Epilogue
Chase
It took me over a month to talk Annabelle into moving in. Her tiny closet of a studio played in my favor, as did my proximity to the café.
My girl was still a little gun shy, but after I pointed out that she slept with me every night anyway and she was wasting valuable storage space on the second level, she folded.
It might have been harder to talk her into it if she hadn't been sleeping on a futon crammed in the back of her storage room.
It took two trips to move her out of the café and into my house. Two loads of her things, both of our cars jammed with boxes and storage containers, her clothes still on their hangers draped over the back seat.
Two short trips, and when we were done, my heart settled. With her clothes in my closet, her dishes in the sink, shoes in a jumble by the back door, my new house became my home.
A few weeks after Annabelle moved in, she hired a third barista. The girl was quiet, had experience, and she showed up on time. After Grover and Penny, those three qualities made her a winner. She also liked working the second shift.
It was a miracle. Every once in a while, Annabelle and I had a whole evening together.
In truth, we had every evening together. For the first few months, I was still at Winters, Inc., working on my app in my spare time, mostly at the café. With a third barista on staff, Annabelle didn't need help closing, and I got an extra hour and a half of work in.
Every night, she locked the door of the café and we walked home, her hand in mine. It was pretty close to heaven.
We spent almost all of our time together. When I finished up at Winters, Inc. and formally left the company, I moved into my office over the garage behind my house. My schedule was all over the place depending on where I was with my project.
Some nights I walked Annabelle home from the café and fell into bed beside her by ten. Some nights I took her to bed, stripping her naked and making love to her, holding her until she fell asleep in my arms before I slipped out to my office and worked until my alarm went off at four.
On those mornings I'd walk her to the café and pass out on the couch until she nudged me awake a few hours later with a strong coffee and breakfast.
The couch wasn’t as comfortable as our bed, but it was worth the change in venue for first shot at whatever treat Annabelle had been concocting in the kitchen while I slept.
I'd managed to talk Aiden and Gage out of trying to acquire my app. They always had their eye on business, but family came first. It wasn't that I didn't trust them. I did. I even liked working with them.
But I had plans for the app spinning in my head, and I needed the freedom to make them happen on my own. Working under the mantle of a multinational corporation was suffocating.
I thought they'd have hard feelings, but by the time I had my algorithm ready for the market and could leave Winters, Inc., we'd fallen into the rhythm of family and the company didn't seem to matter anymore.
We had more important things on our minds. Aiden married Vivi just before Christmas, surprising all of us with an impromptu proposal and wedding in Las Vegas.
I gave Vivi away, and I'd been wrong.
It didn't hurt at all.
The joy in her eyes as we walked down the aisle to Aiden was so pure, so strong, it blew away the last lingering bits of reluctance in my heart.
Aiden Winters would take good care of my sister.
I had no doubt.
Maybe it was easier because Annabelle stood by my side, grinning like a fool, her fingers wrapped around mine, squeezing my hand in excitement as we watched Vivi and Aiden take their vows.
So many things had fallen into place in the last six months. Vivi marrying Aiden, Annabelle moving in with me, me leaving Winters, Inc. and starting my own company. Again.
I loved the rush of a start-up. For now, I was content to work out of my garage office, but I'd be hiring coders any day. I was still debating finding office space and bringing on a local team or hiring remote coders and keeping overhead low.
Either way, my project was gaining steam. I didn't know yet if I had a winner, but I had a good feeling about it.
One day, about three months after Annabelle moved in, I left her wiping down the pastry cases as she closed the café and wandered upstairs to the storage room, now taking up the entire level.
There, behind the ten-pound bag of sugar, I found the box of letters from William Davis to Anna Marlow.
I hadn't touched them since the day I'd shown them to Annabelle, sitting beside her on the futon, torn up with anger and sadness. With regret and resentment.
I won't say my feelings about Anna Winters had completely settled, but I'd grown close to my half-siblings and my new cousins.
Close enough to appreciate that however they’d come into my life, they were a gift.
Close enough to know that they still mourned the loss of their mother.
Maybe even close enough to mourn with them.
