Epilogue
One Year Later
It was the calm before the storm. The first bus of kids would arrive in exactly two hours. I stood out on the deck, squinting into the fog, and took a deep breath.
I was nervous. More than that, though, I was excited.
But there was still one thing we had left to do.
“Coffee?”
I turned to see Chelsea, who stood in the doorway with two steaming mugs.
“Bless you,” I said, and she came to stand with me at the railing. For a long few minutes, we stood in contented silence, watching the sun try to break through the clouds.
“We did it,” she whispered. “She’d be so happy.” The words were filled with so much emotion that I could barely do more than nod at the water.
The future of Dread’s Cove had been precarious for a while.
Unfortunately, Rig’s recovery had been longer than expected.
The doctors suggested chronic stress wasn’t helping and recommended he take some time off.
So, for the first time in forty years, Thomas Riggins wasn’t spending the summer here.
Instead, he was visiting his brothers down in South Georgia.
He’d be back before his trial began, later this fall.
He was being charged with manslaughter and the concealment of a body.
Chelsea had taken over for her dad immediately, and she’d flourished in the role. She’d proved herself to be who she always had been—loyal, steadfast, with an obnoxious fixation on excellence. As head of operations, those were important traits to have.
I was eternally grateful for her help and support over the past year. The media firestorm had been relentless, but somehow, we’d made it to the other side. This afternoon, we’d welcome no fewer than five hundred campers to our first summer session in six years. It still didn’t feel real.
Not everyone had wanted Dread’s Cove to reopen, especially after Margo Pierce’s shocking tell-all account of the truth behind Steph Bennett’s tragic death. And then, of course, what had nearly happened to both of us that night.
It was impressive how quickly Margo had been able to put her front-page story together—most of it she’d written in the days after she was released from the hospital.
Somehow, Wes hadn’t hit any of her vital organs, and she’d made a quick recovery.
We still talked, now and then, even though it was hard.
But I was getting much better at hard.
I glanced at Chelsea, who gripped her mug in both hands. She’d cut her hair a few months ago, the curls now short and somehow even wilder, no longer held back by the constraints of braids.
She gave me a soft, sad smile. “Are you ready, then?”
I nodded again, tears coursing down my face before I could even reach for the small container I’d set at my feet.
Today, on the one-year anniversary of her passing, we would spread my mother’s ashes.
Chelsea reached for my hand and twined our fingers together. “Anita was a good mom,” she said, and I began crying in earnest. “You were so lucky. You are so lucky. We both are. Just knowing her makes us lucky. She was the mom I never got to have, and…”
She trailed off, wiped her nose on the sleeve of her shirt.
I pulled her in, and after only a moment’s hesitation, she rested her head on my shoulder.
It had taken months and months, but we’d started to tentatively rebuild our friendship as we planned the real reopening of Dread’s Cove, together.
I was being incredibly careful, and so was she; like if one of us hugged too tight, smiled too wide, it might shatter again.
That was okay, though. Because it felt so much better than pretending.
“I miss her,” she said at last.
“I miss her, too.” I thought, as I often did, of Steph and Winona. Of all the women who’d been loved and lost at Dread’s Cove. How we planned to spend our lives honoring them, in whatever small and big ways we could.
We looked out over the lake for a few long moments, as a mourning dove sang from somewhere I couldn’t see. Gingerly, I opened the small container.
“Today is for my mom,” I said as I scattered the first handful. “And for yours.”
Tears stung my eyes, and as we both took another small handful, the morning’s first gust of wind whipped up across the water.
“For the women who made us.” My voice cracked, but I made myself continue. “We think of you every day. We always will.”
And then, together, we let them go.
Our tears dried as we held each other, and finally, finally, I let myself smile. Like Chelsea had said—we did it.
After a while, the door behind us creaked, and we both turned. My smile grew, and my heart leaped in the way it always still did when I saw Trevor. I knew he’d been up since dawn, preparing the waterfront for the first crop of swimmers this afternoon.
He came up behind me, putting one hand on my hip while grabbing my coffee with his other hand. I let my head fall against his chest.
Chelsea rubbed a fist to her eye and checked her watch. “Okay. Are you guys ready to do this?”
“I am,” I said.
“We are,” I amended.
Trevor pressed a kiss to my temple in agreement.
Slowly—inch by inch and day by day—Dread’s Cove, and the people here, had begun to heal the cracks in my heart. Had made me feel worth something again.
For a long time, I had rejected myself. Everything that had made me who I was. I thought I could only live in binaries. A planner, or spontaneous. A good friend, or a bad one. Honest, or a liar.
Innocent, or guilty.
But things had softened around the edges as I’d begun to relearn who I was. I could be more than one thing. I didn’t have to decide everything I was, all at once. I could change. I was changing.
I was real. I was here.
And I could stay as long as I liked.