Epilogue
Five Months Later
Memorial Day Weekend
Kate sat in her ice fishing shack on Goose Pond at five in the morning, even though the ice had been gone for more than two months.
Ben had helped her convert it to a summer thinking spot, same chair, same small table, same thermos of coffee, just without the auger and the hole in the ice.
The shack now sat on a small floating platform, anchored where her winter spot would be, accessible by kayak when she needed to escape.
She opened her phone and looked at the email again, still not quite believing it.
Dear Ms. Perkins, We are pleased to inform you that your research proposal “Tidal Pool Ecosystem Recovery Following Storm Events in Southern Maine” has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Marine Biology.
Additionally, based on your exceptional work, the committee strongly encourages you to apply for our doctoral program upon completion of your master's degree.
We believe you would be an excellent candidate for our fellowship program.
Dr. Katherine Perkins. It was possible. More than possible if she kept up this level of work. Another three years after the master's, maybe four. She'd be forty, maybe forty-one when she finished. The oldest doctorate in the program's history, probably.
Her phone buzzed with a text from Dani: “Where are you??? You know the Brennan wedding is TODAY. I need all hands!”
Kate smiled, closed the email, got into her kayak and paddled back to shore.
By the time she reached the inn, controlled chaos was already in full swing.
Dani had become the premier wedding planner in Kennebunkport, and today's event, Charlie's daughter marrying a summer person in what the town was calling the wedding of the year, would cement Whaler's Landing's reputation as the place for celebrations.
“Finally!” Dani said, not looking up from her clipboard. “The flowers are wrong, the cake is late, and Mrs. Porter keeps offering opinions about the ceremony arrangement.”
“Mrs. Porter isn't even invited.”
“That's not stopping her.”
Kate laughed and got to work. This was her life now, Thursday night driving back from Biddeford after her last seminar, Friday catching up on inn business, Saturday and Sunday working events or maintenance or whatever crisis arose.
But early Sunday morning was her time in her floating shack processing the week, then back to Biddeford to do it all again.
The first semester had been harder than she'd imagined.
Being a student at thirty-five, meant her brain worked differently.
Not worse, but differently. She had to study harder than the twenty-somethings, but she understood context better.
Her life experience made the theories real in ways her younger classmates couldn't grasp yet.
“Katie!” Tom appeared in an actual tux. As the inn's official legal counsel and unofficial patriarch, he'd been asked to be a groomsman. “The photographer wants family portraits. She insists the inn family counts.”
The inn looked spectacular. Dani had outdone herself with lavender and white everywhere, fairy lights that would glow come evening, and the arbor Ben had built that was even more elaborate than last year's spring weddings.
Kate changed into the dress she kept for these occasions and found herself swept into the controlled chaos of wedding preparation. But she also found moments to observe, to appreciate how far they'd all come.
James had started dating Rebecca Hartly, the librarian, who was currently helping arrange flowers and looking at James like he hung the moon.
Dani and Ryan had moved in together, running both the inn and their new restaurant with seamless partnership.
Tom was finally ready to date again, having joined a grief support group that met Tuesday nights.
And Ben... Ben was exactly who he'd always been, but more.
Patient, present, but lately with an undercurrent of anticipation that Kate recognized.
He'd been disappearing for mysterious errands, having whispered conversations with Dani, checking his pocket repeatedly like he was confirming something was still there.
“You're thinking too hard,” he said, appearing beside her as the photographer arranged them all.
“I'm thinking about my publication.”
His face lit up. “And the doctorate encouragement?”
“I'd be forty when I finished. At least.”
“So?”
“So that's old to start a career. Old to start... other things.”
Ben's hand found hers. “Not too old. Just experienced.”
The photographer interrupted them, arranging the “inn family” for portraits. Tom, James and Rebecca, Dani and Ryan, Kate and Ben, even Marcy and Rosa who'd become as much family as employees. Mrs. Porter had somehow appeared in the shots despite not being invited.
