Visitor (Normila / Laurmani)

Epilogue

A/N: I wasn't planning on writing one, but a few people asked for an epilogue, and I felt nice. LOL. 

Lauren was awoken from her nap on the couch by a loud yelp and saw the family dog being chased by a rambunctious toddler. When the little girl was distracted by the woman rising from her sleep, the dog ran out of the pet door into the backyard. Installing that door was the best gift the dog could have gotten.

"Tiara, don't yank on Preslee's tail. It hurts her," Lauren explained to her 18-month old daughter.

Lauren could smell food cooking in the kitchen, which prompted her stomach to growl. She got up from the couch and went to see what her wife was cooking. Creeping up behind her, Lauren wrapped her arms around Normani and kissed her on the neck.

"What are you cooking?" Lauren inquired.

Normani answered, "Baked chicken, mixed vegetables, and wheat rolls."

"Ugh!" Lauren complained. "It's Friday. Can't we eat something fun like pizza or spaghetti?"

"I'm making gluten-free pizza tomorrow," Normani notified her.

Lauren whined, "Why do you hate us?"

"I do this out of love, Lauren. I do this out of love," said Normani.

Tiara ran into the kitchen and tugged at the bottom of Lauren's shirt. Lauren looked down at her daughter and saw her point at the jar of cookies on the counter. The mother took off the lid and pulled out a morsel when Normani noticed.

"Don't give her a cookie now. It'll spoil her dinner," Normani said.

"It's just one cookie," Lauren contested.

"She can wait until after dinner," insisted Normani.

When her wife turned back around to continue cooking, Lauren sneakily held the cookie behind her back. Tiara jumped up to grab the treat and ran back to the living room. Lauren soon followed behind her to pop in the movie, Frozen, into the DVD player.

Lauren smiled to herself as she watched her daughter sit on the floor and be entranced by the cartoon. If it wasn't for their parents and the Reids helping them with the money, Tiara wouldn't have been able to hear the movie. Normani and Lauren's daughter was born deaf. They knew something was wrong when she wouldn't react to their voices as a baby. Luckily, their pediatrician correctly identified the problem immediately and sent them to see an audiologist.

The audiologist said that Tiara was a good candidate for a cochlear implant. The problem was that the surgery would cost $70,000, and that was money the couple didn't have. Fortunately, the Reids were able to pitch in $10,000, and their parents were able to come up with the rest by taking out second mortgages and dipping into Tiara's college fund.

In Lauren's eyes, her daughter was perfect, but she worried about how she would be treated in school. The implant was a rather large device attached to the back of the ears and the head. Both parents were afraid that children would tease her when she started kindergarten, but that was the least of their concerns at the moment. Tiara was behind in speech development, and her sessions with the speech pathologist were expensive, even with insurance. Nonetheless, Lauren and Normani could not be more in love with their daughter. They cherished every moment with her.

Lauren's attention was suddenly taken away from the movie and her daughter by Preslee's whining outside. Normani could also hear it in the kitchen. "What's wrong with Preslee?" Normani asked.

"I don't know," Lauren replied. "I'll go outside and check."

The fair-skinned woman slid open the slide door and stepped outside. The sun was about to set, so the glare made it difficult for Lauren to see clearly around the backyard. She walked out a bit more searching for Preslee. What she saw almost gave her a heart attack.

"Normani!" she yelled. "Come outside, now."

"What is it?" Normani yelled back.

"Just come outside," Lauren responded.

Normani ran from the kitchen out into the backyard with her curious toddler following behind her. A dark figure who was holding Preslee sat the dog down on the ground, but it kept jumping up on the figure's legs wanting attention. The whine that they had heard from the creature was a happy one. It was one often heard from dogs seeing an owner who had been gone for a long time.

"She's beautiful," the figure complimented Tiara while staring at the little girl peeking from behind Normani's leg. "I'm sorry to scare you like this, but I saw Preslee in the backyard and just had to hold her."

Normani stammered, "How...how is this even possible? I thought you were dead."

"I escaped," said Camila.