Epilogue
Cody
Six months later…
My hand shookas I scratched the pen across the signature line. I was standing in the courthouse. Everyone was there. My dad, my brothers, Horse, Sarah, Maddie, Kat, Molly, Maggie, James, and of course, my son, Flynn.
I might have missed his first three years, but I hadn’t missed a day since I found out he was mine. You would think that the whole thing would have been a real mess, telling a kid that this guy he’s been hanging out with is actually his dad, but it wasn’t at all. James didn’t waste time. The morning after I found out Flynn was my son, she made blueberry pancakes. Pancakes in general are Flynn’s favorite. But he likes it when you make a blueberry face in the batter. Anyway, James made pancakes and Flynn was sitting in a high chair next to me at the table. I was nursing a cup of coffee and Maggie had just put an overzealous fork full of food into her mouth when James sat down opposite me and said to Flynn, “Kiddo, you know how you always ask about your daddy?”
Flynn bobbed his head, then said, “Families are all different.”
“That’s true.” James smiled. “But yours is not so different anymore. Cowboy Cody is your daddy.”
The night before, after some making up and making out, I had told James I didn’t want to miss another moment of Flynn’s life, and she agreed that was right. We decided two things. One, she and Flynn and Maggie would stay in Conway, no matter what her parents thought, and two, we would tell Flynn in the morning. Then we went to bed. I thought we’d make a plan but there was no plan. She didn’t warn me or discuss it with me. She just got to it, matter-of-fact, so her words hit like a bomb in my belly.
In the seconds between her saying daddy and his response, I was literally more terrified than I’d ever been in my entire life. What if he didn’t want me? What if he was mad? Or worse, sad? What if he’d wanted to know why I wasn’t there his whole life? What would I say? What would she say?
Flynn's little voice dropped to a whisper. “Like forever, Mommy?”
James smiled and nodded. “Yes. Forever.”
Flynn turned to me, his eyes filled with excitement. “Does that mean I’m gonna be a real cowboy too?”
“If you want,” I said, remembering that he was a toddler and that life was wild and simple for them at the same time.
Flynn bounced in his chair. “I’m going to be a cowboy on a farm with cows and horses.”
James’ eyes went wide, but I was utterly delighted.
Before the day was out, he held my hand and called me daddy. Hearing the word daddy on his lips busted my heart open. I couldn’t even fathom how I thought I could go a lifetime without having a child, without making my own family. What had I been thinking? My whole world was my family, but each of my siblings was going to grow and have families of their own. I needed that too. My father was right; having a family to love was worth the risks of losing them. Loving them for years, months, a day, or a minute would be worth all the sorrow that came with the possibility of loss. It would always be worth it.
Which was why I was standing in the courthouse now. I was making my family official. I was filing a petition to establish paternity and to change the name on Flynn’s birth certificate. In a few moments, he would officially be Flynn David Hildebrand-Morgan, son of Cody John Morgan. People didn’t often do this kind of thing in front of a judge, but my father decided that we needed to do something official to mark the occasion. So he made some calls and Judge Davis, who I’d always known to be a real codgy old battle-ax, agreed to preside over the moment.
Conway’s courthouse was a historic building, all wood and bricks, built at the turn of the twentieth century. There were big columns out front and inside. The courtroom was a big echoey place with wooden pews, a jury box, and a judge’s bench like you see on television. Judge Davis didn’t sit at the bench though. Instead, he was standing in front of it. We used the clerks and the defendant’s desks to lean against when we signed.
Flynn, who was growing like a weed and getting smarter by the minute, stood next to me as I scrawled my John Hancock, and then he watched the judge do the same. As though some sort of magic was happening, everyone in the room was so silent that you could hear the pen tip scratching along the paper. When the judge put down his pen, Flynn whispered, “Am I a Morgan now, Daddy?”
Judge Davis, looking awfully soft in the eyes for a battle-scarred justice of the peace, squatted down to Flynn’s level. “Son, I am happy to inform you that from this point forward, you are and will always be a Morgan boy.”
