught me how to fish when I was three," he says.

"You had a sad childhood," I say. "Opposed to your happy childhood?" He says.

"My childhood was sad but it was very eventful, one second my mother was slitting her wrists for her lover's attention and the next we were fleeing the city because she ruined everything in Seattle," I say.

"I'd rather be fishing the fleeing the city," he says. "Of course you would, you're from Manhattan, you're genetically engineered to hate everywhere but Manhattan," I say.

"Should I just call off the game?" He says. "If you want her to do that dance she does when she wins again, go for it but she'll call you 'loser' instead of Daddy for the rest of the week," I say.

"She picked that up from you when you win an argument. She's practically you but in a three-year-old which is kind of worse. Usually, with you, I can just have sex with you and you're nice to me again, I have to buy her a new toy to get her to stop bullying me," he says.

"She's three and she's already blackmailing you?" I chuckle. "Like mother, like daughter," he says.

He kisses my lips before he calls off the game. She was hiding in the broom closet inside an empty box the entire time.

• The end •

•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•