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EPILOGUE
FLORA, A YEAR LATER
I look at myself in the mirror. My wedding dress—or rather, my vow-renewal dress—fits perfectly, the beaded swags kissing my upper arms and making me feel like a princess. The skirt wraps my hips securely, and I’m glad to see my abdomen is still flat.
My makeup, done by Tasha at Beauty Day Spa, is perfect. Frankie Lou down at the Best Little Hair House in Boone (I know, I know, but it’s funny) put my hair into an elegant updo, and I hardly recognize myself.
I’m marrying my husband all over again, and there are butterflies in my stomach. Happy, excited butterflies.
This time we’re doing it at the Methodist church downtown, with plenty of people there to watch us promise our lives to each other all over again, and mean it this time. The prayer chain ladies made the cheese straws and the punch and the homemade cream cheese mints. The Dogwood Bakery made the cake (white, with raspberry jelly filling). Blooms did the flowers, all daisies and pale pink roses and ribbons.
This time there will be no ultimatums. No recriminations. No leaving.
Aunt Zee was right to give us that chance.
This time, it’s forever.
I am keeping what’s mine.
The sky threatens rain, but that’s all right. Flowers need rain to grow.
And love thrives on any weather.
Everything goes as planned. I catch my breath at how handsome my husband looks in his suit, while also catching my breath at the remembered sight of how handsome he looks out of his suit. I get teary during the ceremony. So does he. We make the promises, and we mean them.
And afterward, we eat food that people who love us made for us, and we take kisses and hugs and good wishes, and we manage to escape the whole bouquet-tossing, garter-throwing nonsense. Everett sweeps me outside, still in my gorgeous white dress, and holds an umbrella over my head as we kiss. It’s not the first time we will kiss as husband and wife, but it will also not be the last time.
May there be a hundred thousand kisses in our future.
Ev picks me up and sets me in the front seat of his big white pickup truck, and we drive just out of town, up to a tiny bed-and-breakfast place that just opened, up on Catawba Ridge. It’s rustic and lovely, and when we get in out of the rain and check into our room, we just stand there looking at each other for a moment.
“I feel so lucky,” I whisper. “I have everything I ever wanted.”
“So do I,” Everett says, in his whisky-and-honey voice. “Well, except kids to take over the business. Hayes and Sons sounds good, doesn’t it?”
I raise my eyebrows at him.
“Or Hayes and Daughters,” he says hastily.
“That’s better,” I say. “Girls can do anything.”
“Well, you’re proof of that.” He opens his arms to me. “Now, my wife…I have a gift for you.”
I shelter against his broad chest. “I already got my gift.”
“No, this is for you,” he says. “I hope you like it.” And he pulls a long envelope out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
It’s a voucher for any computer equipment I want, up to $5000.
Tears come to my eyes, and I kiss him. “It’s not the money, sweetheart,” I say through my overwhelmed emotions. “It’s—oh, you know what it is.”
“So you can do what you want with your career,” he says. “I want you to be happy.”
“I am,” I whisper. I put my arms around his neck. “Kiss me, husband.”
And he does.
He pulls my dress off me, so tenderly, and puts it on the velvet armchair so it won’t wrinkle. And then he claims my mouth, caressing my bare breasts with his hands. I tug at his tie, and he steps away to take off his own clothes. I slip off my white satin tap pants, feeling the wetness between my thighs.
