Epilogue
ALLISON
Three Years Later
“Momma, I love you sooo much!”
Daisy flung her little body at Allison with wide-open arms, giggling. She loved the love chaos bombs Daisy gave her by loudly declaring that she loved her so much.
Allison caught her, tumbling back in the playhouse they’d made together with an exaggerated oof.
“Mama loves you so much.”
Daisy’s belly giggles were muffled in the crook of her neck, and Allison tried to savor the moment.
“Again,” Daisy said, pushing up, and then she flung herself at Allison again, declaring how much she loved her.
I’ll never get tired of this game. She wrapped her arms around Daisy and squeezed, blowing a raspberry on her cheek.
They were playing in the cottage in a simple playhouse she’d made out of a thrifted tablecloth, cutting windows out, painting windowsills and flowers so Daisy could peek out from under the table.
There had been something soul-mending about thrifting and making dreamy things for her toddler to play with.
“I want a story,” Daisy said, running out of the table-playhouse to the stack of books.
Allison crawled out from underneath the table.
Please don’t let it be baby bunnies. Please don’t let it be baby bunnies.
“Baby bunnies,” Daisy said, holding the picture book up high.
Allison didn’t even need the book anymore; she could just recite it from memory.
They cuddled up in the story corner Wells had made when she’d been pregnant, pulling Daisy up onto her lap in the bright summer sunshine. The warm little weight of her pressed against Allison’s body as they cuddled in to learn about pirouettes and jetés and white cottontails.
Every moment she spent with Daisy, something healed inside of her. Through the frustration and sleepless nights, the sweet giggling moments, the terrifying time when her fever hadn’t wanted to break as a baby—it had all made Allison better. All part of the glorious journey she’d wanted so badly.
She nuzzled Daisy’s head, kissing her wild curls, thick and brown like her father’s, as she flipped the page, revealing even more baby bunnies in ballerina costumes.
As they got to the end of the story, Allison winced, hoping she wouldn’t have to read it again. “Want to read The Flower Alphabet?”Allison asked, hoping the suggestion would allow her to avoid yet another repetition.
“I miss Maggie,” Daisy said sadly.
Oh, my heart. Of all the amazing things about being a mom she’d looked forward to, having a little girl with the biggest heart had been her biggest unexpected surprise.
“I guess we better go see her,” Allison said, swooping Daisy up to make her giggle.
They walked hand in hand down the gravel drive back to their home.
It was the beginning of a beautiful, lush summer in Fairwick Falls, and they had a big day ahead. They walked into the garage as Wells came out, emptying the Diaper Genie.
“Papa, I’m hungry,” Daisy said, knowing who was the better cook in the house.
“Hi Hungry, I’m Poppa,” he said with a silly look at her, and she doubled over giggling. It had been her new favorite joke for the last two weeks, and Wells, the ham, had never let a moment pass without using it.
Allison met Wells’s eyes, and they basked in the shared joy of making their daughter laugh so hard. She grabbed a kiss from him as he tossed the bag in the trash bin. “You’re so cute when you’re taking out the trash,” she said with a teasing smile.
He followed them back in and squeezed Allison’s butt as they walked up the two stairs to the house. “You’re so cute when you’re sparkling.”
She smiled at him over her shoulder, knowing exactly who made sure she stayed sparkly.
Daisy had already run up to Maggie who was sitting in the high chair.
“You’re back early,” Wells said as they walked into the kitchen.
“Daisy missed Maggie.”
Wells threw a hand to his chest, looking enamored at the sweetness.
“I know, literally the cutest,” Allison sighed.
Wells had proposed they explore a tentative legal partnership when Daisy had turned six months old.
Finally, after many rounds of negotiation on his desk, in the shower, handcuffed to their bed, in the diner office, and outside on a picnic blanket in their backyard, she’d agreed to marry him.
They’d gone to the courthouse the next afternoon, and nine months later, Maggie was born.
Maggie sat, waving her arms up and down in her baby excitement. Allison kissed her chubby baby cheeks, savoring every moment she could.
She’d lived in a state of perpetual exhaustion for the last three years, but it was also one of exuberant happiness.
She slid off the antique diamond wedding ring that had belonged to Wells’s grandmother.
She emptied the dirty dishes out of the sink while Wells fixed food for Daisy and supervised Maggie attempting to eat mushy avocado.
Their life was full and flying by quickly, with endless children’s birthday parties, playdates at the playground, date nights for themselves, and babysitting for one of their friends. Bloom was thriving, and so was the diner.
