Epilogue
ELLIE
Seven months later
It’s a cool December evening. The light has already faded, and the air smells of wood smoke and salt. I pull my scarf tighter around me as I turn onto Mum’s street. Christmas lights glow in most windows, brightening the houses against the winter gloom.
As I let myself into Mum’s, I hear something from the living room that I’ve become used to these last few months: laughter.
I hang my coat on the peg and follow the sound.
Mum is in her usual chair, and Sandra—a chatty carer in her forties who always has a story to tell—is in mine, midway through an anecdote that has Mum shaking her head in amusement.
Sandra spots me first. “Ah, here she is! I was just finishing up.” She gets to her feet. “Your mum’s had her tea and I’ve sorted the kitchen.”
“Thanks, Sandra. You’re a star.”
“And she’s been keeping me entertained, as usual,” Mum adds.
Sandra grins. “All part of the service.”
“I’ll see you again on Wednesday, Sandra.”
“Wednesday it is.” Sandra squeezes Mum’s shoulder as she passes then lets herself out.
I settle into the chair she vacated. “You two are still getting along well.”
“Aye, she’s good company. Does enough talking for both of us.”
The carers come three times a week now, Sandra on Mondays and Wednesdays, and a younger woman called Fiona on Fridays.
Mum moaned about them for the first week, insisting she didn’t need strangers fussing over her, but I haven’t heard a complaint out of her since then.
She likes them, and having other people around has done her good.
“So,” Mum says, “is it all done?”
“Aye, all done.”
“And how are you feeling about it?”
“Good. It’s a new chapter. I’m excited.”
Mum nods. “Well, I suppose you know what you’re doing.”
We’ve barely chatted for another minute when there’s a commotion at the front door. “Here we go,” Mum says.
Two small figures barrel into the living room in hats and scarves and gloves, both talking at once and neither listening to the other.
“These two, honestly,” Mum mutters, but there’s warmth in her tone. For all she complains about noise and the state of modern children’s manners, she makes sure there are always biscuits in the tin—good ones, chocolate ones—for the twins’ visits.
“Ellie! Anne!” Logan announces at full volume, turning his attention to us. “Guess what? I’m moving up a group at swimming!”
“Me too!” Rosie says.
“Aye, but I got told first.”
“She read your name out right before mine!”
“Still first.”
“Why, that’s wonderful, you two,” Mum cuts in. “Well done!”
Behind the twins, Douglas comes into view, filling the doorframe, his cheeks pink from the cold. “Evening, Anne,” he says.
“Douglas. A good catch today?”
“Aye, not bad.”
Mum glances at me and says in a stage whisper, “He always says ‘not bad’. Is it ever more than ‘not bad’?”
“Sometimes it’s ‘aye, decent’,” I say, smiling. “Or on a really good day, you might get ‘can’t complain’.”
Douglas’s mouth twitches. He comes over and gives me a peck on the lips.
Logan launches into a breathless account of something that happened at school today.
He’s talking too quickly for me to follow exactly what went on, but it seems to have involved a football, a puddle, and Finn’s left shoe.
Rosie, meanwhile, presents a drawing of a dolphin to Mum and strongly suggests it would look good on her fridge.
The visit is brief, just a quick check-in, but I make sure Mum has everything she needs for the evening, then kiss her on the cheek.
“Right, you lot,” I say, turning to the twins. “Say goodbye.”
“Bye, Anne!” Logan is already halfway to the door.
“Bye, Anne!” Rosie choruses, then adds, “Don’t forget to put up my picture!”
Outside, the cold hits us, our breath coming out in pale clouds. Logan and Rosie walk a few paces ahead, bickering about something, as usual. Douglas falls into step beside me, his hand finding mine.
We turn onto my old street, and there’s my cottage, looking just as it always has from the outside. The tidy path. The painted front door. The flowerbeds I spent years tending, now cut back for winter but still neat.
Inside, however, the house has been emptied. My furniture is at Douglas’s or sold. My books are at Douglas’s. My fiddle, my photos, my mismatched mugs—all at Douglas’s. The cottage is just walls now. Clean walls, ready for someone else’s life.
“Do you want to go in?” Douglas asks. “Have one last look around?”
I shake my head. “I’ve already given the key to my solicitor. From tomorrow, this place belongs to someone else.”
I wait for second thoughts or a pang of loss, but nothing comes. Douglas squeezes my hand—then Logan tugs my sleeve.
“Ellie, can we go home now? I’m starving.”
Home. The word lands in my chest, warm and right.
“Mate, you’ve already had dinner,” Douglas points out.
“Aye, but swimming makes me hungry.”
“I could eat something,” Rosie says.
“Jesus.” Douglas shakes his head. “You two. Where does the food even go?”
