Epilogue #2
“Scott would write me a poem,” Jessica says. “Anonymously. And then deny it when I found out. And then write another one.”
“Dean would just show up,” Jo says. “No roses. No poems. Just him, standing in the doorway, looking at me like—” She stops. Waves her hand. “You know.”
“We know,” everyone says in unison.
“What would Paul do?” Hazel asks, turning to Emma.
Emma opens her mouth to answer.
The front door opens.
Paul Spencer is standing in Hazel’s foyer in jeans and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
The whole book club discussing romance novels, and he’s walked right into the middle of it.
His hair is pushed back. His jaw is set.
He’s holding something in his right hand—his fist is closed around it.
The entire book club goes silent. Every voice drops. Total silence.
“Paul?” Emma stands up. “What are you—is everything okay? Are the kids—”
“Kids are fine. Dawson’s got them.” He steps into the living room. Looks around. Takes in the circle of chairs, the pastry box, the shirtless book covers, the nine pairs of eyes locked onto him like targeting systems.
He clears his throat. “I had a speech.”
“A speech,” Emma repeats.
“I wrote it down. On the boat. Took me an hour.” He reaches into his back pocket with his left hand, pulls out a folded piece of paper, looks at it, then puts it back. “It’s terrible. I’m not using it.”
“Okay,” Emma says carefully.
“Here’s what I’ve got instead.” He takes a breath. “I’m not good at this. You know that. Everybody in this room knows that. I’ve been saying that since the day you docked at my marina, and you keep telling me you’ve noticed, and I keep not getting better at it.”
Nobody moves. Grandma Hensley’s pen is hovering over her notebook.
“But here’s what I am good at. I’m good at showing up.
I’m good at six a.m. and pancakes on Saturday and junction boxes at midnight.
I’m good at Stomper rescues and dock readings and lists.
I’m good at fixing things that are broken, and Emma—” His voice catches.
He pauses. Resets. “Emma, you fixed the thing in me that was broken, and I didn’t even ask you to.
You just did it. By being here. By being you.
By being so relentlessly, impossibly bright that I couldn’t stay in the dark anymore. ”
He opens his right hand.
A ring. Simple. A diamond that catches Hazel’s lamplight and throws tiny sparks across the ceiling.
“I’m not good at speeches. I’m not good at grand gestures.
I’m a guy who owns one suit and talks to a sticky note.
But I will show up for you every single day for the rest of my life, and I will never check my phone at dinner, and I will fight your coffee maker until one of us dies, and I need you to know that I am completely, terrifyingly, permanently in love with you. ”
He drops to one knee. On Hazel’s living room rug. In front of the entire book club, a sleeping baby, a plate of pastries, and a pile of dog-eared romance novels.
“Marry me, Emma. Please.”
The room holds its breath.
Emma is standing in front of him with both hands pressed to her mouth, and she’s crying, and she’s laughing, and she’s shaking her head—not no, just overwhelmed, just too full of everything to hold it all in.
“You crashed book club,” she says through her fingers.
“I crashed book club.”
“With a diamond ring.”
“With a diamond ring.”
“In front of everyone.”
“I needed witnesses. You might say no and I wanted it documented.”
She drops to her knees in front of him. Takes his face in her hands.
“Yes,” she says. “You ridiculous, wonderful, grumpy man. Yes.”
The room detonates.
Jo screams. Michelle is sobbing. Amber is on her feet clapping.
Hazel drops the sweet tea pitcher and doesn’t even look at it.
Jessica is hugging Scott’s book like it’s a person.
Grandma Hensley is writing so fast her pen is a blur.
Mads is trying to clap without waking Saralynn, which doesn’t work, so Saralynn starts crying, which makes Mads start crying, and now everybody in Hazel’s living room is either crying or cheering or both.
I have my camera.
Of course I have my camera. I don’t go anywhere without it—not because I’m expecting proposals at book club, but because I’m a photographer and light is unpredictable and moments don’t wait.
I’ve been shooting since the second Paul walked through the door. Silent shutter mode. The one I use for sleeping newborns and ambush proposals, apparently. I got him in the foyer with his jaw set. I got Emma standing up. I got the ring catching the light. I got the knee drop. I got the yes.
And now I get this: Emma and Paul on their knees on Hazel’s rug, foreheads pressed together, her hands on his face, his eyes closed. Everyone in a circle around them. A baby crying and a grandmother’s pen scratching and a dessert plate that nobody’s touching because this—this—is the good stuff.
This is what I photograph. Not just babies at the beginning. People at the moment everything changes.
Paul opens his eyes. Sees my camera.
“Did you just—”
“Every second.”
“I didn’t give you permission to—”
“Lottie doesn’t need permission,” Emma says, wiping her eyes. “Lottie has instincts.”
He looks at me. I expect grumpy. I expect the Paul Spencer face—the one that says put that camera away before I throw it in the harbor.
Instead he nods. Once. “Get a good one?”
I scroll back through the shots. Find the one—Paul on one knee, ring extended, Emma’s hands over her mouth, lamplight catching the diamond and throwing sparks across the ceiling. Hazel’s rug. Book club. The whole messy, imperfect, beautiful scene.
“I got a great one.”
“Send it to me.”
“To you?”
“I want it in the office.” He pauses. “Next to the sticky note.”
My throat goes tight. I nod. He turns back to Emma, who kisses him again while Jo pours champagne she apparently brought “just in case” because Jo Beckett is either psychic or an optimist, and in Twin Waves those might be the same thing.
Grandma Hensley catches my eye from the wingback chair. She holds up her notebook. She’s written one word in large letters and circled it three times:
Finally.
I laugh. Tuck my camera back against my chest.
My phone buzzes. A number I don’t recognize.
Your kids left a tackle box on my boat. Again. —Justin
I stare at the screen. He got my number. I don’t know how and I’m not going to ask.
I type: Tomorrow is fine. Thanks.
A pause. Then:
Justin: The kid labeled every compartment. It says SHIMP BATE.
I almost laugh. I press my lips together and don’t.
Lottie: He’s eight.
Justin: Goodnight, Roberts.
I set the phone down. Pick it back up. Set it down again.
In Hazel’s living room, Emma is showing the ring to everyone. Paul is standing against the wall, arms crossed, almost smiling. Mads has gotten Saralynn back to sleep through sheer willpower. Michelle is already planning the engagement party. Grandma Hensley is updating her spreadsheet.
Goodnight, Roberts.
Not Lottie. Roberts. Like I’m one of his deckhands. Like we’re colleagues and not two people who’ve spent the past four months arguing about everything from dock etiquette to the appropriate volume of eight-year-olds.
So why am I smiling?
I put the phone in my pocket, pick up a lemon bar, and settle back into my chair.
Outside, the Twin Waves evening is warm and salt-scented. Somewhere at the marina, Justin Spencer is on his boat with a tackle box that belongs to my sons.
Somewhere in this room, Emma Mills is about to become Emma Spencer, and she deserves every second of it.
I bite into the lemon bar. It’s good. It’s really good.
Maybe I’ll make another batch tomorrow.