Epilogue The Right Choice
One year later.
I’m standing in the kitchen of Kyle’s farmhouse, which I suppose I should start calling our farmhouse since I moved in four months ago.
My name isn’t on the deed but my coffee mug is in the cabinet and my running shoes are by the back door and my toothbrush is in the holder next to his. That counts.
It’s a Saturday in late June and the kitchen is full of noise.
Jennifer is at the counter slicing strawberries for the fruit salad she insisted on bringing.
Her husband Paul is outside on the back porch setting up folding tables with Kyle’s father.
Kendra is arranging wildflowers in mason jars and humming something I don’t recognize.
Nancy is checking the oven where two trays of her famous biscuits are rising slowly behind the glass.
"How many people did you invite?" I ask Kyle, who is carrying a cooler through the back door.
"Thirty. Maybe thirty-five."
"Kyle."
"It’s just a backyard gathering. Nothing fancy."
"Thirty-five people is a party."
"It’s Sugar Ridge. Thirty-five people is Tuesday."
He winks at me and heads back outside. I watch him through the screen door as he sets the cooler on the porch and starts loading it with ice and bottles of sweet tea.
He’s wearing a white t-shirt and jeans and his hair is a little longer than usual because he keeps forgetting to get it cut.
Biscuit is lying at his feet, her tail thumping lazily against the porch boards.
Kendra appears beside me. "You’re staring."
"I’m observing."
"You’re staring and you have the face of someone who is deeply, stupidly, embarrassingly in love."
"Guilty."
She bumps my shoulder with hers. "Good. You deserve to be stupid about someone."
The last year has been the best of my life and I say that without any exaggeration or sentimentality. I say it because it’s true.
My work at Citizens United has become something I’m genuinely proud of.
Linda gave me full oversight of teller operations in January and the quarterly performance numbers have improved every month since.
I redesigned the training program for new hires.
I created a customer feedback system that our regional office adopted across three other branches.
Last month the regional supervisor, Sarah Brennan, called me personally to tell me she was impressed.
"You’re on our radar, Kaitlyn," she said. "Keep doing what you’re doing."
Travis’s old position, the assistant branch manager role, is still open.
Linda hasn’t filled it yet. She told me last week that she wants to talk to me about it in the fall.
She didn’t say I was getting it. She said she wanted to talk.
But the way she said it and the way she looked at me when she said it told me everything I needed to know.
Kyle continues to run Frederickson Ag Supply with the same steady competence he brings to everything.
The store had its best year on record. He hired two new employees and expanded the livestock feed section and started a delivery service for farmers who can’t make it into town.
His father is talking about retiring in the next few years and Kyle is already preparing to take over more of the family’s farm and investment operations.
We fit together in a way I didn’t know was possible.
Not perfectly. We argue about dishes and who forgot to buy milk and whether the bedroom window should be open or closed at night.
He snores when he sleeps on his back and I steal the covers and neither of us will admit to being wrong about which way the toilet paper should face.
But underneath all of that ordinary friction is a foundation so solid that nothing has ever shaken it.
Not once in the entire year we’ve been together has he given me a reason to doubt him.
Not once has he lied to me. Not once has he made me feel like I was anything less than exactly who he wanted.
The guests start arriving around four. Harold Briggs comes first because Harold is early for everything. He brings a jar of his homemade pickles and a handshake that nearly dislocates my shoulder.
"Kyle’s a good man," he says. "And you’re a good woman. I’m glad you two found each other."
"Thank you, Harold."
"Best thing that ever happened to this town, if you ask me."
Melissa arrives with her boyfriend of three months, a quiet mechanic named Dave who eats ribs with his hands, which she considers a vast improvement over the knife-and-fork incident.
Becky comes with her husband and their two kids.
Ben Fulton brings a case of local beer and a smile that tells me he’s genuinely happy to be here.
Mrs. Parker comes in a floral dress and a hat that she tells me she bought specifically for this occasion. She takes my hand and pats it and looks at me with those eighty-three-year-old eyes.
