Epilogue
One year later
“I can’t believe he’s doing this again,” I say to Evangeline and Martha, who are standing on either side of me, the library set to open in fifteen minutes.
Mayor Breckenbridge is smiling wide for the camera that Peggy Sue is pointing his direction, Cletus directly behind him. Apparently, our illustrious leader intends to have a full-page one-year anniversary write-up about the bookmobile in the paper. Some things never change.
Then again . . .
I let myself think back over the last year.
Maybe not everything has stayed the same.
I know I’ve experienced growth over the last twelve months.
For one, Levi and I have learned together what a real relationship looks like.
It hasn’t been all paper roses and rainbows.
We’ve weathered our storms, but I also think we’ve both come out the other side stronger.
He may not be exactly thrilled about the expansion on his social calendar since Jack wrangled him into a board position for the newly developed Turkey Grove Small Business Association, but I also know he feels pride in watching his neighbors start to thrive as they diversify their clientele and shore up their bottom lines.
He’s also taken some advice from Trinity and listened to what she’s learning in her occupational therapy classes.
Some of the strategies she’s suggested he try have helped him to cope more, but not all.
He still has days when he gets overwhelmed by sensory input and needs to take some time alone to decompress.
As for me, I started going to therapy. And, as predicted, Dr. Brown has had a field day with my good deeds journals.
She’s helped me work through a lot of the guilt I’ve been carrying around, along with feelings of unworthiness.
I still like to volunteer and help people, but there are boundaries on my time now.
I have standing volunteer hours each month with the animal shelter, the food bank, and the senior center, and I no longer drop everything to rush over if they call.
I’m no longer compelled to keep a list of everything I do either.
There are other changes as well. Even physical ones.
Like Levi sporting a similar scar on his abdomen that I have on mine.
Turns out he wasn’t a match for me as a liver donor, but he did perfectly match a husband and father of three from Sweetwater.
We’re planning a camping trip with them next month.
Well, we’ll see if it actually happens.
Because that’s another change, and this time not such a good one. My most recent lab results came back with some concerning numbers. I have to go in next week to run more tests, but the day I’ve been dreading may have finally arrived—my secondhand organ may be failing me.
I’m not alone, though. And hope isn’t lost. In fact, when my family found out how I’d been living in the dark about my future for so long, a riot almost broke out.
Somehow Aunt Missy made her voice heard above everyone else, and I’ve had to endure her repetition of “If you’d only listened to me .
. .” more times than I can count. She’s right, though. I should’ve listened to her.
If I had, I would’ve known that every member of my family was tested years ago to see if they could be a donor match.
Both my brother and father are, though my brother insists that he will be the one to go under the knife for me.
He says it’s so he has something to hold over my head for the rest of our lives, which I absolutely believe is a motivating factor.
But so is the fact he knows he’ll have an easier time recovering than Dad since Elliot is younger and in perfect health.
“You have the keys, don’t you?” Evangeline asks. “I say you end this now by simply driving away.”
“Here.” Martha shoves a pigeon stuffed animal into my hands. “I thought you could use a copilot. But whatever you do—”
I laugh. “Don’t let the pigeon drive the bookmobile?”
She grins. “Exactly.”
Just last week she’d had a whole day dedicated to Mo Willems. She’d even played some of his Lunch Doodles YouTube videos so the kids could learn how to draw a few of his characters. Now the children’s section is covered with pictures of Knuffle Bunny, Pigeon, Piggie, and Gerald.
“Let’s fly this coop, Pidgie,” I say to the stuffed animal, then fan my fingers out in a good-bye to my friends before I dig Cletus’s keys out of my pocket.
Mayor Breckenbridge doesn’t even notice as I make my way to the other side of the bookmobile and slide into the driver’s seat.
The engine cranks easily—Cletus hasn’t had a single mechanical issue since his epic breakdown in Turkey Grove—and I can see Peggy Sue’s amused expression as she waves me off.
Mayor Breckenbridge is as ripe as a tomato in the rearview mirror.
I should probably feel ashamed at my rude behavior, but I can’t find it within myself.