“Everyone smile!” the photographer commanded.
And Kate did, genuinely, completely. Because this was her life now, complicated and exhausting and perfect in its imperfection.
The wedding itself was beautiful. The bride cried, the groom forgot his vows and had to improvise, a ring bearer decided to make a run for the harbor (Tom caught him), and Mrs. Porter somehow caught the bouquet despite being technically a wedding crasher.
Fortunately, she subsequently handed it over to the closest young, but anxious, single lady.
As the reception began and Kate worked the crowd with practiced ease, she kept thinking about the doctorate offer.
Three more years, minimum. The commute to Biddeford was manageable for a master's, but a doctorate would mean more intensive research, longer lab hours, maybe overnight stays for experiments.
And children. She was thirty-six. Ben was thirty-seven. If they waited until after the doctorate, she'd be forty, forty-one. Possible, but risky. If they didn't wait, she'd be pregnant in a doctoral program, defending her dissertation with a toddler at home.
“You're doing the math again,” Dani said, appearing with champagne. “I can see it on your face.”
“Just thinking about timing.”
“Timing is a luxury, Katie. Sometimes you just jump.”
The reception continued into the evening.
Kate slipped away at sunset, needing a moment of quiet.
She found herself on the widow's walk, looking out at the harbor where she'd learned to ice fish, where her parents had built their life, where everything had nearly fallen apart and somehow came back together stronger.
She heard footsteps behind her. Ben. She knew his gait, the particular weight of his step.
“Beautiful view,” he said, but he wasn't looking at the harbor.
“Ben...”
“I had a plan,” he said, reaching into his pocket.
“Wait until you finished your first year. Do this properly. Maybe at Christmas Prelude, or next summer when the gardens are perfect. But standing here, watching you today, thinking about you doing a doctorate, about time passing, about all the reasons to wait...” He pulled out a small velvet box. “I'm tired of waiting.”
Kate turned to face him fully as he dropped to one knee right there on the widow's walk, the harbor spread out behind him, the inn full of wedding joy below them.
“Katie Perkins,” he said, his voice steady despite his hands shaking slightly.
“Northern girl, innkeeper, future Doctor of Marine Biology, Sunday morning ice fisherwoman even when there's no ice.
I've loved you since the moment I first saw you.
I've waited for you to believe you deserve happiness.
I'll be by your side while you complete your master's degree, and your doctorate if you choose it.
I want to be by your side through whatever comes next.
But I don't want to wait to start our life together.”
He opened the box. The ring was perfect, a sapphire the color of winter ocean, surrounded by small diamonds like ice crystals.
“Marry me,” Ben said. “This summer, before you go back to school. Let's not wait for perfect timing. Let's just jump.”
Kate looked at him, this man who'd rebuilt her family's inn and waited for her to see him, really see him. She thought about her mother, choosing love at twenty-one. About herself at thirty-six, trying to choose everything. About timing and windows and the myth of perfect moments.
“What about children?” she asked. “If I do the doctorate…”
“Then we have children during the doctorate. Or after. Or we adopt. Or we don't have them. I want you, Katie. Everything else is negotiable.”
“I'll be forty. It might not be possible.”
“I can do math, and everything is possible.”
“I'll be stressed and absent and probably horrible during exams. I might be the biggest pain…”
“You already are. I'm still here.”
Kate laughed, tears streaming now. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. This summer. August, after the tourist rush.”
Ben stood and slid the ring on her finger, then kissed her as the wedding reception below erupted in applause for something unrelated, but Kate chose to believe it was for them.
“I should tell you,” Ben said against her lips, “I already asked your siblings. Tom's ready to officiate. Dani has seventeen design plans, and James is already outlining a wedding website for us.”
“Of course they did.”
They stood together on the widow's walk as the sun set completely, the harbor lights beginning to twinkle. Below them, the Brennan wedding continued. Above them, the first stars appeared.
“We should go down,” Kate said. “Dani will send a search party.”
