Epilogue

“You just had to go and be a family of overachievers. Seriously Bev, we’re all too old for this jetlag,” Jackson complained.

“You didn’t have to come,” I pointed out.

“You know very well that we had to. Your entire family is fantastic at holding grudges,” Ellie was the one to point out.

“It’s just nine countries in three weeks guys. We can do this!” I tried to convince.

“Mom, you suck at giving motivational speeches. Don’t do it,” Kyle said amusedly.

At twenty eight, my first born son is the apple of my eye. He has consistently made me proud to call him my son, and his recent doctoral achievement didn’t disappoint one bit. I’ve always believed that he was destined for greatness.

I’ve believed that about all my children.

“Where is your father?” I asked him.

“Last I checked, he and Uncle Charlie were still trying to get Elena to calm down. She’s freaking out about her speech,” he replied.

“She does know that she’ll be fine right? She’s the daughter of two prominent figures in the acting world,” Nellie pointed out.

“She’s also my shyest sibling. There’s no way she’s going to be fine. I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t throw up altogether,” Kyle joked.

Lina, one of Angel’s twins, looked at him in confusion. “You’re such a mean brother Kyle.”

“Hey now! I’m not teasing her or anything. I just know my sister very well. In a house of twelve kids, she’s the quietest, and she prefers it that way. Crowds make her super nervous, and giving a Valedictorian speech is the epitome of a disastrous situation for her,” Kyle argued.

That’s right.

Mordecai and I ended up having twelve kids.

To be technical, only six share us both. After Dakota and Preston, we had three more kids, adopted one, had another one of our own, and adopted one last one. No-one could believe it, but by the time we had our sixth, they realized that my husband was serious about wanting a whole lot of kids.

He didn’t want our kids to grow up the way we did.

At twenty eight, Kyle is a newly graduated cardiologist. Alex was his biggest influence growing up, and there was just a bond between them that none of us understood. It’s something that wasn’t easy for Mordecai to deal with, but Kyle put his mind at ease about the whole thing, and he eventually accepted the bond.

At twenty five, Christie is a world renowned singer who goes by the stage name Tee-Tee. Since Kyle is the one who encouraged her to start singing, she felt it was only right to take up the name he gave her. She was a teen star and we definitely had problems with her, but she eventually found her maturity.

At twenty, Dakota is a professional golf player, and her twin is a professional football player. We don’t know why, but the two of them were born extremely sporty, which is something everyone argued they got from Mordecai’s dad’s side of the family.

At fifteen, my second set of twins, Ryan and Hayden, are making little high school and middle school girls swoon with their cute selves. Puberty kicked in early for them, and so did their ‘charm genes’. They have differing personalities, but they are equally liked by all.

At fourteen, our first adopted daughter Ilene is on her way to superstardom. We adopted her when she was only two years old, and got her into acting. Much like Christie, she’s a child star, and much like all of our children, her stardom is helped by our reputations.

At ten, Zebedee is our youngest son. Much like his brother Kyle, he’s showing signs of superior intelligence. His idol though, is surprisingly Jacob. While my son is smart, he has no interest in pursuing a career in the sciences or medicine. He wants to be in the navy like Uncle Jacob.

At four, little Ava is the apple of daddy’s eye. Mordecai fell in love with her the moment he laid eyes on her. We adopted her just days after she was born. It was a tedious process because she was found in a dumpster, but my husband fought tooth and nail to make it happen. She has him wrapped around her little finger, and you can be sure that she’s well aware of that.

And lastly, at eighteen, my precious Elena was about to give her high school Valedictorian speech. As Kyle mentioned, she’s our shyest child. We’re not sure who she takes after, but she’s also bright. The irony of the situation is that she wants to be a psychologist and have her own practice.

What Ellie and Jackson were complaining about was the amount of travelling we had to do in two weeks. For whatever reason, events involving my family have been planned into three weeks, involving nine countries.

Christie had a special performance in Sydney, Preston had an important final league match in Italy, Ilene had a movie premier in Hong Kong, Kyle had his graduation in London, and now we were back in the States for Elena’s graduation.

From here we would be heading to South Africa for Dakota’s golf two day tournament, and then we have to be in Argentina for an award Mordecai is receiving, and then heading to Lagos for a charity event hosted by the Hart-Tedder foundation, before finally heading to Canada for a school play that Ryan and Hayden are involved in since my sons didn’t want to school in America for whatever reason.

