34. Poppy
thirty-four
Poppy
I drive past the turn I usually make to go to the Davenport house and circle Silver Leaf Ranch & Vineyard until I reach a set of familiar oversized, white-painted timber gates with stacked stone brackets and manicured hedges on either side.
I’ve got a box of cereal and a bag of candy in my tote because no matter what Daisy says, I’ve never shown up at our movie nights empty-handed, and I’m wearing my comfy pink sweats and fuzzy blue slippers. On the outside, everything about this moment looks normal and no different from the hundreds of nights I’ve stayed in with my best friend.
On the inside, it feels so different. I feel more alive than I ever have—awake and alert and ready. My heart thrums against my chest, and my thoughts scatter every time I try to catch one. Dylan and Izzy and Daisy and college and a new future and a new chance and a new adventure. One that will someday lead me to that happily ever after.
I navigate my car through the Silver Leaf gates and underneath the wrought iron arch that declares this to be Silver Leaf Ranch & Vineyard. My tires crunch satisfyingly over dusty gravel as I ease onto a driveway that’s more like a long, wide country lane—and stop.
I’ve driven and walked and ran and skipped and laughed my way down this alley a thousand times. This dirt road bordered by old silver-leafed olive trees that have grown so tall that their canopies create an almost tunnel effect. I’ve always thought it was romantic—the silvery leaves and the thick trunks making this stretch of Silver Leaf feel like an enchanted forest—but it’s never taken my breath away like it does now.
Strung from the boughs of every tree, lighting up the lane and the night from where I sit in my car to as far as I can see, are glowing paper lanterns. Hundreds and hundreds of them. One after another, swinging gently in the night breeze as if they whisper this way, this way .
I roll down my windows and ease my car along the drive, watching the lanterns as they pass on either side. There are twinkle lights strung among the trees, too, creating a kind of early springtime wonderland that makes me want to pull over, get out of the car, and walk with my fingers stretched wide so I might catch some of the magic.
I’m so caught up in how pretty it is that it takes me a long time to wonder why they’re here. A wedding, perhaps? Someone hired out the property for a party? I’ll have to ask because I’ve never seen the place decorated like this before.
I finally reach the guest parking bays out front of the Silver Leaf reception house, but the lights don’t stop there. There’s a tight road that leads up to the main house, and lanterns glow and swing off into the distance in that direction. It’s so simple and so stunning and unlike anything I’ve seen before, and I can’t stand to experience it from my car any longer, so I pull into a parking space, take my tote, and go the rest of the way on foot.
The lanterns and twinkle bulbs are never-ending, going on and on, strung up between the trees and trellises that line the paths around Silver Leaf, always more light to follow around the next bend. The pretty, almost innocent playfulness makes me smile. What is going on?
When I finally reach the Davenport house, I stop before the porch steps. The house exterior is strung with lanterns and twinkle lights, which makes no sense if this was all done for someone else’s party. It’s as if the house was the purpose all along. I climb the porch steps with a little hesitancy, like stepping out of a dream and back into reality, and notice the front door sits slightly ajar. I knock quietly, then push on it carefully when nobody responds.
I cover my mouth to hold back an overwhelmed gasp. The inside of the house is filled with paper lanterns. So many of them swing from the ceiling that I can’t even make out the aged white paint.
“Hello?” I take a slow step down the hallway, then keep going into the living room. It practically pulses with golden light, lanterns illuminating from above and a low fire crackling in the hearth. “Is anybody here?”
Izzy’s high, excited voice calls out from the kitchen. “We’re in here!”
A chorus of voices shushes her, and my heart starts to fly.
I creep through the living room and round the corner to the kitchen, where Chord and Charlie and Finn and Daisy and Izzy stand in a line like they’re waiting for me. Off to one side, Violet stands with her dad, Luke. She’s got her hands clasped under her chin and tears in her eyes while Luke watches everything with a small smile.
“Um…hi.” I scan the room for Dylan, but he’s not here, which makes the least sense of anything so far. “What’s going on?”
“We want to tell you something,” Daisy says, then she elbows Chord on her right.
He clears his throat. “Right. Poppy—”
“ Penelope ,” Daisy says under her breath.
“Would you shut up and let me do this?” Chord grumbles before he turns back to me. “Penelope. You’ve been a part of this family for a long time. Mom and Dad loved you like one of their own. You’re a Davenport in everything but name.”
“I, uh…” My throat is suddenly studded with something sharp. Thick. Hard to swallow. “Thank you, Chord.”
Chord replies with a gruff nod, and Izzy does a funny little squeak as she bounces on her toes.
“My turn?” she asks.
Daisy wraps a soft hand around her arm to settle her. “Not yet.”
“I don’t have a childhood memory without you in it,” Charlie says. “You were—are—my second little sister, and you always will be.”
I nod and look at the floor, feeling overwhelmed and confused and painfully self-conscious. “Thanks, Charlie. I’m… You’re… Same.”