“In a minute.” Ben pulled her closer. “I want to remember this. You and me and the harbor and you saying yes.”
“Even if I do the doctorate?”
“Especially if you do the doctorate. Dr. and Mr. Calloway has a nice ring to it.”
Kate laughed. “I might keep Perkins. Professionally.”
“Keep whatever you want. Just keep me too.”
Later, after the wedding guests had gone and the family gathered in the kitchen for the usual debrief, Kate showed off her ring. Dani screamed. Tom looked satisfied, like a plan had come together. James said, “Finally, we can stop pretending we didn't know.”
“August?” Dani confirmed, already planning. “Small? Family only?”
“Maybe a little bigger,” Kate said, thinking of all the people who'd helped them save the inn, who'd become family by choice. “But here. Definitely here.”
“Mom would be so happy,” Tom said quietly.
“Pop too,” James added.
They sat around the kitchen table where so much had happened, planning a wedding that would take place in the gardens their mother had planted, at the inn their parents had saved, surrounded by people who'd watched them fall apart and come back together.
Kate's phone buzzed with another email from UNE. The doctorate program application, ready whenever she was. She looked at it, then at Ben's ring on her finger, at her siblings already deep in wedding planning, at this life that had become so beautifully complex.
She'd apply. Of course she would. Next spring, after the wedding, after her second year of the master's program.
She'd be thirty-seven when she started, forty-one when she finished.
She'd probably have a child by then, or be pregnant, or be trying.
She'd be exhausted and overwhelmed and constantly calculating how to fit everything in.
But she'd also have Sunday mornings on the ice when it formed, on the water when it didn't. She'd have this inn and this family and Ben, who would wait through anything and build whatever needed building.
She'd have her research and her rings, engagement and wedding, and maybe a baby carrier in the lab if necessary.
Both. All. Everything.
Her mother had written, when Kate was just a flutter: You matter because you exist.
Kate understood now what she'd meant. Not that achievement didn't matter, but that being, fully, completely, greedily being, everything you could possibly be, was the real achievement.
She was going to be Dr. Katherine Perkins (or Calloway, or Perkins-Calloway, she'd decide later). Wife. Maybe mother. Definitely ice fisherwoman. Innkeeper. Marine biologist. All of it, even if it took until she was fifty to sort it all out.
“A toast,” Tom said, raising his coffee mug. “To Kate and Ben.”
“To August weddings,” Dani added.
“To doctorates at forty.” James laughed.
“To not waiting for perfect timing,” Ben said, pulling Kate close.
“To northern girls,” Kate finished, “who want everything and aren't afraid to take it.”
They clinked mugs and laughed, and outside the Memorial Day fireworks began over the harbor, early tourists celebrating the unofficial start of summer.
Kate stood in her mother's kitchen, wearing Ben's ring, surrounded by family, thinking about the application she'd submit next spring, the wedding she'd have in August, the children she might have, the research she'd conduct on organisms that survived impossible conditions by adapting, by refusing to choose just one survival strategy.
Like her. Like all of them.
The photo from Margaret of young Pop sat on the mantel, that boy who'd chosen love and never regretted it. Kate understood him completely now. Some choices weren't really choices at all. They were just love, dressed up as decisions, waiting for you to be brave enough to say yes to all of it.
Tomorrow she'd drive to Biddeford to prep for Tuesday's presentation.
Wednesday she'd be in the lab until midnight.
Friday she'd be back here, helping her siblings run the inn.
Sunday morning she'd be on her floating shack on Goose Pond, thinking about everything and nothing.
But tonight, she was just Katie-girl, engaged, published and encouraged to pursue a doctorate, tired and happy and complete in her incompleteness.
She'd opened the door to a life bigger than anything she'd dared imagine when she'd sat alone on Goose Pond with an auger and a thermos, convinced everything was ending.
Except, nothing had ended at all. She just needed to believe in the power of love, something she’d learned from the very best of them.
THE END