Epilogue
EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER: CHARLIE
“I s Maggie asleep?” Charlie whispered.
Olivia looked up from the book she had been reading and smiled. She set it aside. “She is,” she told him. “She’s honestly such a good baby. She must get it from your side of the family. My mother loves to let me know what holy terrors Izzy and I were when we were little.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Charlie admitted, dropping into a seat beside Olivia. “Is Ellie still here?”
“Yeah, she’s staying late tonight.” Olivia yawned. “I never thought I’d be the kind of woman to have a nanny.”
“What kind of woman is that?”
“I just wouldn’t have thought something like that would be within my means,” Olivia said. “It’s a little crazy. I mean, I spent my teen years rushing home from school every day to make sure that I could be there for Izzy. My life would have been drastically different if we’d had a nanny in those days.”
“Which is exactly why you deserve to have one now,” Charlie said. “You’re not questioning it again, are you?” Olivia had put up such a fuss when he had first suggested the idea that he hadn’t been sure she would give in to it at all. But he had managed to convince her that it was something she deserved to take advantage of. They could afford the help, and she shouldn’t have to sacrifice her career and her ability to get a full night of sleep.
Olivia had eventually given in, on the understanding that she wanted to make sure they played a significant role in raising their daughter. “After all,” she had reminded Charlie, “you told me that you were raised by nannies, and you missed out on having an involved parent in your life. I don’t want that for Maggie.”
Charlie hadn’t wanted that either, and he’d appreciated that Olivia had thought about it. He made sure to come home early from work each day and to keep his weekends clear so that he could spend time with his family.
“Speaking of Izzy,” he said, “have you heard from her lately? How’s she liking Stanford?”
“She’s thriving,” Olivia laughed. “She’s got a boyfriend, and they go surfing on weekends.”
“That must drive you crazy.”
“I wish she would stay in and study. But I’m glad she’s having a good time,” Olivia conceded. “You’re only young once, and this was the college experience she dreamed of, so I’m glad she’s getting it. I make her text me every night, though, so I don’t have to worry that the surfboard hit her on the head and she drowned or got eaten by a shark.”
Charlie raised his eyebrows. “Eaten by a shark?”
“It does happen .”
“Not as often as you think. I could find you some statistics on that.”
“No, please don’t. I don’t want to think about actual surfers who’ve been attacked by sharks. That would just make it seem more real.”
“Okay,” Charlie said. He held out his hand. “Come with me.”
“Where are we going? Not to look up shark attacks.”
“No,” he told her with a grin. “I want to take you out on the boat.”
They had been on the yacht together several times since that fateful first night. At first, Olivia had told Charlie that it gave her an uneasy feeling to be back there — as if it was cursed somehow. Eventually, Charlie had pointed out that even though things had gone sideways between the two of them after that night, it had also been the night their daughter was conceived, and that was more significant and more powerful than anything else. Olivia had agreed with that, and the yacht had once again become a place they could enjoy together.
“We can’t stay out too long,” Olivia said. “Ellie did agree to stay past her usual hours tonight, but I want her to be able to get home before midnight.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Charlie said.
He understood where Olivia was coming from. She was always mindful about making sure they didn’t take advantage of Ellie’s time — it was something that mattered a great deal to her since her own mother had often been stuck working late hours before she had been able to give up her second job. But Olivia didn’t know that Charlie had spoken to Ellie today and arranged for her to stay late.
“How is your mom lately?” he asked Olivia.
“Oh, she’s great, but she’s a little stir crazy. She’s talking about going to night school to get an MBA.”
“Hey, if she wants to do that, we can pay for it,” Charlie said.
“You’ve done enough for my family, Charlie.”
“It was part of our agreement!”
“No, our agreement was that you would give me a share of the money we got for selling the house. You didn’t end up selling the house.”
“But it wouldn’t have been right to just cut you out because I changed my mind about that. You still did all those renovations. I mean, if you’d rather, I could just give you a lump-sum payment for all that work and we could leave it at that, but every time I’ve tried to pay you out, you don’t accept my offer.”
“It doesn’t seem right to take your money,” Olivia said. “I mean, I live in that house now. If anything, I should be paying you, and I’d be trying to negotiate that if I had anything like the kind of money the house is worth.”