The mayor was delaying my departure, and my route today takes me to Turkey Grove.
If his basking in the limelight wasn’t cut short, who knows how far behind schedule Cletus and I would be.
The two-lane winding road leads me farther from civilization.
Autumn is hitting the area sooner than normal this year, the tops of the mountains already showing off their colorful array.
It won’t be long until every tree is decked out in vibrant hues of red and gold.
Like every autumn when I witness the change, the song from The Byrds pops into my head.
I’m singing “turn, turn, turn” under my breath as I take a left off the main road and onto the dirt path that leads to the heart of Turkey Grove.
My gaze scans the mountainside, looking for any sign of a rockslide, but everything is still and stable.
I pass the last remnants of boulders that are evidence of the natural disaster that catapulted my own personal change in season.
“A time to every purpose under heaven.” I sing the lyrics that originated from the book of Ecclesiastes.
It takes another good ten minutes of driving before the hollow of Turkey Grove comes into view.
I pull into the General Store’s parking lot, my brow knit in confusion.
There’s usually at least one or two people waiting for me on scheduled route days, Levi at the head of the line to greet me. But the parking lot is deserted.
I kill Cletus’s engine, then climb down from the driver’s seat and make my way to the other side of the bookmobile to get started in opening him up for business.
“Special delivery.”
Jack’s voice has me turning around, a welcoming smile on my face.
He holds out an envelope to me, and I immediately recognize Levi’s chicken-scratch handwriting.
“He has you playing mailman again, I see.”
Jack just grins, watching me with barely concealed excitement. I give him a funny look because he’s acting strange, then scan the parking lot again.
“Where is everyone?”
“Busy.” He stares pointedly at the letter in my hands. “Aren’t you going to read that?”
I glance down at the envelope, then back up at Jack. I want to read it, but not with an audience. Besides, I need to get the Wi-fi going, the book cart unloaded, and make sure everything else is in place for the first patron.
I wave my arm behind me. “I need to get Cletus set up first.”
Jack breezes past me, heading in a direct line to Cletus’s side door. “I’ll do it. You read the letter.”
I stare at Jack’s back before he disappears inside the van. Is it just me, or is he acting stranger than normal?
Another sweep of the parking lot tells me there still aren’t any people waiting for the bookmobile. Giving in to curiosity, I slip my finger under the envelope’s flap and peel it open. I love that Levi and I still exchange letters. I hope that we never stop.
There’s only a ripped piece of paper inside. No salutations or greeting of any kind. The few words there stare up at me, kicking my pulse into high gear. It’s a clue.
I bite my bottom lip, torn. I want to drop everything and follow this trail, figure out what game Levi is playing. But I’m also working and have to be responsible.
“Just so you know, no one is coming.” Jack steps out of the bookmobile and shuts the door behind him.
“Excuse me?”
“Turkey Grove is boycotting the bookmobile today. Not a soul is going to stop by, so you might as well get.” He crosses his arms over his chest and juts his chin in the direction of Levi’s, a smile gracing the lower portion of his face.
“The whole town is in on this?” I hold up the paper.
He shakes his head at me. “I’m not saying another word except to tell you again to get out of here.”
I grin at him, then bolt toward Levi’s house, the words on the paper burned into my mind.
“What woman has a lover more truly in love; what queen a servant more ardent.”
Which of course is a quote from The Three Musketeers written by Alexandre Dumas. Levi often refers to our feline triplets as the three musketeers despite their wizarding names, so I know the clue, while on the surface a romantic quote, is pointing me to our cats.
I haven’t bothered knocking on Levi’s front door for a while now, so it’s not weird when I barge inside. “Levi? You here?” I call, not expecting a response.
Sure enough, he doesn’t answer. Dumpurrdore does, however, with a meow and a brush against my leg. I bend down and pick him up, my gaze snagging on the piece of paper safety-pinned to his collar.
“Did your daddy make you an accomplice to his shenanigans?” I ask as I nuzzle his head and unpin the next clue.
“My dear Jerusha,” it reads. “Please be thinking about me. I’m quite lonely and I want to be thought about.”