"I told you not to let the good one get away."
"You did, Mrs. Parker."
"I was wrong about which one was the good one, but I was right about the principle."
I laugh and kiss her cheek and help her to a chair in the shade.
The backyard fills up. Neighbors and coworkers and customers and friends.
Tina Lawson from the coffee shop brings a tray of brownies.
Pastor Greg Wilson stops by with his wife and stays for an hour.
Ruth from the farmers market brings a loaf of sourdough and tells Kyle he looks handsome and then tells me I’m too pretty for him and then tells us both to have babies soon.
Kyle’s parents sit in lawn chairs near the garden and watch the whole thing with quiet satisfaction.
Nancy catches my eye from across the yard and smiles.
Richard raises his glass of sweet tea in my direction and nods once.
That’s as demonstrative as Richard gets and it means more to me than a thousand words.
Jennifer pulls me aside around five thirty. She’s been acting strange all afternoon. Checking her phone. Exchanging glances with Kendra. Disappearing into the house for no apparent reason.
"What are you up to?" I ask.
"Nothing. Can’t a sister check on her sibling?"
"You’ve checked on me six times in the last hour."
"I’m thorough."
"You’re terrible at secrets."
She grins. "Just enjoy the party, Kait."
I go back outside and find Kyle standing at the edge of the yard near the fence. He’s looking out at the hay field and the sunset behind it. I walk over and stand beside him.
"Nice party," I say.
"It turned out okay."
"Better than okay. Everyone’s having a great time."
He nods. He’s quiet. He’s been quiet for the last few minutes, which isn’t unusual for Kyle, but there’s something about the quality of this silence that feels different. He seems focused on something. He keeps touching his pocket and then stopping himself.
"Kyle, are you okay?"
"I’m great. I just want to say something."
"Okay."
He turns to face me. The sunset is behind him and the yard is full of people I love and the air smells like grilled chicken and cut grass and wildflowers. He takes both of my hands.
"A year ago, I asked you to dinner at the Oak Street Diner. It took me three years to work up the courage to ask. And when you said yes, I drove home and sat in my truck in my driveway for ten minutes because I couldn’t believe it actually happened."
"You never told me that."
"I’m telling you now." He takes a breath.
"Kaitlyn, you are the kindest person I’ve ever known.
You are smart and strong and you make me want to be better at everything I do.
You walked into my life at a time when you had every reason to stop trusting people and you trusted me anyway.
I will never take that for granted. Not ever. "
My heart is beating faster. I look down and see that he’s reaching into his pocket. His hand comes out with a small box. Dark blue velvet. Simple.
"Kyle."
"I talked to your sister. And Kendra. And my parents. I wanted to make sure everybody was here."
He opens the box. Inside is a ring. A single stone on a thin gold band. Simple and beautiful and exactly what I would have chosen for myself.
"Kaitlyn Williams, will you marry me?"
The yard has gone quiet. I can feel everyone watching. Jennifer is crying. Kendra is crying. Nancy has both hands over her mouth. Richard is standing up from his lawn chair. Harold Briggs is blowing his nose into a handkerchief. Mrs. Parker is clutching her hat.
I look at Kyle. At this man who waited three years. Who asked me about my day every time he walked into the bank. Who noticed when I stopped wearing a necklace. Who told me I was beautiful and meant it. Who showed me that love doesn’t have to be a performance. It just has to be honest.
"Yes," I say. "Yes, absolutely yes."
He slides the ring onto my finger. It fits perfectly. He pulls me into his arms and kisses me and the yard erupts. Cheering and clapping and Jennifer screaming something I can’t make out and Biscuit barking because she doesn’t understand what’s happening but she wants to be part of it.
Kyle holds me tight and I hold him back and I think this is it. This is the life I fought for. This is the life I planned for. This is the life that started with a betrayal and ended with a beginning.
The party goes on for another three hours.