And our entire family had agreed to tag along for the three weeks.

Mordecai and I ended up buying an airplane for things like this. It surprisingly isn’t the first time that we’ve had to travel as such a huge group, and trust me when I say that we are huge.

Nellie and Jackson have three children – two sons and a daughter. Jacob and Fernando ended up getting legally married before adopting four kids – three daughters and a son. Alex and Ellie ended up having triplets, and that was pretty much it for them.

Angel and Charlie ended up have two more kids, two sons. The two of them absolutely hate that their older siblings are girls, but we all know that they secretly love their sisters. They just so happen to be as stubborn as their mother and aunt.

Walter and Ava finally had the child they wanted, but unfortunately Ava died giving birth. He married his current wife Ursula when his son Noah was three. Together they had two more kids and adopted one.

It took Geronimo a long time to settle down. After Paris broke his heart, he went into a spiral of whorish escapades. He slowed down when one of his escapades resulted in a daughter, before finally finding love at the age of forty three.

Kim and Zebedee got married and had two children before tragedy struck our family. We lost Zebedee and Karen to a boating accident, something that sent my husband into a deep depression for months. My best friend became a shell of herself, and she followed soon after, taking her own life through an overdose of pills.

That was the hardest time for us, and it didn’t become any better when we found out that my dad, Dr Dickson, had heart problems. We lost him just a month after Kim’s suicide, and after the deaths, we honestly didn’t know if we’d recover from the losses.

But we somehow made it.

Mordecai and I adopted Zebedee and Kim’s children, seventeen year old Trent and thirteen year old Justine, which is how we have twelve kids in our house. It was hard for my mom to get over the loss of my dad, but the twins and I try to be there for her as much as we can.

My father Hershel is still directing movies, and he never did settle down, despite being romantically linked to a whole lot of women after Meghan. Angel and I learned that he never had intentions of settling down to begin with.

Even after all these years, his heart belonged to Ellen and Ellen only.

Whitney and Shawna became a power duo in the media industry, owning the most reputable PR company, as well as a production studio. They have a number of successful shows under their belts, and you can be sure that they’ve pushed women empowerment as a topic ‘that needs to be addressed’.

Whitney is married to a billionaire property developer, but they have no kids, something that was a mutual understanding for them. Shawna surprised us all when she and Deloris came out as a couple. They got married and adopted a son.

“She’s not going to go on stage, and she’s due up there in the next thirty minutes,” my husband informed as he and Charlie joined us.

I sighed. “I’ll go and talk to her.”

“Gorgeous, if Charlie and I failed, there’s no way you’re going to succeed,” he argued.

“Is that a challenge dearest husband?” I asked.

“It’s just a fact dearest wife. You know that the two of you have never been all that close,” he reminded.

Something everyone knew.

I don’t know why, but Elena and I have just never really been close, despite me being her mother. When she was a baby, she would cry whenever I held her, and only Mordecai and Charlie could get through to her. It’s been like that for years, and she only talks to me if she really has to.

But then again, that’s the case with everyone who isn’t Mordecai or Charlie.

“She’s my daughter, and today, that’s going to count for something,” I said determinedly.

Dakota sent me an encouraging smile. “You’ve got this mom.”

“She’s backstage,” Charlie informed me.

I nodded and headed in that direction. Everyone else was getting seated in the hall. I arrived backstage to find my baby girl pacing. She looked like she was having a panic attack, and I knew that I had to do something and quickly.

“My angel, calm down,” I said softly.

She turned to me, eyes wide. “Mom?”

“I heard you were having a little trouble with your nerves,” I said as I walked up to her.

“Yeah,” she barely got out.

I sat down on the bench, patting the space beside me. “Have I ever told you about the first time I lay eyes on your father?”

She shook her head, nervously sitting beside me. “What happened?”

“He’d been involved in an accident. Your aunt Kim was his assigned nurse at the time, but she was sick, so I had to fill in for her. I’d broken the pin on my name tag that day, so they’d told him that Kim would be going to see him, except I ended up being the one to go. When I walked into the room and my eyes landed on him, I swear time stopped,” I said, smiling at the memory.

“Then what happened? Did he sweep you off your feet?” she asked anxiously.

I laughed. “God no! He was a crude asshole who I hated the existence of.”

“I don’t understand. You guys have been together for so long. How did you get from hating him to loving him the way you do?” she asked in confusion.