I once told Levi I wanted to be wooed by a mysterious pen pal because of Jean Webster’s Daddy-Long-Legs. Jerusha was the name of the heroine, even though she preferred to go by the name Judy.
It takes me longer than I want to admit to figure out where I’m supposed to go from here, but it’s the name Jerusha that finally clues me in. The matron of the children’s home Judy was raised in selected the name from a tombstone.
I kiss Dumpurrdore on the head and set him down. Off to the church cemetery I go.
Once I’m there, I look around. At some point, I’m expecting to find Levi.
I was the last one of us to lead the other on a little treasure hunting adventure like this.
At the end of his clues, he found me and a candlelit dinner set up in the gazebo at the park beside the library.
So while I don’t know exactly what these clues will lead me to, I’m pretty certain he’ll be there.
But he’s not in the cemetery. I meander through the tombstones looking for another clue. Levi is too big to be able to hide behind any of the marble slabs. Sure enough, a bouquet of paper flowers rests atop a particular marker, a note hidden within the petals.
I unfold the paper and read.
“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.”
My heart clenches at the words. How has he managed to find quotes that are romantic, speak to us and our relationship, while also pointing me forward to the next clue? He is the sweetest, most adorable man I’ve ever met.
The quote is from Winnie the Pooh. He wants me to go into the woods behind his house.
Anna Leigh and I were exploring back there a few months ago and imagined it was the Hundred Acre Wood.
We imagined we found the treehouse where Piglet lived, and then Anna Leigh told me how Fancy and Jolene would never live in a tree.
Levi had teased her, saying it was actually my treehouse since I was really a woodland sprite—one of the nicknames he calls me on occasion.
I smile at the memory and collect the bouquet of paper flowers as I make my way toward the wooded hillside. The tree with a hollow section at the base is near a hedge of wild mountain laurel. In the spring, the flowers are a snowy white with purple markings and give off the scent of grape soda.
Leaves crunch under the soles of my shoes as I blaze a path through the underbrush.
My pulse ticks steadily against my ribs, picking up speed with each step that I take.
Intuition thrums within my veins. Kind of like how I knew the first time I laid eyes on Cletus that my future was about to be changed forever.
It’s not ominous this time, however—the intuition.
More like a happy knowledge that something good is waiting for me right around the corner.
Levi steps out from behind Piglet’s tree at that exact moment.
I was right. Something good was waiting for me.
No, something amazing.
Levi’s gaze captures mine, and his golden eyes melt at the sight of me. I don’t think it will ever get old, being looked at in this manner. I’ve never had to guess, never had to doubt this man’s love for me. And that’s the greatest gift he could have ever given.
He steps forward and takes my hands in his. “You made it.”
I quirk my brow mischievously. “Did you doubt me?”
“Not even for a second.” His smile spreads wide. He dips his head and captures my lips in a sweet kiss, as if he couldn’t hold himself back another second. “Sorry,” he says when he pulls back.
“Never apologize for kissing me like that,” I say dazedly.
He grins for a moment, then sobers. His throat works as he swallows hard. “Hayley, I love you.”
My heart melts. “I love you too, big guy.”
“I’m not always good at expressing myself, though I wish I could tell you all the things you mean to me.
All I can say is that I love you. I’ve loved you even before anyone thought it was logical for me to do so.
Maybe at the first sight of you or the first touch, I don’t know.
But I do know I’ll keep loving you for the rest of my days.
” He lowers himself to the forest floor until he’s down on one knee. “Will you marry me?”
A velvet jewelry box materializes, a dazzling engagement ring nestled inside. His heart is in his eyes as he looks up at me, and my vision begins to swim with happy tears.
“Yes!” I shout, then launch myself into his arms.
The impact punches the air out of him, and he loses his balance because of my attack. He falls to the ground, and I land on top of him, peppering him with kisses anywhere my lips can touch. His chest rumbles with his laughter, and his arms come around to band behind my back, squeezing me tight.
I lean back to look into his eyes. “One day at a time.”
“Every day. For the rest of our lives.” Then he seals the promise with a kiss.