Epilogue. Let's Go Home

The day we left the hospital, my dad pulled the car around while my mom came up to our room to help us pack. We hadn’t showered in seventy-two hours and had barely slept in two nights—there would be many more of those ahead.

We placed the car seat on the hospital bed and strapped Oliver in. The nurse came over, unbuckled him, and redid it properly—we had done it all wrong. We were new parents. We had no idea what we were doing yet.

I carried the car seat down the hall toward the elevator banks. Jaime walked beside me, holding our overnight bag and the collection of hospital freebies we had managed to gather.

As we reached the elevators, the doors on the left opened.

“Sorry—this one is going up,” a familiar voice said.

She was already pressing the “Close Doors” button when she heard me say her name.

“Hi, Cathy.”

Her hand froze midair, then shot back out to stop the doors from closing.

“Oh, my goodness!”

She stepped out and saw us—the three of us.

“I can’t believe you remembered me.”

How could we forget her? She had given us the quirkiest hospital tour of our lives back in January when we came in for the twenty-week scan. And now here we were, holding a car seat with our newborn inside.

“This is Oliver,” Jaime said.

Cathy beamed.

“He’s just wonderful—WONDERFUL!” she said, practically shouting.

“Take this elevator. I’ll get the next one.”

We stayed in Bentonville for one more week. It felt like a single, long, sleepless night. Somehow, in the minutes of sleep scattered between everything else, we learned how to prepare a bottle, how to change a diaper, how to survive a blowout, and how to pull a onesie over a newborn while trying not to wake him. We failed more than once. We would fail again.

My mom and dad watched us quietly. Perhaps they were remembering their own mishaps from decades earlier. They never said much. They just smiled.

When we told Jaime’s parents we were expecting a child eight months earlier, his dad told him he would never sleep at ease again for the rest of his life. We didn’t understand it then.

We do now.

But every time we struggled to keep our eyes open, or to take another bite of cold leftovers we had for dinner—or was it breakfast?—we would look down at the tiny body lying peacefully in the crib.

A head full of hair, Dr. Dawson had said.

A head full of dreams, I thought.

On the last evening before we flew back to New York, we dared to take Oliver out of the house. The summer heat had finally eased. We strapped him into a carrier—not without some protest—and walked four blocks to a coffee shop, where we met Marina to say goodbye.

“So, what’s your next adventure?” I asked.

We sat outside on patio chairs. She was finally enjoying a fully caffeinated drink. I was on my fourth coffee of the day just to keep my eyes open.

“I’m gonna travel a bit,” she said. “Maybe finally go to Italy next year. My cousin and I are the only ones who haven’t been back.”

“At least you’ll be able to drink some good Italian coffee now,” Jaime said.

“And wine,” I added.

“Oh yeah!” Marina laughed.

She thought for a moment.

“And honestly, other than that, I just want to be home. Take care of my family. See my daughter grow.”

I looked down at Oliver, sleeping quietly against Jaime’s chest.

“Isn’t that the dream?” I said.

We talked a little longer. She gave us tips on choosing diapers, and we imagined the next time we might see each other again—maybe in the spring, if she made it to New York.

“We’ll have to make it a tradition,” I said.

I looked at her again—her big, unforgettable smile.

“I’m not ready to say goodbye.”

“Just because you’re done carrying this little guy doesn’t mean you’re done with us.”

My eyes went red. I wiped them before a tear could fall.

“Oh, definitely not,” she said. “We’ll have a special bond forever.”

“We’ll see each other’s kids grow,” Jaime added.

We went quiet for a moment after that. It was as if we both knew the intensity of what we had built couldn’t last forever, but neither of us was ready to admit it yet.

We gave Marina the biggest hug and watched her walk away as, cliché as it sounds, the sun began to set.

We walked the four blocks back to our Airbnb, past A Street—our family of three.

The older homes caught the light as if they were remembering something. Porches sat in half-shadow. Mailboxes tilted slightly toward the road, still expecting a slower world to pass by.

By the time we reached B Street, the light had turned sharper against glass and new brick, reflecting the sky back at itself. It felt less like memory and more like intention—as though the neighborhood was still deciding what kind of story it wanted to tell before the day slipped away.

At the intersection, another couple walked past us. They didn’t say anything. They simply offered a kind smile.

We smiled back and let it linger.

“Let’s go home,” I said, taking Jaime’s hand.

“Let’s go home,” he said.