A/N: The first part of the epilogue. So if you want to know what my headspace was like writing this, I listened to Shawn Mendes' "Running Low" like six times in a row. You might need tissues on hand. CW: mentions of child death.
August 1962
A few months after they were married, autumn blew in again. With it, came a letter from Tommy. He apologized to her for leaving the way he did. While Jimmy and Stan never talked about it, probably because it didn't seem abnormal to them, he'd come to blows with papa the day he decided to leave. He wrote: "I couldn't take being there a second longer. You were always the strong one. I'm sorry I wasn't a better brother. I'm glad things worked out for you and Bosco."
Later, he would tell her that he knew she was going to marry Sam when he made her laugh during mass and she held his hand. He knew it was the real deal because that was the one thing she took seriously above all else-and he could see how happy he made her in that moment. It didn't hurt that he'd been willing to take a stand against papa.
Jimmy and Stan continued to live in the Bosco household until they were adults. They never returned to live with papa. They looked to Sam like their father, and he didn't mind. He treated them like his sons. When Tommy got his breaks from school, he came to stay with them too. When he graduated, he took a job teaching at a nearby school.
Just two weeks shy of nine months after they married, she took to her first confinement. Sam held her in his arms nearly the entire time they waited for the baby to arrive. Beforehand, Sam talked to the boys. He told them that he expected everything would go just right, but if it didn't, they always had a place in his home. Still, poor Jimmy sat outside sobbing because he feared she would die like mama. She had to have him brought in for a while to sit with her when she wasn't having frequent labor pains. Though, by that point, she also wasn't entirely sure she wasn't dying. After nearly a full day of labor pains, their little Mary Katherine (like mama) arrived. Sam laughed and smiled at their baby girl. Later, he told her that perhaps she did know that morning that they made their beautiful little girl under that blue, open sky.
Not a full year later, their little Rachel came. Their sweet, sweet Rachel who never made it out of her crib. She wasn't sure what was worse: losing a parent as a child or losing her child. It was the first time she ever saw Sam weep with grief.
When papa died, drinking himself to death as Tommy predicted, the little yellow house set empty for a few years. A part of her felt horrible for not properly grieving her father, but she didn't know how to feel. After the business with Bertram, she only ever spoke to him once again not long after Mary Katherine was born. He wasn't interested in his new granddaughter or apologies, just money. She sent him away empty handed. Besides, she was still mourning for her Rachel when he died. Tommy didn't even attend the funeral and wanted nothing to do with the house. Stan kept their little yellow house. He lives there with his family now.
By the time papa died, the world was thrown into chaos when the stock market crashed. People lost their jobs, their homes, and some even lost their lives. There were bread lines and people simply trying to survive. Sam had never trusted banks, so they didn't face the kind of hard times that so many others did. As such, Sam kept his guys on because people kept drinking even if they had no jobs. It seemed the lack of jobs and despair made people drink more.
With so many people out of work, she started making stews to serve for free out of the back. Everyone knew that if you were hungry, you could stop by the Bosco place, no questions asked. He even hired Wayne's wife, Grace, to help her. She and Grace became good friends. When they ended the laws against liquor, Sam found a large, cheap store front to move the bar out of the house. They officially opened Sam's Place in 1935 in the spot where it continues to sit.
In the chaos, their family grew by four more Boscos. Sam Junior, Madeleine, Violet, and Jamie all came within four years of each other. Whenever Sam caught grief from the guys about how many daughters he had, he always told them: "And my girls will grow into brave, beautiful young women just like their mother."
Then, the world was at war. Again. This time, Tommy and Jimmy-her beautiful baby brother who'd grown into a handsome young man no longer in need of his sister's supervision-left to go fight in the war. Tommy died in France in the summer of 1942. When their son was born that fall, they named him Tommy for his uncle. Jimmy came home in the winter of 1943 without an arm. Stan couldn't go on account of his asthma. Instead, he helped in the war effort at home before getting back to his first passion: writing. Stan joked that because he never did anything notable, he never did get a niece or a nephew named for him.
After the war, Jimmy came home to live with them again. He wasn't doing too well and started to develop papa's habit to cope with losing his arm-the arm he hoped to play baseball with when he returned home. He said he felt hopeless. Sam spent many nights up with him. But he did things differently than papa. He put the bottle down, and when he started getting things in order to get his own place-to leave her-she knew he had met a woman. Of course, she cried. As Sam put it, her first baby was leaving the nest.
"T, I want to introduce you to my wife." She looked at the beautiful young woman, momentarily stunned, though not for the reasons most of the neighborhood was in an uproar. She looked so much like her mother. "This is Mimi."
Jimmy had taken up managing music groups that played different clubs. It didn't take long for him to cross Mimi Hightower's path. She'd followed in her mother's footsteps and became a singer. When Jimmy introduced Mimi to the family, her niece, Ella, was only a few months away from being born. While their relationship wasn't illegal, they caught a hard time from ignorant people. Finally, Sam put up a sign that said: "Anyone with a problem with people of other races or mixed marriages should not enter this establishment."
Jimmy's marriage to Mimi put her back in contact with Madeleine. She'd gone to see her perform, and they had her back a few times over the years, but she lost touch with her after the babies started coming and they opened Sam's Place. When she realized Jimmy was the little boy who wanted nothing more to spend time with the elephants all those years ago, Madeleine could barely contain her laughter.
With seven children already and the belief that she was at the end of her child bearing years, their eighth and final child, Samantha, surprised them in 1950. Sam doted on her the same as he had all of the children before. Not even a full year later, Mary Katherine who had been serving as a nurse in Korea, which worried her to death, came home with a husband and their first grandchild. Perhaps because of her own upbringing, she'd never thought that one aspect of having so many children meant there would be even more grandchildren! All of the children except Samantha, who was still in high school, were married with children of their own now.