I eat too much. I drink sweet tea and hug every person who congratulates me and I show the ring to anyone who asks and several people who don’t.
Kendra holds my hand and looks at the ring and says "it’s perfect" and I tell her she’s the reason I’m here and she cries again.
Jennifer hugs me so hard I can’t breathe. "I’m so proud of you, little sister."
"Thank you for always believing in me."
"That’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done."
By nine o’clock the guests have gone home. The yard is quiet. The tables are folded. The leftover food is in the fridge and the trash bags are by the garage and the citronella candles are still burning on the porch railing.
Kyle and I sit in the Adirondack chairs and look at the lake of fireflies hovering above the hay field. Biscuit is asleep at our feet. The house is dark behind us except for the kitchen light.
"So," he says.
"So."
"We’re getting married."
"We are."
"Any regrets?"
"Not a single one."
He reaches over and takes my hand. The ring catches the faint light and I look at it on my finger and I think about a Monday morning almost two years ago when I walked into Citizens United Bank believing my future depended on a man who didn’t deserve my trust.
I think about the teller station where I counted my drawer every morning.
The counter where Kyle stood every week and said my name.
The lobby where Kendra walked in every Friday with her school deposits.
The office where Travis sat behind a closed door and thought he was the smartest person in the building.
He wasn’t. He was never even close.
Travis thought he was using me to get closer to someone else. He thought I was comfortable and dependable and easy to manage. He thought I would never figure it out and even if I did, I would never have the courage to do anything about it.
Instead, his betrayal became the best thing that ever happened to me. It gave me the promotion I deserved. It gave me the clarity to see the man I’d been overlooking. It gave me the strength to walk away on my own terms. And it gave me the proof that my kindness was never my weakness.
It was always my greatest strength.
I sit on the porch of my home with my fiancé beside me and my dog at my feet and a ring on my finger.
The night is warm and the fireflies are glowing and tomorrow morning I’ll wake up in this farmhouse and make coffee and sit at the kitchen table and read the paper and start another ordinary day in a life that is exactly, completely, unapologetically mine.
Monday morning. I’m at my station at Citizens United Bank, reviewing the week’s schedule and sipping the coffee I made at our farmhouse kitchen before dawn.
The lobby is quiet. Melissa is telling Becky about her weekend.
The new hire at station three is counting her drawer for the second time because I taught her to always count twice.
The front doors open at ten fifteen and Kyle walks in. Deposit bag in one hand. Coffee from Tina’s in the other. He gets in line behind Mrs. Parker and waits patiently the way he always has. When he reaches my station he sets the deposit bag on the counter and smiles.
"Hey."
"Hey yourself."
"I brought you a coffee."
"I already have coffee."
"Now you have two."
I process his deposit. Our fingers brush when I hand him the receipt. The ring on my left hand catches the light and Melissa makes a small happy sound from her station because she does that every time she sees it.
"Lunch?" Kyle asks.
"Give me ten minutes."
He sits in the lobby and waits. I close out my midday transactions and tell Melissa I’ll be back in an hour. I grab my bag and my keys and I walk around the counter and Kyle stands up and takes my hand.
We walk toward the front doors. I stop for a moment and look back at the lobby. My station. Melissa’s station. Becky’s desk. Linda’s office. The hallway that leads to the office that used to be Travis’s and is now empty and waiting to be filled.
I look at all of it and I remember the woman who walked through these doors almost seven years ago and took a job she thought would be temporary.
The woman who counted her drawer every morning and memorized every customer’s name and believed that loyalty was the most important thing a person could offer.
She was right about that. Loyalty is important. But loyalty to yourself comes first. And learning the difference between the two is worth everything it cost me.
Kyle squeezes my hand. "Ready?"
"Ready."
We push through the front doors together. The sun is bright. Sugar Ridge is alive and moving and ordinary. We walk to his truck and he opens my door and I climb in and he drives us to lunch and I don’t look back again.
He used me.
I used him back.
And I came out of it with everything.