Epilogue #2
VibeHouse has its private plane waiting on the tarmac for us. In a little over an hour, we land in Florence, then a quick forty-five minute drive to Paradise. I want to ask what’s happening, but Rhys shakes his head every time I try.
We pull into town just before midnight. Mom’s house glows from a mile away, and cars line her driveway and street.
“What did you do?” I whisper to Rhys.
He just smiles.
We step inside a house filled with family and friends. People I haven’t seen in years. Friends of my dad’s from high school. From the military. Some of them I barely remember, but it doesn’t matter. They’re here.
My cousins are here, including Zach, Georgia, and Britta—along with Dex—who’ve all come in from LA. Mom’s passing out drinks and nudging people toward a buffet table loaded with food. Christmas music is playing. The smell of cinnamon fills the air. There’s hot cider on the stove.
Seb sees us, begins cheering, and everyone else joins in.
I assume it’s for Rhys. His performance was streamed live. But then I hear, “Merry Christmas, Stella.”
Nick is standing in the center of the room, dressed in a Santa suit. He’s smiling—and holding an envelope in his hand. I freeze.
“What is this?” I whisper as he hands it to me.
“It’s your Christmas letter,” Mom says, eyes shining. “The last one.”
My hands tremble as I reach for the envelope. My name is written on the front—in the same handwriting as the others.
I recognize the handwriting. It matches the first letter I received.
“Did Dad write this?” I whisper.
Mom nods, her eyes shimmering. “He wrote one right after you were born, but then he thought of more things he wanted you to know if he wasn’t here to tell you in person. He ended up writing four before deploying and gave them to your Grandpa to keep for you.”
A couple dozen pairs of eyes are on me. I smile, knowing. Remembering.
The first letters I received when I was nine—a preteen girl, growing and changing, unsure of who I was or who I was becoming.
Those letters from Dad helped me figure it out.
I smile again, remembering his advice that people are often unkind when they’re hurting and I should return meanness with kindness.
“But who wrote the others?” I ask, clutching the envelope in my hands.
Uncle Pete steps forward. “Your Aunt Heidi,” he says gently. “She wrote the ones you got in middle school, before her dementia.”
His eyes glisten. Pete’s wife Heidi was my dad’s sister. She passed away not long ago. I press my lips together. I can’t speak. But I remember those letters. She wrote them as Dad, but they were her memories of him, written before she could have known how soon Alzheimer’s would take them from her.
A couple of my dad’s friends from high school step up next.
“We wrote a few too,” one says. “Mike was a good guy. As big as he was, he could have been a bully. But he was always kind.”
Tears threaten again.
A man in uniform speaks up next. “You needed to know what your dad was like in the military,” he says. “And what he was like in a combat environment. We were paid to fight, but he tried to create peace wherever he went.”
My mom hands me a box of tissues, and I wipe my nose, then glance at Grandpa.
“How did you all know?” I ask. “I mean…how?”
Grandpa clears his throat. “After that first Christmas, when you asked for another letter from your dad, your mom came to me. We know your tenacity. We knew you might keep asking, and we wanted you to know your dad. So every year, I asked some people—his friends, our family—for help to give you a sense of who he was at your age. Each Christmas felt like the perfect time to give you a piece of that, whether or not you asked for it. But you always did.”
His mouth curves into a reluctant arc, and Granny slips her hand into his for support.
“So every year, someone different?” I’m overcome with the idea of Grandpa, who holds all his emotions so close, doing this for me, being so aware I needed to know my dad so I wouldn’t miss him.
“Not always,” he says. “But a lot of people helped.”
“And this letter?” I turn it over in my hands.
“This one,” Grandpa says softly, “he wrote himself. He told me to save it until the time was right.”
I stare at it, wanting to read it, while also knowing once I do, this part of my life comes to a close.
I’ve spent the last decade getting to know my dad through these letters.
I don’t want this tradition to end, but I’m also within a few years of reaching an age he never did, and the only way to repay the people who have written these letters is to be the person Dad wanted me to be.
I look back at Grandpa. Tears stream down his cheeks. He’s outlived both his children, and this is the first time I’ve seen him cry.
“Thank you, Grandpa.” I throw my arms around his neck. Slowly, he wraps his arms around me in an awkward embrace. But then his shoulders loosen, and he gives in to the emotion that he’s fought his whole life to keep hidden away. He grips me tighter and sobs softly into my neck.
I hear sniffles around me, then Granny shuffles up and rubs Grandpa’s back until he lets go of me. He quickly wipes his eyes as he steps back, but his hand trembles when he takes Granny’s.
All eyes are on me then, waiting for me to read the letter.
I glance at Rhys across from me with Jack and Millie on one side, Mom on the other.
With a nod of encouragement from him, I open the envelope.
The yellow legal paper is aged and soft at the folds.
Carefully, I unfold it. I scan the whole thing first, then go back and read it more carefully.
I laugh. I cry. It’s the meet-cute story Mom’s told me a thousand times, but from Dad’s perspective. The details are the same: love at first sight. Couldn’t wait to see her. Hated the idea of going back to America and never seeing her again.
There’s a finality to his advice in this one, though, and I understand why he told Grandpa to give it to me when the time was right. I push back tears, start at the beginning and read the whole letter to everyone in the room.
I can’t stop the tears when I get to the last paragraph. “Don’t settle for anyone who doesn’t love you the way I love your mom. Don’t settle for someone who isn’t willing to sacrifice everything for you or who doesn’t make you feel safe, known, and adored.”
My eyes can’t help but go to Rhys’s. I hope he knows I’ve found that in him.
“That’s a tall order, following in your dad’s footsteps,” Rhys says, his voice low. “But I got one thing right.”
I smile. “What’s that?”
He walks toward me, looking more nervous being the center of attention here than he did a few hours ago on stage. “I loved you the first time I saw you.”
I arch an eyebrow. “You mean the second time.”
He shakes his head. “First time. I was just too daft to know it.”
And then I’m in his arms, and with everyone’s eyes on us, we kiss.
And I know a part of my life is ending, but the best part is just beginning.
Thank you so much for reading Fa-La La-La Land!