I lift my chin high enough to sneak a look at her, and she gives me a reassuring wink in return.
Izzy shifts on the spot and looks up at Daisy with desperation. “Is it my turn yet?”
“No. Shush.”
“Now might be a good time to tell you Dylan used me as a kind of enforcer in the old days,” Finn says. “You know. Scaring off your loser boyfriends. Shoving guys into the mud if they looked at you the wrong way. I’m still up for that if you need it. Just let me know. That’s what you do for family.”
“I—”
I shoot Daisy a look that says Did you know about this? And she sends one back that says Uh, absolutely not.
“Thanks, Finn,” I say, though it comes out like a question. “I appreciate it?”
He nods once. “I got you, sis.”
The nickname wraps around me like a blanket. It’s so casual but so honestly given. Finn says sis like he means it.
And I still don’t know what’s happening.
Izzy tugs on Daisy’s arm. “My turn now ?”
“Soon,” Daisy says. “Just hang in there for a couple more minutes.”
She takes a firm hold of Izzy's fidgeting hand and turns her eyes on me.
“Penelope,” Daisy says, voice cracking and eyes blinking to keep her tears under control. “You are my family in all the ways that count, and you always have been, but I hope that after tonight, I can finally say you’re my sister for real. I love you.”
Sister for real? Could this be… It’s not… Is it?
“Oh, Daze.” I take a step forward, arms open and cheeks damp, but she widens her eyes like I shouldn’t come any closer, and all the Davenport siblings shift together. I drop my arms and freeze in confusion. “I love you too.”
“Is it my turn now ?” Izzy asks.
“Yes,” Daisy replies. “It’s your turn now.”
“Yes!”
Izzy squares her shoulders, straightens her tutu, and gazes up at me with shining eyes. She clears her throat, then speaks like she’s been rehearsing for hours, and my heart bursts with so much love for this kid.
“Poppy—I mean Penelope. I love watching movies with you and going for milkshakes and driving around in your car while we sing along to the radio. I love snuggling with you on the sofa and talking to you about my day. If I had one wish, I would make you my mommy. I love you very much.”
That’s it. My heart explodes. It wasn’t built for this much emotion. I fall to my knees and open my arms, and Izzy rushes into them. Her little arms are tight around my neck, and I nuzzle into her hair, breathing her in and letting my tears soak into the strands.
“I love you too, kiddo,” I murmur. “I love you so damn much.”
“Bad word,” she whispers against my ear.
“Yeah, yeah. Tell it to the judge.”
I kiss her cheek and squeeze her hard against me before I let her go, and she skips away with a giddy laugh to latch onto Daisy’s hand again. And she’s still bouncing on her toes.
I push myself upright and swipe at my face. “You guys… I don’t know what’s happening, and I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this but thank you. I spent so many years wishing I was one of you. Literally coming up with scenarios in my head where I was a genuine Davenport. I knew I wasn’t real family, but you were the closest I ever came. Your mom and dad were so special to me. And Daisy.” I tilt my head with the kind of smile that captures every moment we’ve shared over the last three decades as a tear slides down my cheek. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do this.”
“Oh, I didn’t.”
“You—”
They all step aside, letting the great wall of Davenports disintegrate, and reveal Dylan hiding behind them, down on one knee on the hardwood floor, holding up a ring in his hand.
I’m aware of the movement around me. An energy that’s loaded with joy and anticipation and excitement. But all I can see is the man I love looking up at me with blue eyes so full of adoration and affection and love. For me.
My hands shake as I step forward. “Dylan?”
“Poppy,” he says before pausing to swallow. “I didn’t know what was missing until you came back into my life. I was broken, and I didn’t even know it. Unable to look further than a day or a week ahead because the future felt so overwhelming. And then you reappeared, and it was like seeing you for the first time. The sun rose that day like it does every other day, but for the first time in a long time, I felt it. And it changed things. I started dreaming about something different—a life full of fun and color and adventure. I wanted to be a better father but more than that, I wanted to be worthy of you.”
It’s not the thing you’re supposed to do when the man you love is on his knees for you, but I fall to the floor in front of him, unable to stand when all I want is to be in his arms. “Oh, Dylan.”
He grins like he wouldn’t expect anything different.
“I love you, Penelope, and I’m about to ask you a question that—if you say yes—will not only make you a wife but a sister and a mother and a daughter to two wonderful people who might not be here to tell you how much they love you too, but who I know would find no greater joy than welcoming you into our family and making you a Davenport officially. Forever.”
I nod in silence, a constant bob of my head as tears roll down my face and Dylan picks up my left hand.
“Penelope Golightly, will you marry me?”
“Yes!” Izzy shouts.
Someone hushes her, and all I can do is laugh. And say yes.
And there, on the floor of the Davenport kitchen, where I spent so many years of my life laughing and dancing and daydreaming that these people and this place were my home, Dylan puts a ring on my finger and makes it official.
We all do. The entire Davenport family.