Under the Sunlight

Epilogue

           

One Year Later

Cassandra and Jacob had indeed found it unbearable to spend time apart and it wasn't long after they got together that she was subletting her apartment and living full time with Jacob and Max.  A few months later, when his lease expired, they'd rented a bigger apartment, thinking about buying a house the next year.

Today was Cassandra and Jacob's one year anniversary.  He'd originally wanted to take her somewhere romantic via the Back Door.  But she'd insisted that they spend the day together as a family.  And so two weeks before, he'd begun to put plan B in motion for that day, with Max's help.

Now they were on Plan C because stormy weather had rolled in, ruining their plans for a picnic in the park.  But both Max and Cassandra had laughed and decided that a living room campout would be even better.

While Cassandra and Max were having a blast in the living room, making a fort out of blankets, chairs and pillows, Jacob was in the kitchen making dinner.

As he was working, his thoughts kept wandering over the months he and Cassandra had been together. Living together had been a bit awkward at first, but it soon became natural.  They'd hit a bit of a rocky patch three months prior when Josie had finally decided to move out to Portland. 

It had been weird, they hadn't really wanted to let her in on the whole Library idea but Jacob had decided it was time to tell his ex-wife about who he really was.  Josie had taken that better than he'd expected, she'd long suspected that Jacob hadn't exactly been telling her the truth.  Cassandra wasn't jealous of Josie . . .exactly.  But it had turned out that Cassandra had still harbored a bit of insecurity about his relationship with his son's mother.  And he'd realized just how deep into playing mother Cassandra had gotten.  It was hard for her to cede some of that role to Max's actual mother.

No amount of talking that out had really  completely unbroken Cassandra's heart.  Sometimes Jacob wished he could talk Cassandra into a child: via adoption or maybe a surrogate.  Perhaps having a child whose mothering she didn't have to share would ease her pain.  But she still hated babies and he knew she still had worries about her future, so while he'd brought it up once or twice, he hadn't pushed.  He'd just hoped that time and the fact that Max lived with them and not Josie would help.  Josie had tried to meet them more than halfway. She'd been kind to Cassandra, she'd enrolled herself in school and had told Jacob that Max was still better living full time with him.   Josie still had a long way to go in her own journey and Jacob realized that Max would probably always be with him.  Which was just fine for the selfish part of him.

But he wasn't gonna dwell on that.  He had plans for today.  Talks about how they felt about marriage had gone much more smoothly.  He'd come to realize that marriage could go well if you were marrying the right person for the right reasons.  And not long ago Cassandra had told him a similar thing.  Which had been exactly why he'd originally planned an evening for just the two of them in some romantic city. 

But then as he brought dinner out to the fort where his girl and his son were waiting, he'd realized that Plan B was even better.  This was the life that they were going to lead: adventure, romance and an exuberant little boy.

Dinner went off with only the most minor of messes to the carpet, Cassandra's skirt and Max's shirt. Cassandra had managed to clean them both up without leaving a stain, though they'd have to do some laundry later.  Then Jacob asked Max to help him talk the dishes back into the kitchen and help make dessert.

"I can take some stuff too," Cassandra said, beginning to gather things up.

"No, we have men business!" Max exclaimed and Jacob held his breath, afraid the whole thing was blown.