Epilogue
ON SUNDAY OF THE last week in May, Emily arrived on Ocean Boulevard first.
Well, technically, she wasn’t truly first, since Julia lived here now.
She’d moved into Nate’s house during the pandemic, telling her sisters at the time that she was forming a quarantine pod with Nate and Mal.
But five years later, she still lived in Nate’s house and had started her own small law firm with a rented walk-up office space on Orange Avenue.
She seemed happier than she’d ever been. Emily hoped she’d never leave.
“It’s beautiful here!” Cecile gushed from the passenger seat as Emily pulled up in front of the house. “Right, guys?”
She turned around to glance at the boys in the back seat, who had somehow in the last few years managed to make it through high school and take on the appearance of full-grown, six-foot-tall men.
They would both be moving out, off to different colleges in August, and when Julia had suggested they make their May sisters’ week this year a full-family affair, Emily and Cee had jumped at the chance to turn this into a family vacation.
They’d even rented a car so they could drive up to Disneyland later in the week.
“This house looks super chill,” Mikey said, and Jim nodded to agree.
“I’m so excited, we finally get to spend some time in your Emma’s favorite place in the world.” Cecile sighed happily as she stepped out of the car.
After a few years of therapy, Emily and Cee were in a good place, and now instead of worrying about how to be a mother, Emily worried more about how much she was going to miss the boys when they moved out in August. Who was going to eat her grilled cheese and strawberry jelly sandwiches on Sunday afternoons?
Who was going to catch her up nightly at dinner on all the high school tea?
Who was going to ask her for help with a history essay?
What were she and Cee even going to do on weekends without soccer and basketball games, band concerts, and high school theater productions to attend?
Life is just seasons, Cee had told her when she’d worried about all this out loud after the twins’ high school graduation ceremony, at which Emily might have cried more than Cee and Rick combined. You and I are just going to walk into summer together, hand in hand.
But for now, they walked up the front path and into the house on Ocean Boulevard together, hand in hand.
Emily gave Cee and the boys a tour of the house, and she was just showing them the backyard firepit, and explaining about how Nora had learned to sing out here with Grandma Vera, when she heard Julia’s voice echoing from the front of the house: “Em? Cecile? Is that your rental car in the street?”
They walked back into the living room, where Julia was fiddling with her roller bag. She might live next door now, but one week a year, Julia still packed her suitcase and came to stay in this house with her sisters.
Just then, Mallory and Nate walked in the front door, Mallory clutching a manila folder. “Julia, you left this on the dining room table,” Mallory said, handing the folder to Julia. “Dad and I thought you wouldn’t survive the week without it.”
Emily glanced at Nate, who winked at her, and she swallowed back a chuckle.
“Thanks, Mal, and here”—Julia pulled out a copy of the schedule and handed it to Mallory—“this is your copy.” Then she pulled out another one and handed it to Nate. “And this one’s for you,” she said cheerfully.
“Thanks, Jules.” He grinned and took it. “Guess I’d better go get my wave time in now before I’m all scheduled up.” He gave Julia a quick kiss on the forehead before he walked out.
“Ooh, do I get one too?” Cee asked, gently squeezing Emily’s hand with one hand, reaching out with her other for a schedule.
“Of course!” Julia said. “I printed a copy for each family member and two extras in case anyone loses one.”
Emily squeezed Cee’s hand back, keeping her snarky comment in her head. For now. It would land better once Nora showed up anyway.
Three hours later, Nora rolled up to the curb in a rented BMW SUV. Dev was driving, and Veronica was in the back.
Julia hadn’t thought Veronica would be able to get off work to come—Nora must’ve made this arrangement in secret? And when she saw, from her spot on the porch, her daughter step out of the back seat of the car, she yelped with joy and ran toward her.
“Oh my God,” Mallory was saying behind her. “I will never get over Nora being married to Will the Wizard.”
Nora had seemed so happy since the two of them had moved in together right after Broadway went dark during the pandemic. They’d all traveled to Nora and Dev’s wedding in New York City two summers ago, and Mallory was still talking about it.
