Epilogue
NINA
The morning is cold and clear.
I wake before dawn, expecting something awful, that perhaps that hole in my chest will have been ripped open again. But Tom’s arm is around my waist, his breath warm against my shoulder, his heartbeat steady against my back.
I slip out of bed without waking him. Pull on jeans, a jumper, and Peter’s old navy fisherman’s coat that I still haven’t been able to give away. Some things take longer, I guess.
The harbour is quiet. Mist curling off the water. The boats rocking gently at their moorings. Lavender Dreams sits at the end of the quay, closed up, twinkling lights dark, waiting for the morning rush – the end of the tourist season – that won’t come for hours yet.
One year.
It doesn’t feel like a year. It feels like forever and no time at all, the way grief always does. Some days I forget, just for a moment, and then I remember and it hits fresh. Other days I carry it easily, pocket-sized, the way Ellen promised it would become.
Today it’s somewhere in between.
I walk along the harbour wall, past the fish shack, past The Ship, past the spot where Jenny’s Dream used to be moored. My feet know the way. They always have.
Kit’s waiting at the boat shed.
He doesn’t say anything when he sees me. Just nods, once, and unlocks the door.
Inside, covered in a tarp, is Jessie’s Dream – Kit’s small passenger boat.
‘She needs airing out,’ Kit says. His voice is gruff, matter-of-fact. ‘Been too long since she’s been on the water.’
‘Kit—’
‘Jess would’ve wanted her used.’ He pulls back the tarp. The hull is red, faded but sound. The sail neatly furled. ‘Take her out. You and Tom. Go say goodbye properly.’
My throat tightens. ‘How did you know?’
‘It’s October twenty-second.’ He looks at me, and for just a second, the gruffness falls away and underneath is raw. ‘I will never forget what day today is, and I will always be thankful for it.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, but then pause. ‘Hey, I never realised how close in name Jessie’s Dream and Jenny’s Dream are.’
Kit blinks into the distant horizon. ‘I think it’s for Sea Salt Bay. This is where dreams are made, and now you have your Lavender Dreams too.’
My throat is so tight it’s actually painful to swallow.
Kit clears his throat. ‘And anyway, you don’t need to thank me. Just bring her back in one piece.’ He turns to go, then stops. ‘And Nina?’
‘Yeah?’
‘It gets easier. Not better, exactly. But easier.’ A pause. ‘You’re doing all right.’
He’s gone before I can respond. Footsteps fading up the harbour. The boat-shed door swinging shut behind him.
I stand there, looking at Jess’s dinghy, and I let the tears come.
Just for a moment. Just enough to let the pressure out.
Then I wipe my face, roll up my sleeves, and get to work.
Tom finds me an hour later.
I’m rigging the sail, fingers clumsy with cold, swearing under my breath at a knot that won’t cooperate. He appears at the edge of the boat shed, two coffees in hand, wearing his old Barbour jacket and an expression of fond concern.
‘Brynn said you’d be here.’
‘Brynn needs to mind her own business.’
‘Brynn has never minded her own business in her life. It’s part of her charm.’ He sets the coffees down. Studies the boat. ‘Jess’s dinghy?’
‘Kit lent me it.’
‘Kit lent you his dead wife’s boat.’
‘He said she needed airing out.’
Tom’s quiet for a moment. Then he steps forward, takes the rope from my hands, and finishes the knot in three quick movements.
‘Show-off,’ I mutter.
I lean into his touch. Let myself breathe.
‘Come with me,’ I say. ‘Out on the water. I want to— I need to say goodbye. Properly. And I want you there.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
He kisses my forehead. ‘Then let’s go.’
The sea is calm.
We sail out past the breakwater, past the fishing boats heading in with the morning catch, past the point where the village disappears behind the cliffs. Just us and the water and the endless grey sky.
