Some people do stay. Some people choose you again and again until trust stops feeling terrifying.
Colby presses a kiss gently into my hair.
And now, home feels permanent.
Epilogue
Sadie
Forever Family
By the time spring finally arrives in Briar Cove, the whole town seems determined to act personally responsible for it.
Flower boxes appear beneath shop windows overnight. Wreaths of pale pink blossoms hang on front doors. The snow that once buried the sidewalks has melted into bright puddles that catch the morning sun, and the harbor—gray and frozen for so long—shimmers blue again beneath a sky that looks almost too hopeful to be real.
It feels like the entire town has exhaled.
Or maybe that’s just me.
Because today, I am standing in front of the mirror in an upstairs room of the church, wearing a wedding dress I never thought I would have the courage to choose.
It isn’t grand. It isn’t dramatic. It doesn’t sparkle beneath every light like something borrowed from a fairy tale. But it’s me. Simple. Romantic. Mine.
It’s soft ivory lace with delicate sleeves, a fitted waist, and a flowing skirt that sways gently whenever I move. Comfortable. Pretty. Uncomplicated. The kind of dress that feels less like something I’m wearing and more like something that belongs to me.
And somehow, standing here today, that feels exactly right.
Behind me, Jillie stands on the edge of the sofa in her flower girl dress, holding a basket of petals like she has been entrusted with the crown jewels.
“Mom,” she says very seriously, “I need you to know I practiced walking slow.”
I turn from the mirror. “That sounds promising.”
She nods. “But not too slow. Mrs. Bellamy said if I go too slow, people will start crying before you even come out.”
Across the room, Mrs. Bellamy sniffs loudly while pretending to adjust the curtains.
“I said no such thing,” she declares.
Jillie gives me a look that says grown-ups are unreliable witnesses.
I laugh, and the sound catches me by surprise. It’s not because I haven’t laughed lately. I have, and more than I ever expected.
But it’s because there was a time when joy felt like something I had to earn carefully, slowly, without taking up too much room.
Now joy seems to live everywhere.
In Jillie’s grin.
In the flowers waiting outside.
In the man standing at the end of an aisle somewhere downstairs, probably trying not to pace a hole through the church floor.
My throat tightens.
Jillie’s expression softens. “Are you nervous, Mom?”
“A little.”
