Epilogue
SUMMERTIME IN CORNWALL
DAIR
Adey was right about it never being too late to go back to school. Vincent comes in top of his class with his first practical assignments, which is no surprise. My mudlark has his eyes on the same prize as me—him coming home permanently.
That’s what we both want after six months of him fitting visits around his work with Kev and his master craftsman studies.
The cousins have talked it through. Their plan is for Vincent to drop helping with removals but keep restoring the furniture that Kev will deliver to Cornwall and then collect in a van painted with both of their names.
They’ll continue splitting the profit on those pieces while we work on a side hustle of our own.
Kev hiring an apprentice to replace Vincent’s labour has been a game-changer, especially as his new hire understands that some house moves can’t wait until morning. Deshaun is exactly as handy as Vincent once told his drug-dealing uncle. He’s all over those midnight rescue missions.
That helping pair of hands just leaves one roadblock to Vincent’s relocation: He has to pass an in-person assessment. If he does, he can finish the rest of his accreditation from the far end of a train line.
But that in-person assessment?
It’s today, and it’s a doozy.
Vincent won’t only have to give an educational presentation about a restoration project; he’ll have to do it in front of an audience.
That’s a whole bus full of struggles for him.
I heard so during the video call when he invited me to come watch it.
Saw it too in the way he scratched his chest while I was too far away to kiss him better with aloe vera.
I’m nervous on his behalf, which my ride to the station notices when he arrives bright and early.
“Well,” Charles says from the workshop doorway, where he crouches to fuss with the spaniel Alice left to me.
“Someone’s got the jitters when they really don’t need to.
” He aims this at Hector. “Because what do we already know about your other daddy?” Charles reminds him. And me. “He’s a very brave boy.”
I wish I was. Elmo doesn’t work his usual magic today when I sneak a quick look at the sticker that I keep safe in my phone case.
I’m as worried now as when I stood outside a restaurant and couldn’t make myself go in to ask for the help I needed.
I flip over my phone, and the reason I finally did is right there on my lock screen, so handsome.
Charles interrupts my swooning over Vincent. “All his training has really paid off, hasn’t it?” He comes further inside the workshop, beaming as brightly as the July sunshine that lends him a golden halo. “It’s like a wee palace in here!”
That’s a blast from the past. A reminder of my first visit to the high-rise home where Vincent fell in love with restoration.
And it’s where I fell head over heels for him outside a storage cupboard.
He got brave enough there to peel back painful layers.
I’m still not over it. Never will be. But Charles is right—this space is something special, and so is the man who helped me clear it of so much clutter.
“We spend most of our time in here when he visits.”
I hope those visits soon won’t be limited to weekends, and I slide my phone into my pocket, fingers finding what I’ll give him later if he passes his assessment.
Meanwhile, Charles turns in a slow circle, admiring our growing side-hustle collection of vintage chairs and tables perfect for rustic celebrations.
“Yes, apart from those two ratty old armchairs, everything here looks amazing.”
He’s right about that too, and yet…
“The armchairs are actually my favourites.” I’d never sell them off at auction or give them away on Gumtree.
Too many old memories are woven into their faded fabric.
Plus, they’re where Vincent and I keep making new ones.
The first thing he does each time he comes to Cornwall is pull me down onto his lap in the seat his cousin delivered here from London.
It’s where we reconnect and do a lot more than kiss and cuddle.
We’ve had the kind of sex I’m not about to share with a vicar’s husband, but Vincent and I have also sat side-by-side here to build a business that could turn into a long-term future for us.
I’ll always keep these chairs. I also want to keep Vincent.
That means I need to hit the road, only Charles doesn’t seem in any hurry.
“They do look comfy.” He nudges at a clawed corner.
“I called them ratty because of the scratches. Oh, sorry, milord and lady. Didn’t mean to wake you two sleepyheads.
” He crouches again to stroke Mog and the once feral cat Kev also delivered from the city.
