Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 38168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 191(@200wpm)___ 153(@250wpm)___ 127(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 191(@200wpm)___ 153(@250wpm)___ 127(@300wpm)
EPILOGUE
Eighteen Years Later
“Will you marry me now?”
“Sure, why not?” My last baby had just gone off to college; the oldest just finished his master's, the second oldest her bachelor’s, and the third was in her last year of college. My life, these last eighteen years, has been one of bliss. I was now fifty-one years old, with the best years of my life behind me, so why not?
I still have life left in me yet sure, but I think it’s time I settled down and made an honest man out of him. For the past eighteen years, we’ve been practically joined at the hip anyway. We did everything together, both with ourselves and with our kids.
He was a better boyfriend than he ever was a husband, and that is why each time he proposed over the years, I turned him down. It got to be a game with us, where he would ask, knowing that I would say no. As we got older, he griped and grumbled more, but I was staunch in my refusal and had no problem reminding him that I’d given him a chance once, and he’d blown it to shit.
My favorite analogy to use was the time he fell while rock climbing and refused to ever do it again for fear of it happening once more. He seemed to get it then and wasn’t as pushy, though he still asked when the mood struck, which always seemed to be on our first wedding anniversary.
My only interest, I told him, was making sure my kids had a full life, that I did what was best for them, and that didn’t include upending their lives again the next time he got the itch to fuck some strange because he’d lost control of his dick. He hates being reminded of his affair, but that’s his problem. I’m not hurting my babies to please him.
They flourished just from having both their parents in their lives, happy and healthy, which is all I ever wanted. Justin hadn’t strayed in all this time, and for the better part of that eighteen years, he’d gone above and beyond to prove himself and make amends, even long after I had forgiven him. Maybe the fact that I never told him I forgave him had something to do with that.
It had gotten so that some days I forgot that we were no longer married; things between us were so easy, better even than the first ten years together because he knew he had to do the work or he could take his ass back where he came from, which is something I reminded him of in the beginning.
I never realized how much power that piece of paper really has over people. He was the same man with the same career and responsibilities, but as a boyfriend, he stepped up way more than he had when he was my husband.
Suddenly, he could find his ass home at a decent hour after work. He had time to spend with the kids now when he couldn’t be bothered before. Sometimes all I could do was shake my damn head and wonder at the ignorance of the world and the people in it. But as long as my babies were happy, I was too.
I got free dick, more even than when we were married, I got to keep my babysitter because he had no say in that and more free time for myself since I never went back to work. I spent my days as the kids grew up taking care of me and doing the things I liked, which made for a happier, healthier me.
I wasn’t mean to Justin any longer, not after the first couple of years, but neither did I let myself forge and give into going back to the way things were. We were equal partners when it came to raising our kids, but I was my own person with my own wants and likes, and if something didn’t agree with him, that was too bad. I got my way most of the time, though I tried to be fair and not go too far; after all, he was still human.
All of our kids had done well in school, and like I said, Jamie had just gone off to college, so we were now looking at empty nesting. In the last few months, we’d talked, and Justin wanted to retire early so we could spend more time traveling the world now that the kids were grown and out of the house, and I thought that was a fine idea.
He'd used travel as an excuse for us to get married just in case something went wrong like we hadn’t been traveling at least twice a year for the past eighteen years without it. Now, today, he was bringing it up again, and since my last child support check had been cashed, why the hell not?