Epilogue
ONE YEAR LATER
Fireflies bumbled through the drowsy air as the sun set over the hills and crowds streamed toward the town green for Starr’s Fall’s Second Annual Fireworks Event. The banner, logo included, had been hanging over Main Street since late May, garnering interest and approval.
“Now you’ve got everything you need?” Zoe asked, and Sophie rolled her eyes good-naturedly.
“I’m totally set,” she insisted. “You don’t need to worry!”
“I won’t,” Zoe promised. Sophie had been working for her all year after school at The Latest Scoop, and tonight she was managing the ice cream cart on her own, so Zoe and Dan could have something of a date night.
The last year hadn’t been without its painful complications, as they’d both known it wouldn’t be, but it had also been so important and even necessary, to face those complications together.
In January, her dad had been officially diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.
He was weathering it all right so far, taking it slow, still tutoring and playing chess, although there were down days, and hard days, and days where he didn’t get out of bed.
Zoe didn’t know how much time he had left, but she could see with her own eyes that he was savoring every moment.
In April, her mother had given up her walker for a wheelchair.
Her decreased mobility made her more housebound again, but Dan had helped Zoe manage some of the adaptations she’d needed to make in the house for accessibility, and with his help she still managed to get her mom out and about most weeks, although she tired more easily than ever.
These had been changes that Zoe had known were coming, but they’d still been hard to face.
She’d been glad she had Dan by her side to help her face them.
And amidst the heartaches, there had been joys, too.
Falling more in love with Dan day by day, and getting closer with Sophie.
Building trust and welcoming her friends even further into her life.
She’d watched Laurie and Joshua welcome baby Emily, now two months old and an absolute cherub.
Annie and Mike had gotten married too, in the spring, and Annie was, to her own surprise and joy, expecting a baby.
She said she hoped the baby didn’t have Mike’s wild hair, although hers was pretty wild, too.
Last September, everyone in Starr’s Fall had celebrated Zach and Maggie’s wedding on the town green, with the promised hog roast, a bluegrass band, and of course boardgames.
Jack and Jenna’s “do” had been a much more elegant affair, a winter wedding at the town church with the reception at his house, overlooking a lake blanketed in snow.
Over the course of the last year, Zoe had made deeper friends too—not just with women like Laurie, Maggie or Jenna, but with Henrietta, who was still in possession of her acerbic wit, and Annie, who truly had a heart of gold.
Dan’s ex-wife remained on the fringes of the picture, as well; she’d flown back for Christmas and taken Sophie to New York for a long weekend.
Both Zoe and Dan had been braced for the ensuing fallout, but Sophie had been surprisingly pragmatic. She insisted she’d had a good time, and that was that. She still had her life, here in Starr’s Fall, to live, and it seemed she was determined to live it.
Now Zoe watched her trundle the ice cream cart away before going to find Dan in the crowd gathered on the green for fireworks. Was she imagining some of the knowing glances and smiles that seemed aimed in her direction? A few weeks ago, she and Dan had gone to Litchfield to look at rings.
“Just to get an idea,” Dan insisted, but his smile had said it all.
“There you are.” She plopped down next to Dan on the blanket as he leaned over for a quick kiss.
“Sophie managing the ice cream all right?” he asked.
“Like a superstar.” Absently Zoe slapped a mosquito from her arm. “It’s pretty dark,” she remarked. “I thought they would have started the fireworks by now.”
“Well, Mike’s still setting them up,” Dan murmured.
He was staring up at the sky as if the answers to the universe were there among the evening’s first stars, making Zoe wonder.
Was she imagining it, or did he almost seem nervous?
“Ah, here they are,” Dan exclaimed, sitting back on the blanket, one arm looped around Zoe’s shoulders. “Quick, don’t miss it!”
Zoe tilted her head to the sky as the first firework burst, forming in letters. W… I… L… L. “How do they do that?” she cried. “I’ve never seen fireworks form in letters before.”
“They do it with letter racks,” Dan told her, sounding suspiciously knowledgeable. “Attaching the fireworks to the rack so it forms each letter. Keep looking!”
The next word formed: Y… O… U…
Before the next word came, Zoe knew what it would be… and the next. M… A… R… R… Y… M… E…?
She turned to Dan, laughing in amazement. “Dan…”
“Well?” he asked seriously, a hint of vulnerability in his eyes that even after all this time made her ache. “Will you?”
“Yes, will you?” someone called from the crowd, and Zoe realized that they had quite the audience—pretty much all of Starr’s Fall, people who had shown her they could be true friends even when she’d tried to push them away.
People she trusted and loved who had had problems of their own and had still come out swinging to help her conquer her own.
They were all now watching and waiting to say the one word that was ready to burst from her lips like the fireworks arcing over them in the sky.
She loved this town, and right now she felt as if she loved every single person in it… including the dear man next to her, waiting for an answer.
“Yes!” she shouted, for everyone and not just Dan, to hear.
As Dan leaned in to kiss her, a cheer went up from the crowd, and a pinwheel fizzed and burst above the church spire, so it felt as if the whole world was a celebration of love.
Then as they broke apart, Zoe heard Henrietta Starr’s acerbic voice remark, “Well, it’s about time!” and she and Dan both started to laugh.