There isn’t anything wild about Kitty’s purring this morning.
Like Vincent, she belongs here.
Making a second relocation as permanent as hers is on my mind once Charles finally drives me to the station in his Land Rover.
I can’t help checking the time over and over.
I also curse under my breath when summertime tourists clog the narrow lanes, their camper vans loaded with surfboards.
Like the last time I thought I wouldn’t get to keep the one thing I wanted, Charles reassures me.
“Don’t worry about the traffic. I’ll get you there before the train leaves. ”
The thing is, I do worry. I can’t help it when the view ahead of the coast road shows traffic at a standstill.
Charles promises, “You won’t miss it,” despite the gridlocked evidence right in front of us. “Want to know why I think so?” He takes a hand off the wheel to sketch a second halo of the morning over his head. “Because Hugo reached out to his boss to ask for a happy ending for you.”
“He called the bishop?”
Charles laughs. “No. I mean he said a little prayer for you two this morning over his cornflakes.” His voice pitches deeper, like his husband’s.
“Lord, please guide Alasdair and Vincent this morning. Open every locked door and unbar every gate to reveal your path for them. And lo, a path was revealed.” He points at an open farm gate right beside us, his grin infectious.
“Buckle up, buttercup. We’re going off road. ”
And we do.
Charles gets me to the station via four-wheel drive, bumping us over field after field where each gate stands wide open. I say a prayer of thanks for that once I’m aboard the train to London. Then I say another when I reach the city to find I’m not the only one with happy endings on my mind.
A glimpse into my future has come to meet me.
Kev.
Yes, he’s greying and stubbly compared to Vincent’s Disney prince good looks, but there’s no denying that someone taught both of them to care, which is so attractive.
I hear more of that care when we reach our destination where he stops under golden signage to grumble, “Do you know who else he’s invited?
” Kev blocks the museum entrance. “Bleeding school kids. A whole lot of them. And not easy kids either.”
I know who else Vincent invited. Was there when he called Adey to find out the name of the unit where he used to teach real tough nuts.
Kev isn’t happy about it. “They’ll give him a hard time. I know it.” His fists curl tight. “What the fuck was he thinking?”
I know exactly what Vincent was thinking.
He told me the last time we snuggled together on faded fabric like Mog and Kitty did this morning.
Kev finally comes to the same conclusion.
“Guess he wants to face the past, draw a line underneath it, and then move on. Me too. So he better pass this assessment.” He’s even gruffer than usual.
“Me and the missus need our spare room back.”
I’m hopeful, and not only about Vincent passing this assessment. “You and Marilyn finally got approved for fostering?”
Kev’s smile melts me like Vincent’s did the very first time I saw it. “Yeah.” Just as quickly, his smile flickers. “But I don’t want him thinking he ain’t welcome. If Vince don’t pass this time around and he needs to stay with us for longer, me and Maz will hold off fostering.”
Marilyn confirms that when we find her waiting for us. “We’ll always have a bed for him.” She hugs me hard. “But he won’t need it, so you better take this bedding back to Cornwall with you.” She opens her bag, and I catch a glimpse of firefighters with extra-long hose reels.
She cackles, but my laugh sounds a wee bit desperate.
Marilyn must notice.
She hugs me again, and I can’t help thinking whoever ends up in her and Kev’s care will be so very lucky. “Stop worrying about Vincent. He’s got this.”
She’s right.
Vincent has got this.
I know it the moment we enter a museum workshop just in time for the start of his presentation.
This room isn’t just crowded with rowdy kids and the craftsmen here to assess his work.
Exes are also here to support him, only Blake and Adey missing.
I can’t focus on the faces of the ones who are here, or on Harry who crosses the room to join us.
I’m locked on Vincent, who had been scratching his chest. He spots me, and his hand lowers.
So do his shoulders. He takes a deep breath and then does what we practised at home in a pair of armchairs that we shifted to face each other.
