Epilogue
Five years later…
Lochlan grins, buried up to his neck in sand by our three kids. He wiggles a toe near the youngest.
Polly buries it and pats it with her plastic shovel. “Daddy, no.”
The other two girls giggle and pour more buckets of sand onto him as he struggles to break arms and legs free
Suddenly, he stands, sand flies everywhere and he roars. “Oi! I’m a sea monster and coming to eat you.”
Squealing, they all run toward the ocean and I jog behind to make sure the toddler doesn’t dive head first into a wave.
He scoops up all three and dunks them into the ocean while they laugh and kick. The littlest, he plops on her butt at the water’s edge by me. She bounces up and down, yelling at her siblings in baby-talk while he throws the older two into a wave.
The sea monster glances up at me with the devil in his eyes. “Everyone. Get Mommy!”
“Oh, no.” I run the other way but seconds later I’m lifted off my feet and tossed into the frigid water, swallowing salt water because I’m laughing so hard.
“You beast!” I dive under, pinch his ass, then swim away.
The girls giggle at the shoreline and when I come up for air, I shout to the oldest. “Watch Polly.”
Jennifer grabs the baby’s hand. “I got her, Mommy. You go get Daddy.”
“Hey, four against one. That’s not fair.” Lochlan grabs me by the waist and tickles me mercilessly while I struggle to get to his armpits to repay the torture.
My middle one, the mathematician, pipes up, “It is too, fair. You’re four times bigger than us.”
“Helloooo?” A familiar male voice shouts from up at the dunes.
When Grayson waves I point. “Time out. There’s Aunt Izzy and Uncle Gray.”
“Yeah!!!” Their kids and ours hug and start looking for shells while I open the cooler filled with juice and beer.
We chat for a while until Lilac and Slate show up. She’s got a baby bump and he looks like he’s on top of the world. He sits her down and puts a cold sparkling water in her hand.
After a bit, CJ and his brother Andy arrive, holding another plastic cooler between them. Their wives follow, kids in tow.
Altogether, we make an even dozen.
“Hold on. Who needs sunscreen?” I hold up the plastic tube.
“We do.”
I slather down the first bunch, then another, while the guys set up a tent for the youngest to sleep in. Chairs, towels, beach toys, and such are all put into a giant circle, taking up a good portion of sand.
CJ and Andy take the older ones for a game of water football, the rules I don’t even pretend to understand. The babies play in a blow-up pool near Lilac.
Me, Mel, and Blake sit near the ocean’s edge, making sure as the kids run up and down, they don’t get in too deep.
“I am so glad we could all be together again.” I sip on a beer as the sun grows high in the sky.
“Miss the Fourth on the island? Perish the thought.” Mel chuckles, shades her eyes, and turns inland. “How do you like your new place?”
“Love it. It’s got lots of room. After the kids tire out, we figured to have dinner there. We got lobsters for us, hamburgers and hotdogs for the kids.”
“Sounds perfect.” Blake leans back and closes her eyes. “This is pure heaven.”