“That’s not even up for discussion,” Charlie said. “Look, you got into all this to help your family, and we’re helping your family. They’re my family now too. That’s my daughter’s aunt and grandmother. Of course I want the best for them.”
“When you put it like that, I can accept it,” Olivia said with a smile.
Charlie had known that would work. That was what worked every time this argument came up, as it did every couple of months — every time he tried to offer her family money for something. Olivia was proud, and it was clear that it was difficult for her to take help, even now that the two of them were permanently tied together in such a profound way.
Charlie hoped that tonight would change all that.
The drive to the docks was peaceful. He helped her onto the boat and cast off from the pier, then jumped aboard and went to the helm. “Do you want to drive?”
“Not tonight.” She’d accepted his offer of driving the yacht on a few occasions, but it didn’t seem to charm her the way it always had him, and at night she was usually downright resistant to it. She sat in the front, and he pulled out into deep water.
Was he making the right decision here?
He wasn’t sure.
Of course, the big decision was the right one. He had no doubts about that. But maybe it hadn’t been the right move to do this out on the water. Maybe there were too many negative memories here, and she would have done better somewhere else. Maybe he was making a mistake.
Well, if he was, it was a mistake that he was simply going to have to make. He wasn’t going to turn back. Not now. He had already put this night off for too long, and he didn’t think he had it in him to wait even one day more.
Charlie killed the engine, letting the boat idle in the water, and went up to sit next to Olivia. She was gazing up at the stars.
“I love how clear it is out here,” she said quietly. “It’s really beautiful.”
“It is,” he agreed. “Someday, in the future, we’ll come out here for a week at a time. We’ll live on the boat, and we’ll spend every night looking up at the stars.”
“It sounds beautiful,” she said, leaning into him. “If not very realistic.”
“How much of our story has been realistic?” he countered. “After everything else we’ve made it through together, we can make that happen. It will be the easiest thing we’ve ever done.”
“And what about Maggie?”
“We’ll do it when she’s older.”
Olivia snuggled into his shoulder. “I like it when you talk about the future.”
Charlie’s heart rate picked up. “You do?”
“I know we’re in a good place. It’s not like I worry about it. But it’s nice to hear you say that you’re on the same page as I am — that you mean for us to be together as much as I do.”
“Of course I do,” he told her. “It’s all I want. I wouldn’t allow anything to get in the way of that.”
She’d given him a better opening than he could have dreamed of. He reached into his pocket and palmed the ring box.
He had always pictured getting down on one knee for this moment, but suddenly, he didn’t know why. He didn’t know why people did that. He was sitting under the stars with the woman he loved in his arms, relaxing against his chest with her head on his shoulder, and he had no intention of letting go of her so that he could adopt some ridiculous position.
Instead, he tightened his hold on her and brought the ring box around in front of her so that she could see it.
“Olivia,” he said quietly, “will you marry me?”
She chuckled, low under her breath. “I married you already.”
She hadn’t noticed the ring. She didn’t realize how serious he was.
He flicked the box open with his thumb and the diamond caught the light.
“Olivia,” he said.
She gasped, noticing it. “Charlie…”
“I know the road has been crazy,” he told her. “But this time, I want to do things the right way. I want you to be my wife. Tell me that you will. I want us to be together forever. I want us to have a wedding where you wear a big white dress and your mom and Izzy dance and eat cake with us. I want Maggie to grow up feeling sure of how much her mother and father love each other. Marry me. Be my wife.”
She turned slightly in his arms to look at him. “You really want this?”
“More than anything,” he murmured.
Her fingertip brushed the diamond. “Truth be told, I thought you’d never ask,” she whispered.
“I had to work up the courage.”
“You didn’t have anything to be scared of.”
She turned fully in his arms now, arranging her legs alongside his on the bench and pulling herself forward so that she could embrace him fully.
“Of course I will,” she said softly. “Of course I’ll marry you, Charlie.”
She pulled herself into his arms and met his lips in a passionate kiss.
There were no fireworks tonight, but no fireworks could possibly have competed with the explosion of love, passion, and gratitude that Charlie felt as he wrapped his arms all the more tightly around the woman who was now to be his wife — the mother of his child, his best friend — and lost himself altogether in the sweetness of her kiss.
The End
I hope you’ve enjoyed Charlie and Olivia’s story!