Thank you for this chapter. I can't bring myself to call it an epilogue, just a pause in their lives.
Hats off to Joel and his father for clearly delineating the root cause of the issues between Joel and his mother. I had tears in my eyes as Joel and his father hugged. And he was so on point when he clued his wife in on the damage she's doing, and that only the weasel, did you suspect anything else, is still living at home. Unemployed, a drug bust or two, and some carpet crawlers of his creation to boot.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for continuing this story, as it only got better and better.
I hope that occasionally, we get a chapter that allows us to revisit these characters. Not a full-fledged, multi-chapter story, just an occasional one-chapter peek in on them once in a while.