I know the spot. Roughly. It’s hard to be exact – the sea doesn’t keep landmarks, doesn’t hold still long enough to be mapped. But I remember the shape of the coastline, the angle of the sun, the way the water felt that day when we scattered Peter’s ashes.
‘Here,’ I say. ‘I think. Somewhere around here.’
Tom lowers the sail. The dinghy slows, rocking gently, carried by the current, and then he drops the anchor.
Silence.
Just the waves. The wind. The distant cry of gulls.
I reach into my coat pocket. Pull out the flowers – lavender, from the window boxes at the café. I picked them this morning, in the dark, before anyone was awake. They’re slightly crushed now, fragrant and bruised.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ I admit. ‘I’ve been thinking about it all week. What I’d say when I got here. But now I’m here and I just—’ I stop. Shake my head. ‘I don’t know how to do this.’
‘You don’t have to say anything,’ Tom says. ‘You could just … let go.’
Let go.
Such simple words. Such an impossible thing.
But I look at the flowers in my hand. At the water stretching out around us. At Tom, steady and patient, waiting for me to be ready.
And I think: maybe it’s not impossible. Maybe it’s just hard. And maybe hard things are still worth doing.
I stand up. The boat rocks beneath me. Tom’s hand finds my hip, steadying me.
‘Hi, Peter,’ I say.
The wind picks up, just slightly. The water ripples.
‘It’s been a year. I still can’t quite believe that.
Some days it feels like yesterday. Some days it feels like a lifetime ago.
’ I turn the lavender over in my fingers.
‘I miss you. I’ll always miss you. But I’m okay.
I’m more than okay, actually. I’m happy.
Really happy. For the first time since—’ My voice cracks.
I push through. ‘For the first time in a long time.’
The boat rocks again and I plant my feet firm. The gulls wheel overhead.
‘Tom’s here. You probably know that. You probably—’ I laugh, watery.
‘I don’t know what you know. I don’t know if you’re anywhere at all.
But if you are, I hope you’re okay with this.
I hope you’re glad. You always wanted us to be happy, all of us.
You were generous like that. Generous with your love. ’
Tom’s hand tightens on my hip. Anchor. Steadiness.
‘I’m not going to forget you,’ I say. ‘I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.
You’re part of this place. Part of me. The café, the boat, the village – you’re in all of it.
You always will be.’ I take a breath. ‘But I’m going to keep living and run my floating café and grow old in this ridiculous village where everyone knows everyone’s business.
And when I think of you, I’m going to smile.
Not cry. Smile. Because you were wonderful, and I was lucky to love you, and that’s worth smiling about. ’
The lavender is warm in my hand. Sun-soaked. Fragrant.
‘Goodbye, Peter. For now. Until I see you again, wherever that is.’ I hold the flowers over the water. ‘I love you. I’ll always love you. But I’m letting go now. I’m letting go.’
I open my fingers.
The lavender falls.
Purple against grey. Petals scattering on the water, spreading out in a slow spiral, carried by the current.
I watch until I can’t see them anymore. Until they’ve become part of the sea.
Tom holds me. Doesn’t speak.
We sit there for the longest time with the autumn chill settling over us, then Tom shifts and I look up at him expectantly.
‘I’ve got something I want to say,’ he says, ‘and I want to do it in front of Peter too, if that’s okay?’
I shrug, but give him an encouraging smile, until he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small velvet box. His gaze goes to the sea though, not to me.
‘Pete, mate. I hope you don’t mind me saying the words you once wanted to say, but I think Nina is right. You’d want us to be happy. You’d want us to be together.’
When Tom turns his gaze onto mine, it’s so brilliant, so bright, I can barely breathe.
‘Nina Ellis. I have loved you every day since you first walked into that common room all those years ago. Wherever you were, whatever your path, I loved you, still.’
I’m blinking so fast and it has nothing to do with the wind.
‘And’—his voice is as tight as a taut rope—‘and I want to love you forever. If you will let me.’
My tears fall and when I wipe them away so I can see, Tom’s own tears are falling, proudly, with truth, with love, all of it for me.