Behind me, I heard a sniffle. Had to be Sarah, and then a burly deep-chested voice broke the quiet with a whoop, whoop. Wyatt. There was clapping and laughing. Overjoyed, I smacked Judge Davis on the back and then grabbing Flynn by the armpits, I hugged and spun him around twice before lifting him to my shoulders and turning to face my family.
“He’s my boy!” I hollered, watching James wipe happy tears from her eyes.
James had insisted that we stand before the judge without her, wanting this moment to be mine, not hers. She still carried so much guilt about not telling me about Flynn sooner. No matter how many times I told her that I’d chosen to let it go, she just couldn’t seem to. The thing was, maybe she’d done the right thing because while I was sure that I would have risen to the occasion and loved Flynn, what if having a baby together when we were strangers meant that I didn’t get to love James. Yes, I wanted those years back, but I was willing to part with them if it meant I got to have my boy and my woman.
I quickly closed the space between her and me, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and squeezing her into my side. My family circled us, chatting and exchanging hugs and celebratory smiles. We milled and moseyed our way toward the door. We were planning on heading down the street to the Conway Cafe for lunch. Hazel had us all set up with balloons and a banner that read, “The Morgans’ Have a Brand-New Cowboy in Their Herd,” and the judge was joining us for pie.
But before we got there, I had something else I had to take care of. I let everyone drift ahead of me a little, even James, who was talking to Sarah, and I whispered to my boy on my shoulders. “You ready, kiddo?”
“Ready!” he said a little too loudly. I looked ahead, nervous, but no one turned at his outburst.
From my jacket pocket, I pulled out the little blue box and handed it to Flynn. “Okay, buddy, here we go. You know the plan.”
He bounced on my shoulders, excited.
I walked forward through the big old doors. Outside, just off to the left of the steps of the courthouse, there was a pretty little statue of a family. Early Settlers, it was called. I paused before it and called out, “Hey, wait. James, could you come here for a minute? I forgot something.”
Still sort of talking to Sarah, she strolled back in my direction. The others turned too, waiting. I hadn’t told anyone my plan except Flynn. They were all such busybodies—loveable, good busybodies, but busybodies all the same—and I didn’t want them to spoil the surprise.
Thinking I needed to go back inside, James went to reach for Flynn and said, “I’ll take him. What did you forget?”
“You,” I said.
She smiled, confused. “Me?” she said with a little laugh.
My family seemed to notice something was happening as they drifted back in our direction.
“You need to be a Morgan too.”
James’ face fell apart immediately. I watched it happen. My strong, bold, back-talking wonder of a woman began to literally shake with emotion. I took her hands in mine and she tilted her chin up to look in my eyes. Tears were already running down her face.
“Deep breath, baby.”
She nodded.
“Ready?”
She pulled her hands from mine, wiped her eyes, then replaced her hands, smiled, bit her lip, and whispered, “Okay, now I’m ready.”
It was cold out and her cheeks were ruddy and red, damp with tears, but she was beaming at me when I said, “James, you are my girl, my heart, my pearl. You are the one who gave me my son. Your snore is the sound I want to have around…”
She giggled.
I continued. “Your kisses fill my heart with riches, your touch makes me yearn so much. Please, oh please, will you do me a favor, gimme an eternity to savor, and make this day the best one in my life…”
I let go of her hands, bending down to one knee so that Flynn was in her line of sight, holding what I hoped was an open blue box, showing off a simple three-stone emerald cut diamond ring, and he said, “Mommy, will you be Daddy’s wife?”
Flynn was the kicker that threw everyone over the edge. James put both hands over her eyes and cried, but she was smiling.
I heard Sarah whimper, “Oh my God! Oh my God, that is too much.”
Maddie, who was four months pregnant, was just full-on sobbing.
And my dad kept repeating, “Bravo, kid. Bravo.”
I was on one knee, still waiting. But Flynn was there to do the heavy lifting.
“Mommy, did you hear me? I said, will you be Daddy’s wife?” He tapped me on the head. “Did I do it right?”
“You were perfect, kiddo; just give her a minute.”
James pressed her palms into her eyes and then, taking them away with flair, she hollered, “Hell, yes. A million times yes. Yes! Yes! Yes!”
I laughed and stood, crushing her to me, and of course, my family cheered.