“I’ll make us all a snack when we get back,” I say. “Let’s go.”
We walk to Braeview Drive, to Douglas’s house—no, to our house. Because it’s part mine now too.
The divorce came through four months ago without drama, which felt almost anticlimactic after everything.
Leah signed the papers, as she said she would.
Douglas did have to remortgage, but with the sale of my cottage completing tomorrow, that mortgage will shrink to something manageable, something shared.
Leah hasn’t been back to Ardmara. Douglas still stands by what he told her—she can see the twins whenever she likes, so long as she arranges it properly and doesn’t turn up without warning.
She hasn’t arranged anything. If she wants to visit over Christmas, she’ll be welcome, but there’s been no word from her, and Douglas isn’t going to chase her.
The twins haven’t been asking after her either.
They’re okay. More than okay, actually—they’ve settled into having me around better than I dared hope.
The house on Braeview Drive is warm and cluttered the way it always is.
Oilskins hang by the front door. Library books are stacked on the hall table—the twins’ latest haul, plus one of my own.
A garland of tinsel runs along the bannister.
Paper snowflakes, cut out by Rosie with great precision and by Logan with considerably less, are taped to every available window.
On the hall wall, among the family photos—the twins as newborns, small and red-faced; a school portrait with matching gap-toothed grins—there’s a newer addition.
It’s a photo of Douglas by the loch in Bannock, caught mid-laugh on the tree swing.
I took it on my phone rather than my proper camera.
The framing is slightly off and the light isn’t perfect, but it might just be my favourite photograph I’ve ever taken.
No sooner have I hung up my coat than the twins each take one of my hands.
“We have a surprise,” Rosie says.
“You have to come with us,” Logan adds.
“Oh?”
“It was my idea,” Logan says.
“It was our idea.”
“But I—”
“Lead the way, then,” I say before this can escalate.
They pull me into the living room, past the Christmas tree, then through to the kitchen. Douglas follows then leans against the worktop with his arms folded. He catches my eye and smiles.
“Close your eyes,” Rosie instructs, “and hold out your hand.”
I do as I’m told. Something small and cool is placed in my palm.
“We made you this,” Rosie says.
“It was my idea,” Logan repeats.
“It was our—”
“Can I open my eyes yet?” I’ve developed a few strategies for managing twin disputes. Deflection is one of the most reliable.
“Oh,” Rosie says. “Aye, of course.”
I look down at what I’m holding. It’s a house key attached to a keyring that the twins have made themselves—a small lumpy creation of painted cardboard, glitter, and what appears to be a shell glued on with an alarming amount of PVA.
It’s been cut into a rough heart shape. On one side, in Rosie’s careful handwriting: ELLIE’S KEY.
On the other, in Logan’s less careful handwriting: WELCOM HOME.
The glitter is already coming off on my fingers.
“Oh, wow, guys,” I say. “This is wonderful.”
“We’re not done yet,” Logan informs me.
“There’s a ceremony,” Rosie adds.
I glance at Douglas. His expression suggests he knew about the key but not about the ceremony.
“A ceremony?” I say.
“Aye.” Rosie clears her throat. “Logan, do the trumpet.”
Logan cups his hands around his mouth and does a trumpet impression. It’s loud, enthusiastic, and goes on for quite some time. Douglas winces. I press my lips together to keep from laughing.
“That’s enough,” Rosie says.
“I wasn’t fin—”
“That’s enough.”
Logan drops his hands and looks mildly aggrieved.
Rosie turns to me and adopts a formal tone she’s clearly been practising. She stands very straight, chin lifted, hands clasped behind her back. “Ellie Macpherson. We, Logan and Rosie Fraser, do hereby present you with this key to our house.”
“Welcome home,” Logan adds, pointing to the message he wrote on the keyring.
“Do you accept this key?” Rosie asks.
My throat is tight. I look at the lumpy, glittery, lopsided keyring in my hand—this ridiculous, beautiful thing, made by two children who have decided I belong to them—and can’t speak for a moment.
Then I crouch down to their level. I look at Rosie’s serious face and Logan’s grinning one.
I hold the key against my chest. “I accept.”
Rosie nods, satisfied, as though the matter is now legally binding.
“Brilliant,” Logan says. “Now that’s over, can you start on that snack you said you were going to make us?”
Douglas laughs and shakes his head. “Wait just one minute. I still have to properly welcome Ellie.” He pushes off the worktop and crosses the kitchen to me, then takes my face in both hands—those big, rough fisherman’s hands—and kisses me softly.
“Welcome, Ellie,” he murmurs. “Love you.”
I close my fingers around the keyring, the shell pressing into my palm, and smile.
“Love you too.”