The Artist's Wife (BWWM)

Epilogue~ You, Karina.

Listen to 'Red' by Taylor Swift. It's the one song that fits this chapter perfectly. Writing this chapter makes me kinda sad and emotional, who else feels that way?

As always, cover arts are always appreciated. You can PM if you're interested and I'll display them with dedications!

This one is to every single person that made it this far. I'm so grateful you gave this amateur a chance lol!❤

"Bella! Bella! Holy, that child never stops talking," Mrs Kamara chided as the curly-haired child finally turned from the ginger-haired boy she was currently chatting with animatedly, her face lighting up when she saw me. "It's time to go home, are you done with your sums?"

Completely ignoring her teacher and the question asked, she leapt off her seat and skipped straight to my arms, her unique greenish-brown eyes glowing with immense pleasure. She did this every time I came to pick her.

"K.C! K.C! Let's go home," she sang, hugging my waist while I tore my eyes off her dark brown, curly pigtails and faced her teacher.

"Hope she didn't bother you very much today?" I knew well that Bella was so very tasking and whenever I left her with someone, I had to enquire about it. She was especially active today.

"Oh, she did. She always does, that little parrot," the middle-aged lady laughed indulgently as she gazed fondly at my child and pulled on her thick glasses.

"I'm sorry."

"I love your daughter, K.C. One of the brightest minds in this class, I must confess."

I smiled down at the child currently biting her fingernails and waving at the boy she was speaking to earlier and removed my thin, gold-rimmed glasses to wipe the tears at the corner of my eyes. She was my pride and joy, such little comments about her made me immensely happy.

"Thank you, Mrs Kamara, have a lovely evening," I murmured, holding Bella by the wrist and collecting her Barbie school bag to sling it over my shoulder. "Let's go, dear."

We left the classrooms but not before Bella yelled a very loud goodbye to the whole class. Yeah, leave it to my boisterous daughter to do something like that. I shook my head fondly as I watched her, she reminded me way too much of my old self.

"K.C?" Her chirpy voice called me, breaking my train of thoughts and I grunted in reply. My daughter referred to me by name, the name everyone here knew me as. "Why are you sad? It's your birthday, you should be happy!"

I stared at the child in mild surprise, wondering how she still remembered my birthday, she only heard Lance mention it on the phone about a week ago and had committed it to memory ever since. She twirled around in her short, blue frilly dress and beamed at me.

"Seeeee," she exaggerated, giving me an adorable, little curtsey and almost falling over. "You should be happy like me."

I laughed aloud at her antics. "Mommy is happy too, dear." I beamed at her too. "Seeee."

Bella grinned and the indents that appeared on the sides of her cheeks felt like a kick to the gut, it happened every single time she flashed those adorable dimples. It never failed to remind me of her father, funny that those dimples were there to always taunt me now. I took her by the arm again and led us out of the school building. A bunch of women were standing around talking at the parking lot and I recognized some of them as fellow mothers of the kids going to this school. This small town had a surprisingly large amount of women that I could best describe as 'soccer moms' or loved to carpool with the others just to form an association and gossip.