The final piece

"I hate to tell you what the official name for it is." I said, putting the car into gear and easing my foot off the clutch. I had only taken it up to its maximum speed a couple times, and it had been a white knuckle ride both times, even on the straightaway where I did it.

"There's an official name for the door opener thingy?" Kaila sighed. "What is it?"

"It's the remote."

"That's boring." Kaila's hand played along the sill of the open window. "I would have thought... you know how we kept forgetting to check every time we got in the house because something would come up?"

"I do. "

"Well... that's the kind of thing I miss." Kaila said. "The stuff I kept pawning off to Carla. I just assumed it was always going to be there."

"It's never going to be like it was, Kaila."

"You know what the worst part is? I kept telling myself every day I did it that I'd take care of it tomorrow." Kaila sniffed a little and wiped something from her eye. "Piece of grass in my eye, I think."

She immediately rolled the window up, as I pulled the car into its spot within the small garage that sat adjacent to the main house. It was a pain in the neck to keep clean. One of the things they don't tell you about a glass sided building near a stand of trees is how much crap gets on it when the wind blows. Just one of the wonderful things you learn after you've already made the mistake. One of these days I was going to install some baffling or something to save on the cleaning supply bill.

"I know how that goes. There's a lot of things I wish I'd said to you that I didn't."

"Well, I've been trying to make amends on a lot of things..." Kaila began.

"Make amends... are you on a twelve step program?" I looked at her sharply as I closed the door of the trident festooned car. "Because if you are can we just skip to the thirteenth?"

"Huh?" Kaila said, stepping out of the vehicle as well, her feathered tattoo catching the light magnificently as she slammed the door shut as well. "That makes no... wait, is this one of your jokes? Did they get better?"

"I dunno, you tell me. Anyway, the thirteenth step is to move on with your life. Standing on a stairway forever's kinda a dick move. You're blocking everybody else from using it."

"Yes..." Kaila wiped at the corner of her eye again. "They got better. So... uh... you said I could stay in the guest house?"

"Yeah, absolutely, but at least come on in to say hi to everybody."

"Everybody?" Kaila grabbed the overnight bag she had brought from the boot of the car and looked at the large house nearby. "I have so many butterflies in my stomach right now."

"I promise, no love bombing, or cult behavior. I swear. "

"I could use a love bomb right now. "

"Well shit. NOW I guess I have to undo all that carefully choreographed planning that Nikki and I came up with. It was gonna be great, first we were gonna..."

"Wow, now you're... you're different, Brent." Kaila commented following me towards the now open glass doors. "I mean, your garage looks like a car dealership, your house looks like a fortress, and you... look happy."

"I am happy. I'm not perfect, but I'm happy."

We wound our way around the outlying curved outer wing and Charlotte's entrance. One of the things we had agreed on early in our zombie survival squad negotiations was that Charlotte got her own entrance. She had promised and kept the promise of always letting us know every single thing she was up to, but she was who she was. She never brought anything home, in any sense of the word, so it was a workable solution for all of us.

I nearly stumbled over one of the kids small tricycles on the large open patio in front. They were everywhere, but apart from the occasional skinned knee or random rally road race based off some random cartoon they were worth putting up with. It was nice to just let the kids be kids once in a while, but I don't think I'll ever be able to keep track of these cartoon characters. Mostly I just note the hair color, makes it easier to differentiate em.

"Did Helen Draw that? It's gorgeous." Kaila asked as I pushed open the door to the house, revealing a huge banner that read "Welcome Home" strung across the entrance arch set back from the door.

"Maybe. I thought you'd like the kids handprints." I pointed to the small red and green splotches where Daniel had slapped his hands and then demanded to make one of them a turkey, which had made everyone present agree that it was probably the best choice.

"What's with the turkey?"

"Daniel likes turkeys. We've got a whole flock of them around here somewhere."

Kaila's eyes became wet as she looked at me, and around the open space of the room.

"Whose idea... it was all of your ideas, wasn't it? You know... that time we had was... all I wanted was..."

"Look, everybody agreed you might need some time to yourself. Or I can just yell zombie horde and have everybody running out here with axes and shotguns."

"Axes and Shotguns?"

"You can't use an **** rifle. Helen was very clear on that one. Because nothing attracts zombies faster than automatic fire."

"Now you're just... wait, let me guess, you let our kid play zombie shooters."

"Well not on a day like today, it's sunny out." I grinned.

"Ok... this is... are you asking me to be a part of your harem again?"

"Can we come out now, or are you gonna milk this forever?" Carla shouted from the kitchen, which lay off to the rear of the main room. We'd decided to go old school and have both an old style hearth and a modern electric kitchen in one. That of course had necessitated putting in a chimney, which meant putting in a separate room, and on and on, just made my head hurt thinking about it and was glad when Carla had eagerly stepped up to the plate on that one.

Which was why when she and four other women in various stages of pregnancy exited the kitchen en masse it was nearly comical.

"Don't you dare do that joke..." I pointed at Carla.

"Ahh... we had de timing on "One of us" down pat!" Nikki whooped with joy before eagerly entering as well. "No fun at all these days. Ever since you married a cop."

"Ex-cop." Maria amplified, moving towards the nearest couch and sitting heavily on it, reclining so that she could comfortably move without too much pressure on her very obviously pregnant belly. "But only for legal purposes."

"You look great, dahlin!" Charlotte moved directly towards Kaila, catching her up in an embrace before my ex wife could even move. Charlotte was by far the least far along of the women in the room, and seemed happy and chattery as ever. It was something that I'd noticed from before. Charlotte LOVED being pregnant. It seemed to agree with her in a way that was delightful, and ever since little Pallas had started walking she'd been making motions about wanting to do it again.

"Charlie... you... you're pregnant again." Kaila looked at her with amazement. "You're all... pregnant again."

"We... Well, I can't speak for everybody... but I voted that we asked you to come back." I said with a smile. "You can have the guest house but... there's an extra wing in the main house. If you want it."

"Wow... just... hang on, Brent, I'm still trying to gather... you've got so many kids around here, I feel like I might get lost in the shuffle."

"Look, no rush. And no pressure. The vote was four to two. " Helen explained. "We think Danny needs his mom around, and seeing you once in a blue moon isn't enough."