She tried to remind herself of all of this before falling into bed exhausted beside Wells every night, cuddling up against his chest and burying her face in her favorite place.
In the past three years, they’d navigated life together, and Allison couldn’t have pictured doing this with anyone else.
No one else would have bullied her into a mandatory spa day every six months.
No one else would have fought as hard for her during Maggie’s complicated delivery.
No one else would have made her laugh as much as Wells did every day.
And she had yet to find anybody she trusted more.
In the past three years, both their fathers had passed. She spoke to her mom, who was now less stressed, but still in a limited capacity.
As Allison finished up the last dish, putting it in the dishwasher, Maggie started to cry.
“Just one sec,” Wells called as he finished up the snack for Daisy.
“I’ll get her,” Allison said, rubbing his back as she walked by him to grab Maggie.
Maggie doubled down on her cries, her tiny little lip pouting out at being stuck away from the action of the kitchen. Allison pulled her out of the high chair and cuddled her.
The little gasps of her belly moving against Allison’s stomach became shorter and smoother. She kissed Maggie’s cheek, her cries slowing and eventually becoming smiles.
I did that. I made her feel better.
It never got old, that ability to soothe her favorite little humans. She never stopped being amazed at the miraculousness of Maggie’s fingernails, her nose, her earlobes. She loved every bit of her girls to pieces.
“I’m going to put her down for a nap,” she said to Wells.
“We’re still good to leave at five?” he asked.
“Yes, but don’t let me forget I need to make the fruit salad,”Allison said, grabbing her ring and sliding it back on.
“Already done,” Wells said.
“I love you,” she sighed, stealing a long simmering kiss from him as the baby sniffled against her.
“We do not have time,” he said against her lips, “to get distracted today.”
She laughed as she took Maggie to the nursery.
Allison settled into her rocking chair, pulling the well-loved flower blanket around Maggie and herself.
Allison hummed a song that had been stuck in her head as Maggie cuddled into her, her little belly pressing in and out against her, the heat of her little breaths warming her neck.
Allison had become an expert at knowing the exact moment when her girls went from closing their eyes to sleeping. The measured breathing. The cuddles.
She let herself linger there a little longer, savoring the feeling of a baby against her, knowing she was already on her way to becoming a toddler.
A little while later, as she put Maggie into her crib, Wells walked in with a zonked-out Daisy, laying her in her bed.
Score. Two kids down for nap time in the afternoon meant less chance of meltdowns that evening.
They both crept out of the girls’ room, shutting the door behind them. “Is it our lucky day?” Allison asked, giving Wells a quiet high five in the hall.
He cornered her against the wall, hands on her hips as he kissed her neck. “I certainly hope it’s my lucky day.”
She melted against him. “It’s looking that way,” she sighed, and as Wells palmed her breast, she pulled him to their bedroom, locked the door, and fulfilled one of the things they’d looked forward to years before—sneaking in a grasping, sweaty, fast, and satisfying round of sex during nap time.
That evening in the fading purple light of dusk, Allison sat on the beautiful back patio of Rose and Gray’s house overlooking the flower farm. Allison’s heart was so full as she looked around the table.
Rose and Gray had hosted a barbecue with all the couples to plan Pop’s eighty-fifth birthday party.
Children ran through the grass, shrieking with delight at the lightning bugs that blinked in the dusk.
Sudden, surprised squeals made all the adults turn their heads, taking in the chaotic scene as Pearl and Reed’s twins tumbled on the ground, dragging Nash and Lily’s oldest down with them. Lily and Luca supervised, wrangling the toddlers.
“What about a surprise party?” Violet asked, braiding Annabelle’s hair as she sat on Violet’s lap.
“Vi, you can’t throw an eighty-five-year-old man a surprise birthday party,” Rose said with a dry look.
Olivia snorted next to her, a blanket spread over her chest as she nursed her newborn. “I think his ticker is okay, but it never hurts to be safe. He liked the cruise we got him a couple years ago, right?” she asked Wells, who was giving Maggie a bottle.
“Anybody else want S-M-O-R-E-S?” Gray said from the grill.
They’d agreed unanimously that all the toddlers wouldn’t learn what melted marshmallows were until they were five.
All the women raised their hands, as did Nash and Reed.
“I’m also getting an intense craving for spicy. Do you guys have a spare habanero pepper?” Allison asked Rose.