Her Life Of Maybes

Epilogue

Julian had his head tilted all the way back with an arm thrown over his eyes in an attempt to catch up on the rest he didn't get the night before.

He knew he wouldn't get it as he heard light footsteps pad against the hardwood floors towards him. The footsteps disappeared as a small body tumbled into his side. He automatically reached an arm out to wrap around the smaller person's shoulders.

"Hey, Daddy?" the small voice questioned.

"Hmm," Julian groaned, eyes still closed.

"How do you know if you're in love?"

His eyes flew open at those words. He looked into the eyes of his fourteen year old daughter, wondering why the hell she was asking him about love.

He stumbled over words in his head for a moment before letting out a loud breath.

"You know it's love," he started out carefully, "when you look at someone and don't automatically think 'Oh, they're mine', because that isn't what it's all about. It's when you look and think 'Wow, how lucky am I to have a best friend like this'. That's what love should be – two best friends who would do anything for each other. Not two people who feel the need to stake a claim over one another."

His daughter, Kai, looked at him with wide eyes and nodded as if she understood exactly what he was saying. And who knows, maybe she did. He had found love at a young age, so he didn't see why his daughter couldn't do the same.

She asked him another question. "So, you and mom are best friends?"

Julian smiled fondly thinking about his wife. "Your mama and I are the best of friends, doll."

Kai grinned widely. "Tell me how you guys met. Was she your first love? Was it love at first sight?"

Julian thought back those seventeen years previous, when he first met Kora.

"Your Aunt Sky introduced us. Sky and I were meeting up one day for a drink and she decided to bring your mother along. It wasn't love at first sight, not at all."

In fact, when Julian had first met Kora, he had feelings of resentment towards her. It had been two years since Trinity died and Sky had started trying to set him up with people, saying he was too lonely after so long. When Julian met Kora and heard her story, he knew Sky's intentions immediately and tried to distance himself from Kora.

"Your mother and I both had people we loved before each other, people we loved very much, so, no, we weren't each other's first loves."

"Oh, I know this story!" Julian's sixteen year old son interjected, plopping himself down on the couch next to his little sister.

"You loved a girl named Trinity and Mama loved Sean, right?"

Julian nodded at Kohl, smiling at his kids. A million days could pass and he could never get past how blessed he was with the both of them.

"Right. So, your mom was married to a man named Sean. They married right out of high school and he went and joined the army. When your mother met me, he had been gone for about six months. He died in the war."

Looking back, Julian knew that Kora hadn't been ready for a relationship any more than he had been. Maybe that's why they had hit it off so well as friends. They knew exactly what the other was going through and were able to help each other through it. Neither of them anticipated that their innocent friendship would lead to marriage, two kids and a fairly childlike puppy seventeen years laters.

"Trinity was my first love." Julian smiled nostalgically as he thought about his deceased girlfriend. Not a day went by that he didn't think about her. "She was the best person I had ever met. She was always there for me in the tiniest things, but those were the most important.

"You know," he whispered, leaning in close to the two teens," there was a time when me and your grandpa didn't get along well."

Both kids rolled their eyes, having heard those stories one too many times.

Julian laughed at their expressions. "We were always going at it, and Trinity was always there to listen to me, comfort me. She even stood up for me one day and laid it into your grandpa, completely telling him off for me. I really loved her. I still do."

Julian lifted his shirt up, pointing at the tattoo right under his heart.

"This is her. Well, kind of. It's an abstract version of her. She was a dancer, just like you, Kai. She loved dancing more than anything else in this world, except for me of course," he threw in with a wink.

Kohl pointed at the script on the tattoo.

"Darling?"

Julian nodded. "Yeah, that was what I used to call her. Dear lord, did she hate that name in the beginning. You guys know how persistent I can be. In the end, she just got used to it."

"What did she used to call you," Kai asked.

Julian's cheeks burned a bit. "Juju or baby boy," he murmured, embarrassed at the silly names.

Kai and Kohl looked at each other and busted up with laughter. They had never seen their dad look so much like a teenager before.

"Shut up," Julian said pushing Kai into her brother.

Kohl pushed her back and gazed up at his dad. "What happened with you guys?"

Julian swallowed, remembering those last few weeks of Trinity's life."

"She died."

Kai gasped and Kohl looked away, wishing that he hadn't asked.

"When we met, she was already dying. She had an inoperable tumor in her brain. She passed a few months after we graduated."

Kai reached up to dab away a few of the tears that had leaked down her dads face. The dots connected in her brain.

"So is that why we do the show every year?"

After Trinity died, Julian tried to get his life together. He started to take music classes at the local college and meeting up with producers he knew through a few of his musician friends. It took years, but he fought his way to the top, managing a studio of his own, then producing, and eventually he started his own label.

Every year since it began, he got a few of his musicians on board to do free performances to raise money for cancer research.

He and the kids even performed - him on guitar, Kohl singing and Kai dancing.

That show had been the night before and was the reason for his present exhaustion.

"Yeah, that's why we do it. I want to make sure other families and loved ones aren't torn apart because we don't have the answers."

Kai and Kohl looked at their father in a new light.

All of their lives, he had been amazing. He was there at every bed time, every concert, every recital. He was never serious and loved to make his kids laugh until they cried. And when they did cry tears of pain or sadness, he always knew exactly what to say.

They never knew how much he had been through, though. Neither teen could imagine their dad dealing with something so serious and painful. Neither could believe he made it out the other end as happy and cheerful as he did.

Julian could almost read the thoughts going through his children's minds.

"This stuff happened a long time ago guys. That's not to say it doesn't make me sad, because it does. Hell, I'm a nearly forty year old man sitting here crying in front of my kids. This shit hurt, it hurt a lot. But I dealt with it and I deal with it every day. Your mother does too, because it's life.

"Maybe shitty things will happen, and maybe they'll completely break you down. That's not what's important to think about. You just have to remember that the storm will pass, and the tears will dry up and the future holds better things."

Julian smiled at the truth in his own words. His storm has passed long ago and no matter how many tears came, they never stayed too long. And his future?

His beautiful future was sitting in front of him with somber expressions on their faces, ready to see what maybes life would hit them with.