Teenagers, Love and Pregnancy

Epilogue

The wind whipped my now shoulder-length hair around my face as I unwrapped the final bowl of potato salad and placed it in the center of the picnic blanket.

"Joey, can you get your sisters please?" I asked my son, who was sitting to my left.

"Sure, Mom."

He stood up on the picnic blanket, the muscles in the exposed part of his arms rippling as he pushed himself off the ground. Once he was standing, he turned around and offered his hand to Adrienne, who was still sitting on the ground. He pulled her up and held her hand as they walked down a grassy hill toward the playground, where my daughters, Emily and Lucy, were playing. Their laughter and flirty banter was carried on the breeze to us as I watched them walk down the hill, Adrienne's long, fiery red waves and feminine navy blue dress waving in the wind. I smiled when he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek as she tussled his wind-whipped blonde locks.

"You know who they remind me of, don't you?" A husky voice murmured in my ear, sending chills down my spine. It didn't matter that Kendall and I had been married for almost fifteen years. I would always find him as sexy and enticing as I had when we were seventeen.

"Yeah," I said, leaning back and putting my head into his chest. "Us."

"They're seventeen, the same age as we were when we got pregnant," he remarked. "You don't think they'll. . ."

I sighed and wound a piece of grass around my finger.

"I don't think so," I said. "I think we've taught him better than that. At least, I hope we have."

Since Joey was old enough and mature enough to understand , there were two things we had taught him about as much as we possibly could; one of those was how to keep from having children as a teen. The other was about his godfather and namesake, Joey. We told him what a wonderful man and person he was, and how he had died in a car accident just before Joey was born. What my son didn't know was that I had dated Joey, and he had kissed me just before he died. Kendall and I had promised each other that one day we would tell him the full story. That day just hadn't come yet.

My other son, Daniel, whined and squirmed from where he was sitting in my lap, stretching his hands out away from me. Daniel was sixteen months old. To me, he looked like a cherub, with a full head of blonde hair, chubby arms and legs, and full, red cheeks. Unfortunately, my little angel had a less-than-divine impatience about him.

"If I let you off my lap, Mister," I said to him. "You have to promise me you won't get into the food."

Daniel only wiggled some more in response. I sighed and put him down on the picnic blanket in front of me, turning him around so I could see what he was doing.

Kendall leaned back some more and I leaned with him, stroking the stubble on his face with my left hand.

"Do you think it'll rain?" I asked, looking at the sky, which seemed a little grey.

"We're in Seattle," Kendall teased, kissing my ear. "Of course it'll rain."

I chuckled. Kendall and I had always joked that Seattle was the place where anyone could be a successful meteorologist, as long as they predicted rain each and every day.

Joey and I had only made it two months living at my house with Mom and John before we moved to Seattle. Not only did we relocate to be with Kendall, but I decided to move because there were too many ghosts at home. No matter how many times I stepped into the baby blue nursery on the second floor of my house, all I could think about was what happened on New Year's Eve. Plus, my parents were getting tired of hearing Joey cry every night at 2 AM. We moved to Seattle when Joey was only nine weeks old, and we lived in a tiny apartment with Kendall just off-campus from his school. I'm not going to lie, it was hard. I stayed up during the day to take care of Joey while Kendall was at school, and I worked a job as a secretary in a hospital at night so we had enough money to make ends meet (which, more often then not, they barely did). Even finding a job was hard when all I had was a high school diploma. But we survived, and a year after Kendall graduated, when Joey was four-and-a-half, I went to college and got a degree as a veterinarian.

As soon as Kendall graduated, we got married in a ceremony in the Bahamas.

After we moved to a decent-sized house in the suburbs, Kendall began begging me to have another baby. At first, I was apprehensive. Joey was a blessing every day, but it was hard being so poor and so young with a baby. But I loved Kendall, and I knew we were better off now, so I finally agreed.

When Kendall and I were twenty-four and Joey was seven, Emily was born, with a head full of Kendall's dark hair. Even though her father and I both had straight hair, hers ended up getting curlier and curlier as she got older. She was smart and serious, and never took her job as big sissy to Lucy and Daniel lightly. She was a bit of a virtuoso, being only ten and having already mastered both piano and violin.

When Emily was three, I got pregnant (again!) with Lucy, a stunning blonde who was the first child not to have Kendall's green eyes. She was Kendall's pride and joy, and they were the closest of friends. Emily was very playful and easygoing. She was only seven, but you could already see his witty sense of humor and teasing, cheeky personality in her.

We had been stunned when we found out at age thirty-three that I was pregnant again, this time with Daniel, the runt of our litter with a seriously adorable attitude.

"Do you ever think about just how lucky we are?" Kendall asked as he squeezed my hand. "I have four incredible children and a stunning wife. I feel like I'm living the world's best love story every day of my life." He kissed my forehead, then slowly trailed down my nose until his lips were firmly locked with mine. He bit my bottom lip gently, and I giggled.

"Not in front of the kids," I said with a small smirk as I pulled away, looking down the hill where Joey, Emily, Lucy, and Adrienne were approaching.

"Can't they know that Mommy and Daddy love each other?" he pouted.

I simply responded by giving his wrist a squeeze.

As my family and Joey's love (who might as well have been family) gathered around the picnic blanket and began to fill their plates, I thought again about how lucky I was to have all of them. I thought back to what Kendall had told me seventeen years ago on the day our first child was born.

"Everything is going to be okay from now on."

But everything was better than okay.

Everything was perfect.