He starts by speaking directly to me.
His gaze doesn’t waver, and I could mouth this first line along with him, I’ve heard it so often.
“My talk today is about why restoration matters.”
Like he matters to me.
“It can be a long process,” Vincent tells disinterested teens. “But that’s good.” He stands beside a rickety table, his current work in progress. “This is damaged. Something caused that. I need to figure out what happened and why before I can look ahead and plan how to restore it.”
I’m looking ahead right now at a future with him in it. He’s everything I never thought I’d get to keep when each home I had was temporary.
“Restoration matters,” he repeats right in front of kids who won’t stop whispering with their neighbours. Vincent does what a teaching expert said would get easier the more times he did it. He’s brutally honest. “I love it, but I’ll tell you what I hated when I was your age. Having brain damage.”
That gets their attention. Vincent’s eyes lock with mine again as he pushes aside black hair to show off a slight depression.
Adey has similar low points inked into his skin.
I hope he gets to map a brand-new high point at the summer school he’s attending.
It’s designed to get him back into classrooms. For now, everyone inside this one listens to Vincent, and I’ve never felt pride like it.
“I can’t read or write because of that brain damage. Made me think I ain’t worth nothing.”
He’s worth so much more to me than that hoarse nuffin, but it does spark discussion.
The students fire questions. It also prompts one of Vincent’s assessors to scribble down some notes, and I hope to hell that he’s adding to a pass mark as Vincent strips back more layers.
“Some people would say the same about this table. That it’s worthless.
” He touches a piece of furniture we found at the back of a cluttered workshop.
“See these dents in the wood? These dinks where paint has chipped off? All they make me is curious.”
I’m pretty sure he gets that curiosity from his aunt Stacey.
I hope she and his mam are somehow watching.
One of them created this man. The other taught him how to see value in broken pieces.
They’re both the reason he learned this lesson.
“If I want to know what’s underneath the surface, I have to work harder. ”
It’s my imagination that I hear an ice cream van’s tinkling tune.
This room is pin-drop silent, everyone here hanging on Vincent’s next questions.
“You got a few dents and dinks too? Stuff that happened to you to make you feel like you ain’t got a future?
Damage that means your story will have an unhappy ending? ”
Some students nod.
“I can’t read or write, but I do know it’s never too late to tell yourself a different story.
Start by changing a single word that describes you.
Mine used to be damaged. Now I’ve taken the time to look back, I can see a better one for me is lucky.
” His gaze darts to one side of me. “I always had family in my corner. Still do.”
Kev and Marilyn.
He looks to the other side of me. “And people who thought I had potential.”
Harry.
“Your teachers think you got potential too. Are prepared to work hard for you. Look what might happen if you join in with their restoration process.” He touches the dinked and dented table that he’s halfway through restoring.
“This side looks worthless, don’t it?” He moves to the restored side of the table, fingers tracing mahogany swirls.
“This side looks priceless, and it was there the whole time, just waiting for someone to care enough to find it.”
He looks directly at me, and my eyes well.
Face it, we all knew that would happen.
I sniff and Kev passes me a tissue. Harry’s arm comes around me, and Vincent doesn’t only spend the next half hour facing an old fear with all of us watching.
He slays it.
I know he has even before his assessors decide on a grade.
Vincent meets me outside that workshop while they huddle over score sheets, and maybe it’s fate that we end up under a familiar portrait.
It’s the perfect place to tell him, “I love you so much,” like he told me over and over during his presentation.
I also give him what I brought all the way from Cornwall.
These keys to my home are new and shiny.
I want him to keep them for so long that they’ll tarnish.
For now, all I can do is kiss him behind a shield of Exes until the assessors come to their decision.
And when they do, Vincent’s smile tells me his story does come with a happy ending, which means mine will too.
I’ll get to take him home forever.
The End.
Thanks so much for reading!