Picture This

Epilogue

Epilogue

Five Years and Ten Months Later

Ian

“Daddy,” I heard a little voice whisper beside my head. 

I groaned and shift beside Charlie, who was lying beside me. 

Someone poked my cheek.  “Daddy, wake up!” the voice whispered.

I opened my eyes to see Kole and Greer both up and grinning at me from the side of the bed. 

“What are you two doing up?” I whispered, rolling away from Charlie so she could sleep still.  She was going to need it soon enough. 

“We haves to make Mommy’s burfday breakfus!” Kole, our four year old, said.  Greer, who was two and a half, nodded along with him. 

“Alright, I’m up,” I said, pushing the covers off me. 

Our two boys looked exactly like I did when I was their ages, except for Greer.  He had Charlie’s blue eyes.  They waited for me until I got out of the bed, kissed Charlie on the forehead while she continued to sleep, and headed for the stairs with them, holding both of their hands.

Charlie and I had gotten married the October after we graduated high school.  I got to make her my wife exactly a year after I asked her to be my girlfriend.   She looked absolutely beautiful in her wedding dress, just like I thought she would. 

Only two months and a half months into our marriage, on Christmas Eve none the less, we found out we were expecting Kole.  Everyone was totally thrilled seeing as after the accident the doctors had told us that it might be a little harder for Charlie to get pregnant.  Well, it turned out is really wasn’t. 

When Kole was almost a year old, we then found out we were expecting Greer.  He was kind of a surprise baby since we weren’t actively trying but we weren’t not trying either.  Life with two boys was hectic at times but Charlie and I adored them. 

And now that we were adding another little one to the family, it was going to get even more great.

Charlie was two weeks away from her due date…and this time we were having a girl.  When we found out, we were ecstatic.  To our surprise, Kole and Greer were excited to have a baby sister when we told them.  The two of them were already acting as big protective brothers just like I wanted them to. 

We were going to name her Reece Michelle Elizabeth Macpherson.  Yeah, we’re giving her two middle names, after my mom and Liz.  We wanted to give her a name that meant something to us and naming her after Charlie’s mom was something that we both agreed to. 

As for the rest of our group of friends, Cam and Julia were engaged now.  They dated all through college, even though they went to two different ones.  They were getting married in three months and Charlie was maid of honor.  She keeps saying that hopefully she’d loose all the baby weight before so she would look good in her dress. 

Freddie went back to England after high school to go to Oxford.  He came back to the States after he graduated, though…and with a fiancé on his arm.  Her name was Isabel and even I had to say she was great for him.  She and Charlie had become fast friends when we first met her.  They got married over in England last year and were expecting their first child, a boy.

As for my friends, only Levi’s settled down and gotten married.  Carson and Cooper were still ‘playing the field’ and I wouldn’t be surprised if they continued for a few more years.

Now it was Charlie’s twenty-fourth birthday.  And like we promised each other, we were keeping up the tradition of taking the picture that we’d taken every six years.