Epilogue 1

                                        

                                              
Ten years later...
Mom's crying again.
Not the loud kind. Not the shaking kind either. Just quiet, soft tears that keep slipping out no matter how many times she wipes at them with the sleeve of her cardigan. The kind of crying she does when her heart's too full.
Dad has one arm around her, the other hand gripping my shoulder like he's afraid she might disappear if he lets go.
And here I am—Jimmy. Their son. Their oldest. The boy who used to hide in his room when the silence became too much. Now standing in front of them with a ring box in my hand, sweaty palms, and a heart thudding so loud I'm surprised they can't hear it.
"So, as I said, I'm going to propose," I say again, even though they heard me the first time. I needed to say it out loud. Needed to see their faces when I did. 

Mom let out a breath that was half a laugh, half a sniffly sob. "My baby's all grown up. A whole man now."
I groaned, grinning. "Mom, please. Not the my baby speech again."
She wiped her eyes, dramatic as ever. "You were just drooling on my shoulder and now you're out here with a career and talking about marriage. How dare you."
I smirked. "Pretty sure I stopped drooling years ago."
She gave me a look. "Debatable."
I laughed. "Well, debatable or not, I'm a graphic designer, fully employed, emotionally stable, most days, and hopefully soon-to-be married."
She threw her hands up. "You're... a grown-up! When did that happen?!"
"Somewhere between puberty and paying taxes," I said, nudging her playfully.
She shook her head, smiling through teary eyes. "You're still my baby, no matter how many invoices you send." Her tears only fall harder, and I feel something loosen in my chest. Something warm and weighty all at once. Because they earned this moment. We all did.
There was a time it could've gone the other way.
That year—God, that year. The one when everything cracked.  When Mom went quiet and threw dad out. When I learned to tell time by the sound of their silences. I didn't understand everything. Still don't. I just knew something was broken. Something big.
But they didn't let it stay broken.
They went to therapy. Started showing up, for each other and for us. They fought for us. And slowly, almost painfully, things changed. I saw it happen. Not in grand gestures, but in the small, stubborn ways they chose love every day. I watched my dad become... more. More present. More patient. More annoying, honestly but in a good way. Especially with us.
The shelter he started became his second home. Then it became shelters, plural. As if saving animals might save something in him, too. He took in strays like he was making up for every childhood pet he was never allowed to have. Dogs with three legs. Cats with anxiety. A goat named Meryl Sheep, and, of course, Hugo—the parrot who screams Taylor Swift lyrics whenever he's startled. ("I'm the problem, it's me!" has never been so unsettling at 2 a.m.)
He's softer now, in a way he never used to be. I don't mean weaker. I mean open. Unarmored. His gentleness isn't hesitant anymore; it's steady. Visible in the way he crouches to greet a nervous puppy or lingers too long at the window when I used to come home past curfew.
He hovers sometimes. Overcorrects. Tries to parent with an earnest intensity that makes me both love and pity him. Like when he asked Alice if she wanted to go shopping with him to "bond" and she stared at him like he'd offered to sell her on eBay.