It was hard to get through the next day knowing that my baby was coming home later that night. With my distaste for criminal cases, my days have always consisted of will arrangements, entailments that I now deal with once in a blue moon due to the post WW2 economic boom, and divorce proceedings. The divorce rate has gotten progressively worse with each passing decade and nothing ticks me off more. What I wouldn't give to have a wife to call my own and to have around. Do these young people not understand love or just marriage in general? Love and marriage are a choice that I feel people take too light-heartedly.

In between all of that, I take time to glance at Scout's pictures on my desk. Jean's christmas presents to me the year she died was Jem and Scout's pictures in a double frame; one of them as a baby and one of them as little children. Jem looked so much like his mother that it could make me cry sometimes. It is always hard to look at his young boy photos a lot of the time for that reason, no matter how much of a beautiful boy he was. People have said that Scout resembles me and I can't be any more proud of that fact. She has the most beautiful blue eyes that Jean used to swear was a gift from me. I never saw my looks as anything special but when Jean would talk about how beautiful she was because she looked like me, I guess I couldn't be that ugly because to me my daughter would always be flawless. I have yet to meet a little girl who could make a pair of overalls look so adorable.

"Atticus?" Jem asked as he knocked on the door.

"Come in," I say as he opens the door. "Thank you for knocking."

"Yes, sir. Are you coming to the airport with me later?"

"Sure."

"Well, we better get ready now then."

I looked at the clock and it was already 3:15. I shocked myself with how late in the afternoon it was.

"Yeah, I guess we better," I said as I packed up the papers in my brief and hurried to close our office. My baby was coming home and it was a long trip to Mobile.

I realized that for the first time in a while as we were driving to the airport that it was the first night in a while that it wasn't raining. It was most definitely winter time because the sun was starting to set by five. It's always rough waking up in the dark and going home in the dark. I was thankful for the orange and pink sunset that provided some light for us.

"We're entering Mobile," Jem said as we certainly were headed for the highway that took us there.

"Already?"

"Well, I was going 70."

"Jem!"

"Aw, Atticus, you ain't dead yet!"

"I might be."

"So who do you think this mystery guest is, huh?"

"Boo Radley?"

"Yeah, sure, Atticus," Jem said, laughing. "Boo Radley snuck out of his house after thirty years and ran away to New York to be with Scout. Sounds perfectly logical to me."

Jem and I just laugh after that. My son has a wonderful sense of humor and he makes me laugh more than anyone. I consider it a great blessing that he can just laugh through it all. My poor boy; life surely has beaten him up a lot. My poor daughter for that matter, too...

"Here's the airport," he says with a sharp turn that makes me want to shriek. "You're not dying, Atticus. Calm down!"

"The only way to calm down is to be dead!"

"You may be right."

Jem's park job had come to a literal screeching halt and he jumps out of the car before I can even open the door. I don't know if I should consider it a compliment or an insult that my children don't remember that I'm a senoir citizen. When I do get out, I hobble along as fast as I can to catch up with Jem and I'm amazed to find my son and daughter reunited by the time I got off the escalator. It melted my heart to see them hugging and I'm so thankful to see them so close.

"Atticus!" Scout shouts as she breaks away from Jem and runs to me. I feel like a million bucks when I have her in my arms again.

"You look great, sweet," I whisper in her ear as I kiss her cheek. She didn't really look different but I could tell that she was really happy for the first time in probably a long time. True happiness never fails to show up on your face when you feel it in your heart. That's what I know for sure.

"Whoa!" I hear Jem shout. He must have found Dill and when I looked, I knew that's exactly what happened. The two men embraced each other hard and all I could do was marvel at how much Dill looked the same as he did when he was young. I looked at Scout again and realized she was crying happy tears at Dill and Jem's reunion. I kiss her cheek again and she gives me one last bear hug before Dill comes over to me.

"Hello, Dill," I say as I stick my hand out for him to shake.

"Hello, Atticus," he said as he shoved my hand away and gave me a hug. It surprised me but it was actually a lovely thing for him to do. Hank would never dare hug me like Dill just did. I think I will take that as a good sign...