‘Marry me, Nina.’
I lean over and wipe his cheeks, he wipes mine, his hands cupping my face, holding me tight, and I know he will never leave. I know we will always be together.
‘Try and stop me, Tom Darcy. Try and stop me.’
He opens the box, and a sapphire set with diamonds blinks under the cloudy sky.
‘Like the sea,’ I whisper.
His smile is everything.
‘Just like the sea.’
We sail home in silence.
But it’s a good silence. A full one. The kind of silence that doesn’t need filling because it is full of the future, full of plans that haven’t been made yet, perhaps not even dreamed of yet.
The village comes back into view – the harbour, the boats, the café with its purple shutters. Home. Still here. Waiting for me.
We walk up the harbour together. Past the fish shack, where Bill raises a hand in greeting. Past The Post Office, where Dot is already installed behind the counter. Past Lavender Dreams, quiet and waiting. No one knows there’s a ring on my finger.
‘Take me home, Tom Darcy.’
‘Gladly.’ He takes my hand. ‘But there’s something I need to show you first.’
I frown. ‘Now? It’s still early.’
‘Now.’
With trailing relaxed steps, I follow him up the lane. Up the steps to the flat above the café.
‘Tom, what—’
Using his new key he opens the door.
And there, in the middle of the living-room floor, sitting in a nest of blankets with a red bow around her neck that she’s already half-chewed through, is a puppy.
Scruffy. Tan and white. Ears too big for her head. A terrier – a terrier with wired hair that looks like she’s been dragged through a hedge backwards and is extremely pleased about it.
She sees me and her whole body vibrates, while my hand flies to my mouth. ‘Tom?’
‘Brynn’s been looking after her since yesterday. She’s twelve weeks old. Rescue from Falmouth. They found her wandering the streets, no collar, no chip.’ He crouches down, and the puppy launches herself at him, all wriggling joy. ‘She needed a home. I thought—’
‘She looks like Chips.’
‘I know.’
I kneel beside Tom. The puppy abandons him immediately, throws herself at me instead, climbing onto my lap, licking my chin, my cheeks, anywhere she can reach.
‘Hello, you.’ My words are hard to choke out. ‘Hello, hello. Look at you. Look at your ridiculous face.’
The puppy yaps. Her tail is wagging so hard her entire back end is moving.
‘She doesn’t have a name yet,’ Tom says. ‘I thought you’d want to choose.’
I look at the puppy. At Tom. Back at the puppy.
‘Biscuit,’ I confirm.
‘Biscuit?’
‘Chips’s real name. The one his family gave him.’ I scratch behind the puppy’s ears. I think my heart is going to explode. ‘This one can be Biscuit. Our Biscuit.’
The puppy – Biscuit – barks her approval.
‘Biscuit it is.’
I pull him into a kiss. The puppy squirms between us, determined to be part of it, licking whatever skin she can find.
‘Thank you,’ I whisper against his mouth. ‘Thank you. A ring and a dog all in one day. I can’t even.’
‘You needed a dog. One that doesn’t have to leave.’
‘I needed this dog.’ I pull back and my eyes are stinging but I can’t stop smiling; this bubble of joy is expanding so big inside of me that I think it may pop. ‘I needed her and I didn’t even know it.’
Biscuit yaps again. Chases her own tail. Falls over.
‘She’s an idiot.’ I grin at her.
‘She’ll fit right in.’
‘Oi.’
‘I meant me. Obviously.’
I laugh. Scoop up the puppy. Stand.
We walk through the flat together. The three of us. Future husband. Future wife, and ridiculous terrier.
Behind us, the village begins to wake up. The boats rock. The sea whispers against the harbour wall.
And the chalkboard stands sentinel outside the café, its message waiting for whoever passes by.
Life is short. Eat cake. Love hard.
Good advice.
The best advice, really.
And finally – finally – we’re taking it.