Tired of wondering, I pulled the box from behind the bag of sugar and brought it to the kitchen counter, now covered in filing boxes filled with god knows what. Annabelle baked like an angel and ran a hell of a café, but her paperwork was all over the place.
Setting the box on the counter, I lifted the heavy lid and pulled out the first letter.
I don't know what I expected. The ravings of a madman. Rage and desperation. Jealousy and hate.
A confession, or a hint of the tragedy to come.
Weirdly, they were boring. Davis had been arrogant enough to believe he would win Anna back. Deluded enough to think that her love for James Winters would pass.
At first, he talked about himself. He wanted her to call. To write him. To tell James to leave her alone.
By the middle of the box, they were getting a little desperate.
When was she coming back? Why would she see James but not him?
There was only one letter that gave a hint at the madness lurking beneath the surface.
June 3, 1981
My Dearest Anna,
I'm at a loss over your silence. You've chosen him over me. Chosen a future with him over the one we should have had together. Your selfishness will have a cost. When it comes due, who will pay?
Always Yours,
William
The letter sent a chill down my spine. The date was a month before my birth. Could Anna have taken the letter as a threat to me?
It was clear enough to be frightening and vague enough that she could have later convinced herself she'd been paranoid.
I didn't have to wonder how I would have reacted if I'd been her. That letter might have pushed her over the edge to adoption instead of keeping me and raising me herself. The more I learned about William Davis, the more I knew she'd done the right thing.
That letter was William's last for a long time.
Four years.
Four years in which Anna and James were married and had a son. Was the birth of Gage, James' heir, the trigger that had pushed Davis over the edge into obsession? Seeing Anna with a child, knowing his own was lost to him?
We'd never know.
Not long after Gage was born, the letters started again, this time with a layer of formality.
Distance. A note congratulating them on the twins’ birth. A polite thank you for a dinner party. Another note when Tate was born. Holiday cards. Birthday cards.
William Davis never again referenced their college love affair. Never gave the slightest hint he pined for Anna or was murderously jealous of James. No hint that he would ultimately be responsible for both of their deaths.
The last letter in the box, sent a few months before they died, was a Christmas card. Simple and prosaic. An embossed tree on the front, a generic message inside, and a short note.
December 15, 1994
Happy Holidays to two of my favorite people.
Love always,
William
That was it.
Love always,
William.
I slid the card back in the box and replaced the letters, a hollow ache in my chest. Was it loss? Pain? Frustration at the futility of it all? At the senselessness of their deaths?
Anna had given me away because she thought it was the best thing for both of us. She’d probably been right. Finally, I was coming to realize that I could be glad I’d had my life, growing up with Vivi, following my own path, and still regret that I’d lost the chance to know her.
I leaned against the kitchen counter, surrounded by disorganized filing boxes, staring at the letters, thoughts tumbling in my head.
The Winters family, my half-siblings and the cousins I'd found through them, were a part of my history, part of where I came from. A good part. One of the best.
This box…this box was a part I'd rather forget. I didn't know what to do with it, with the words of the father I was grateful I'd never known.
I don't know how long I stood there, chest aching, with burning eyes and damp cheeks, wishing the letters didn't exist.
Wishing that, somehow, we could change the past and leave the present intact.
The sounds of the café filtered up through the floor. The murmur of voices. The occasional clank of metal on metal. A door opened and shut. Feet thumped on the stairs.
Annabelle.
She didn't say a thing. She stood beside me, and took the box from my hands, setting it on the floor out of sight. Her fingers tangled with mine as she leaned in, her head on my shoulder.
The familiar sugar cookie scent of her drifted to my nose, filling the hollow space behind my ribs. Her thumb rubbed the back of my hand, and gradually the pain faded away.
When we were ready to go, I put the box back in the corner behind the bag of sugar. I wasn't giving it back to the Winters. They didn't want it. Neither did I.
I couldn't quite bring myself to destroy it, this only link to the father I didn't want, so I put it out of sight and resolved to forget. Surprisingly, it wasn't that hard. My life was too full of good things—my work, family, Annabelle. The good crowded out the bad.
If I'd learned anything in the past few years, it was this: family is what you make it.