And Sam. Sweet Sammy. He was an excellent husband and father. He never spoke to her or the children in anger. He never raised a hand to them. In fact, he was always loving. She once wondered if marriage meant she would simply disappear, but even if she was Mrs. Bosco to the world, she was "sweetheart," "my love," "my Teresa," "Saint Teresa," or her personal favorite "baby" to Sam. He always made her feel special. He never missed an opportunity to dance in their parlor. He told her he had loved dancing with her since their first Valentine's dance. He said it didn't hurt that he could look into her beautiful eyes that looked like home, as though they were the only people in the world, and talk about anything while they were dancing. Just the two of them.
Every time she took to the child bed, he was there to hold her. Usually somewhere around the midway point, he told her it was better her than him because she was the strong one. He said it each time. She always laughed. For Stan and Jimmy, he became a brother and father figure who helped them navigate life. Though he never had a similar bond with Tommy, he held her for days when she got the news that he would never come home again. He loved their daughters as much as their sons, and he raised them all to be good people. They had so many good years together, a full life where he fulfilled every promise he ever made to her—except for one.
She often thought of how he explained mama's death to Stan and Jimmy the day they became a part of the Bosco household: you lived so the people you love remembered the good. She would always remember the good.
Late last year, they found the cancer. By the time the doctors found it, there was nothing they could do but wait for the end. Just like he'd sat in her bed with every one of their children she birthed, she stayed with him the entire time with his hand in hers. Samantha was the same age she was when her mama died, and she didn't understand why her papa was leaving her. Was it better for the child to know death was coming for their parent, or to be surprised? He doted on their baby girl until the end. One day, he sent her to get the camera, one of his good suits, and the fanciest dancing dress for Samantha she could find.
"She won't have her papa at prom or at her wedding. It will be nice for her to have a nice photo with me, to remember like the other kids."
He struggled to make it outside so they could take the photo in the colorful spring flowers instead of in the dreary hospital because he wanted his baby girl to have a bright memory. Of course, he plucked one of those flowers and handed it to her. "For my sweetheart," he said. It was her last flower from Sammy; she pressed it and kept it in a frame. That night, she wept. It was the first time it truly hit her what it meant to lose her best friend and partner of 35 years.
When he was awake, they talked just like they always had. As his time grew shorter, so did the hours she had with him. She remembers his last day. Even in the pain, he still found ways to make her laugh.
"I'm really upset I didn't marry a woman my own age now. Now, I get to think of some other guy making love to you because if it's right, I definitely want you to remarry. You don't deserve to spend the rest of your life alone on my account. Whoever he is, he better treat you right, or I'll come back from the grave and haunt the son of a bitch."
She laughed weakly. She wanted to tell him to stop because he would be fine, but they both knew that was a lie. She didn't want to remarry; she wanted to never lose her Sammy like he promised! Though, she knew better than most how no one controlled the time clock of life.
As the tears started to fall from her eyes, he used his waning strength to bring his fingers to brush them away before letting his hand fall on top of hers. He was the one dying, and he still wanted to comfort her.
"Do you remember the day we got engaged?"
"Yes."
He smiled at her. "Me too."
She laughed at that outloud. "Sam!"
"What? I'm dying. I should at least get to die happy, don't you think? We had a good run, didn't we?"
"We did."
"Will you tell me the story?"
She nodded, knowing exactly which story he wanted to hear. "The morning I decided to become Mrs. Teresa Bosco, I woke up and saw how happy the man I'd slowly, but surely, fallen deeply in love with looked in his sleep. I stayed in bed an hour longer just so I could watch you sleep because it made me happy watching you happy. Looking at the beautiful sky and colorful field of flowers with the man I loved made me realize it was time to start a new adventure, one that was with him, just for us."
"I'm glad you did, and I still wish I knew what I was dreaming about. It must have been a snapshot of all this happiness we would share. Now, you get to start a new adventure." He brushed her fingers.
Her hot tears were flowing down her face now. "I'd really rather not! I love you, Sammy."
"And I would really prefer it if you did! Life goes on, Teresa. If they let me into Heaven, I guess I'll see you when you get there, sweetheart."
"Of course they'll let you in! After all, they will be hearing frequently from your Saint Teresa!" She tried to wink at him, but her tears were too thick.
He gave her a weak smile. "That's my girl! Be strong. I love you very much, Teresa."
Those were his last words. She held his hand and her head over his heart, while she sang "Someone to Watch Over Me" until the orderlies came to move him. The children tried to get her to leave, but she refused to leave until they took him.
Sam Junior took over running Sam's Place. Samantha was out of school for the summer, so she took her up to the lake house for a while after the funeral. The house he bought as their getaway always held a special place in their hearts. They visited frequently with the kids in the summer. In the fall, they went up for hunting. Men thought it was peculiar that Sam would take his wife hunting because it was a time for men to get away from their wives.
She could still hear Sam, half laughing: "Really? Hunting brings us closer together!" She suspected at least three of their children were made somewhere in the Michigan woods.
For days, she sat in the parlor of the lake house just staring at the photo of her and Sam above the fireplace. Most people hung their wedding photo with such prominence, but they hung this photo taken at the lighthouse on the day she decided to become Mrs. Sam Bosco. It was always Sam's favorite story. Hers too.
Indeed, it was a life of happiness like Sam always promised.
A/N: Anyways, I cried when I wrote this and with each subsequent edit. Well, at least Lisbon didn't leave him on read this time, right?
