Antique Bastards
18. Epilogue
Luke sold the Seattle house in April for $847,000. Kept the sailboat. Decided to run the company remotely from Pittsburgh. The company suffers growing pains, but is coming along nicely. He and Chris found a lot in Squirrel Hill and started building a Craftsman. It’ll take about fourteen months. Nobody’s in a hurry.
Hannah and Junie moved into Ruth’s house. Junie took the guest bedroom. Hannah took Tom’s old office. Ruth cleared out his desk, kept the lamp. Everything else went to Goodwill. Tom would approve. Luke and Chris and Lucy moved into Hannah’s place during the buildout.
Danny and Angie drove to the Poconos in June and got married at a chapel called Eternal Pines. Told nobody. Came home married. Luke noticed Angie’s ring three weeks later and asked about it. Danny said they got married. Luke said when. Danny said couple weeks ago. Everyone was annoyed. Nobody was surprised.
Ruth quit the Residue Collective in July. Ariel understood. Marcus said she was the best. Oona cried. Ruth started taking watercolor classes with Eleanor Voss, who’s been painting for forty-three years and only teaches six students at a time. Ruth opened a small shop on Butler Street in September. Teaches classes on Wednesdays. Sells paintings on weekends. Made $840 in November. Paid rent with some left over.
Lucy and Junie go to Waldorf preschool in different classes but eat lunch together every day at 11:30. They sit at the same table. Ruth picks them up at 3 PM and takes them to the park unless it’s raining. They get home around 4:15. Snacks are usually apple slices and crackers. Sometimes cookies if Junie asks the right way. They get to watch one show. Two if they negotiate.
Hannah flew to Jordan in August for three weeks and photographed kids with prosthetics. Luke’s company paid her $5,000. She flew to Berlin in October and did the same thing. Another $5,000. She’s saving up for a Leica that costs $9,195. She’s got $3,200 so far. Thinking about how to approach Luke about it.
Danny added twelve buildings to the train town and increased the population from eighty-seven to one hundred and three. He built a bandshell and a tiny guitarist singing up a storm, wearing a leather jacket. Angie planted forty-three roses between June and September and named every one. She talks to them. Danny installed a small pond in the backyard in October. Four feet across, eighteen inches deep. No fish yet. No frogs yet. Junie loves it.
Thanksgiving at Ruth’s house. November 28th. Almost 5 PM.
The turkey’s gone. The ham’s mostly gone. The mashed potatoes and stuffing are gone. The green bean casserole is lightly touched because Chris made it and Chris can’t cook vegetables Pittsburgh style. Most of the pumpkin pie is gone. Half the apple pie is left.
Junie and Lucy are under the dining room table, building something with Lincoln Logs and arguing about roofs.
“That’s not how roofs work,” Lucy says.
“It is too,” Junie says.
“Papa Luke, is this how roofs work?”
Luke crouches down and looks. “No.”
“See?” Lucy says.
“I hate roofs,” Junie says.
Ruth is at the kitchen sink, loading the dishwasher. Danny brings in the last plates and sets them on the counter.
“You look happy, Ruthie,” he says.
She turns and looks at him. “You too, Danny.”
He gestures toward the dining room, where Junie and Lucy are still under the table, where Luke is drying dishes he doesn’t need to dry, where Chris is wrapping leftovers very carefully, where Hannah is on the couch looking at her phone, where Angie is labeling everything with dates and contents in neat handwriting.
“Look at this motley crew,” Danny says.
Ruth smiles. “I think we did okay.”
“Yeah. We did.”
Luke appears in the doorway. “We’re taking the girls to the arcade. Who’s coming?”
“What’s an arcade?” Lucy calls from under the table.
“Place with games. Racing games. Skee-ball.”
“What’s skee-ball?”
“You’ll love it. Come on.”
Danny looks at Angie. She nods. Chris stands up. Luke gets the girls’ coats. They leave at 5:03 PM. Just Ruth and Hannah left.
Hannah stays in the kitchen for a minute. They both stand at the sink looking out at the garden. The hydrangeas Tom planted are brown and dormant. They’ll bloom again in June.
“It’s good, right?” Hannah says.
“What is?”
“This. All of it.”
Ruth looks at her daughter. “Yeah. It’s good.”
Hannah touches her shoulder. “I’m going to check if Junie left her fox upstairs.”
She goes. Ruth is alone in the kitchen. Looks around for Tom, then remembers.
The dishwasher is running. The clock is ticking. Outside, a dog is barking. A car goes by. Normal sounds. Thursday sounds. Family holiday stuff.
Ruth stands at the sink. Tears begin to well. Not sad crying. Not grief. Something else. The kind of crying that happens when you realize you made it through. When you look around and see your daughter living in your house and your granddaughter’s toys on the floor and your ex-husband happy with someone who makes him laugh and your son building a house and two little girls who love each other arguing about physics under your dining room table.
She cries quietly. The good kind of crying.
The dishwasher rattles on. The house knows her name. Outside the hydrangeas sleep, waiting for spring.