Though Julia knew V was twenty-four, an adult, with a terrific job as an environmental advocate, sometimes when she hugged her daughter after many months apart, she could briefly remember hugging her at four, at fourteen too.
“Mom, you’re squishing me!” Veronica protested, but she pulled Julia tighter.
Julia leaned back just a little and brushed a wayward curl off V’s forehead. “Honey, I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “But I thought you couldn’t make it because of work?”
“Aunt Nora said something about Disneyland and the whole family coming being a big deal, and I talked to my boss.” Veronica shrugged. “I worked it out.”
“And what about me?” Nora said, marching around dramatically to the back of the car. “Don’t I get a hug? I drove into the goddamn wilds of Connecticut a few weeks ago to talk this one into coming.” She tapped Veronica affectionately on the shoulder.
Julia freed up an arm to give Nora a quick hug too. “Thank you,” she said. “What a lovely surprise this is.”
“You drove into the wilds of Connecticut?” Dev said as he walked around from the driver’s seat to the sidewalk. He wrapped his arms around Nora, rested his chin on the top of her head, and sighed. “She means her chauffeur drove her.”
“Nora, you have a chauffeur now?” Mallory gasped.
Nora laughed. “No, Mal. He means him. Dev is my chauffeur.” She turned and playfully swatted him on the shoulder. “Also, he’s my chef. And my favorite costar.”
“Guilty as charged.” Dev held up his hands, then swooped in and gave Nora a kiss.
“Oh my God, the two of you!” Emily exclaimed, walking down the front path to the sidewalk.
Julia chuckled, but she actually thought Nora and Dev were adorable.
They were in a new show together starting previews in August, and she and Nate already had their tickets for September, the week after they would drop Mal off at college.
She was staying close to home, going to UCSD, but still moving out of the house and into a dorm.
And Julia thought that a trip to New York City, some time with Nora and Dev, would be the perfect distraction for all those empty-nest feelings she knew were about to hit them both.
“Seriously, get a room!” Emily was saying to Nora and Dev now, as Nora gave him another quick kiss.
“Oh, I’m excited to show you my room here!” Nora squealed to Dev in response, ignoring Emily’s teasing. “I have the best view of any of us.”
“Nope,” Emily said. “Julia would definitely disagree.”
“I would?” Julia asked.
“You’re right, Em.” Nora nodded vigorously. “I only see the ocean from my room. But Julia? Julia can gaze out her window longingly at Nate next door all night long.”
“Eww, you guys,” Mallory said. “I’m standing right here.”
“So am I!” Veronica protested.
“Wow, I’m so glad you’re both here,” Julia said to Nora and Emily. But she was smiling. Her sisters’ teasing warmed her, even in the gray chill of a particularly gray May day. She was truly glad they were here.
Nora and Emily looked at each other and they both giggled.
“Where else would we possibly be the last week in May?” Nora said.
“Damn right,” Emily added. “It’s May day.”
Later that night, after the sun became an orange ball of fire and sunk behind the Pacific Ocean, all ten of them retreated to the backyard, crowding around the outside firepit, roasting marshmallows on sticks, assembling their s’mores.
Once upon a time… Julia thought, looking at Emily, then Nora, suddenly remembering the sweet song of Grandma Vera’s voice. There were three sisters…
She saw the three of them sitting right here at ten, at twenty, at thirty, at forty.
At fifty. Their minds and bodies changed and shifted, their hair started turning gray, they wore readers now, and their skin had new wrinkles.
They fought, but then they laughed. They held their secrets, and then they shared them.
Their hearts broke and then, together, each May, they became whole again.
And now, twenty-five years after they’d started their May sisters’ week as the owners of this house, Julia, Emily, and Nora had transformed themselves into a ten-person family. All the people they loved most, together in the one place they all had loved most their entire lives.
They sat in front of the fire, they ate their s’mores, and the sound of laughter rose up over the backyard. It floated out across Ocean Boulevard, the beach, and then hovered there above the cool blue water of the Pacific, where, just offshore, a lone seagull sat lolling on a wave, listening.