The Tattooed Flower

Epilogue

Quinn-

Everyday hurts. This is the way tragedy works. Everyday has that quick twist that reopens my stitches a little bit. But we stitch them back up again. I stitch them up myself, Caleb stitches them with his kisses and his acceptance, with his beautiful, beautiful, beautiful heart. My son. He stitches them up with his smile and his laughter. My baby stirring around inside me, the feeling of my child stitches me up.

I will never stop hurting completely, but I will never be so hurt that I forget my happiness. I have his smile etched into my memory, my son's. The days when things are hardest and even the flowers I plant in the gardens that line the streets of our city do not help me, I reach into my mind. I find Aaron's smile. I see his chocolate curls and dark eyes. I see the freckles that sprinkle over his nose and his favorite T-shirt with the dogs from that TV show he likes to watch. I see all of the good things about my life, and those things shroud out the bad.

Caleb is still the love of my life even after a little over 5 and 1/2 years of marriage and arguing and love and all that goes with sharing your life with someone. Tomorrow I will be 30-years-old and I will still be haunted by the decisions I made 12 years ago. But I will be stronger tomorrow and the next day and week and month and year. I will keep living. I will spend the rest of my life hopelessly in love with my husband, tediously tending over our children, and my goddaughters, Avery and Vivienne. I will spend countless days gossiping and laughing with their mother and teasing Avery's fathers. All of us, Ruth and John, Matthew and Dave, Caleb and I, we will watch as our children chase after one another Avery hovering over them like a mother hen. Vivienne running around giggling as Aaron chases her, Ruth and John and Caleb and I fussing over our new babies. The two will be born just days apart if everything goes well. They'll grow up together just like the rest of us have. Caleb and I have grown up in the last five years alongside Ruth and John. Having children does that to you, forces you to grow up. But it is a welcome kind of growth. The kind I've spent years longing for. Today I am home in that same house, it has been altered and remodeled. Changed to adapt to our changes. An additional office and two new bedrooms, the attic made into my new art studio. My old art room, a space for my mother to stay when she and her husband John visit. They're planning to move down here to be closer to us, John treats her like a queen. His queen. I see smiles from my mother, the kind I never saw in those first seventeen years of my life. She passionately spoils Aaron, giving and giving and giving him all the love she has.

I used think I had one beginning, something that had been fucked up pretty badly. But, I learned something. My life is full of infinite beginnings, if only I choose to start them.

The End.

Alrighty, so there it is!!! I've been considering a sequel, but it would be centralized around a different character or characters. If you have an opinion, DM me or let me know in the comments! Thanks for sticking it out and supporting my story!!!
Love yah,
Lidi