“Courage and faith in fate,” I said.

At the confused look on her face, I carried on. “He needed a live in nurse, and Nellie knew that I could help him heal. I obviously wanted nothing to do with him, but your grandparents convinced me that I couldn’t let him die since he needed me to heal. I had to get over my hatred for him and go back to accept the offer, but the courage came with letting him in. From there, I had to trust in fate to allow things to work out for us.”

“So, it was easy sailing for you after you went back to nurse him?” she asked.

“Oh, my angel, not even close. It’s a long story for another day, but during my entire pregnancy with Dakota and Preston, he wasn’t in the picture. He came back just two months before their first birthday,” I replied.

“And you waited for him?” she asked.

I nodded. “I did, and only because I knew that there was no one else out there for me but your father, despite whatever challenges we faced. When he came back, I had to trust that we would be able to make it, and it is through that very same faith that we’re here today,” I told her.

She frowned. “I feel like there’s more to that last part of your statement.”

“When I was pregnant with you, the doctor warned me that there was a chance that my pregnancy would be complicated. There was something different about my pregnancy with you, and I hid that from your father. When I was six months along, I had abnormal pains and the doctor told me that they needed to operate and get you out or else I would die. They had already decided that you weren’t going to make it, but they were sure I could still be saved. I asked him if there was a way to save you, and he told me that there was. I could carry you for a month more and you’d live, but there was a higher risk that I’d die. I took that chance because there was no way I was losing my baby,” I said as I reached out to hold her hand.

“You risked your life for mine?” she asked, tears in her eyes.

I nodded. “You’re my miracle baby Elena. Your name means shining light and I was insistent on that name because that’s what you are. You are my shining light.”

She was silent for a while, wiping away her tears. “Did dad ever find out what you just told me?”

“I never told him, as selfish as it was of me. I prayed hard that we’d both make it, and I almost didn’t. You were born prematurely, and right after they took you out, I flat lined. They brought me back, but I was very weak. I stayed in the hospital for five months, which was longer than you did. It was touch and go for the both of us for the first two months, but you eventually became a healthy baby. I had to have multiple blood transfusions and three operations before I was ok. I wouldn’t take any of it back though, and neither would I change a thing,” I said, squeezing her hand.

“You wouldn’t?” she whispered.

I cupped her cheek. “I know you and I don’t have the best of relationships, but like I said, you’re my miracle baby. You lived for a reason, and I just know that you’re destined for great things. This speech is small waters in comparison to everything that you’re going to achieve.”

“I want to be president,” she said lowly.

“And I believe that you can do it,” I said in a smile.

She ambushed me in a sudden hug. “Thank you so much mom. I’m sorry that I’ve never been close to you, especially after everything you went through for me. I promise everything will be different from now on.”

“I know they will be. Your tigress is going to come out and own her place in this world,” I said proudly.

She blushed. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know my angel. I am so proud of you Elena. Go out there and make yourself proud,” I told her.

The principal announced her name and people started clapping. “I promise to make you all and myself proud.”

After one last hug, she took a deep breath before walking onto the stage. I couldn’t help the tears that rushed to my eyes as I sat there, listening to her speech. A sound brought my attention to the door, where my husband was standing with a scowl on his face, arms folded.

He’d heard me.

“Kai,” I said lowly.

“I want to be mad at you, but I love you so much at the same time,” he commented.

I got up and walked over to him. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t like the fact that you hid something that big from me, especially since I almost lost you then, but then I love you for taking the risk because you survived and I got our beautiful baby girl out of the whole thing,” he said, looking at her from where we were.

I turned to face her as she confidently continued to deliver her speech. “I’m sorry baby, I really am.”

He put his arm around me. “It’s only ok because you both lived. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d lost you Bev.”

“I’m right here Kai,” I said softly.

He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me in for a kiss. “Of course you’re here. You couldn’t stay away once you found out I was your patient twenty two years ago.”

“Because that was totally the case,” I said with an eye roll, making him laugh.

“I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you,” he commented.

“What for?” I asked.

“For being my incredible wife, for loving me, for blessing me with our children, for believing in us, for being an amazing mother, and for accepting the house call,” he replied.

The House Call that changed my life forever.

I tapped my chin. “Hmm, a vacation in Madagascar sounds like its thanks enough.”

He laughed. “Done deal! I love you Mrs Hart-Tedder.”

“I love you too Mr Hart-Tedder, always.”

The End.