Epilogue
WALT AND WILLARD
Walt made two last cups of coffee before he locked the door.
He carried them across The Green.
Willard was on his bench, one hand resting on his knee while Chip sprawled underneath him, directly below the brass plate with Ida’s name on it.
Walt handed him a cup and sat down.
They watched Emory glance down at the ring on her hand like she still couldn’t quite believe it was there. Then she smiled up at Jake. The smile that had been getting harder and harder for her to hide all summer.
Jake said something to her, and she tucked herself closer against him.
Walt took a sip of his coffee. “Well,” he said, “I’d say that ended nicely.”
That got the faintest smile out of Willard.
“You think they know?” Walt asked.
Willard tilted his head. “Jake might suspect.”
“And Emory?”
“Emory suspects everybody.”
“That is true.”
Willard tossed a peanut into the grass.
Chip didn’t move.
“Ida would have loved today,” Willard said after a while.
Walt nodded. “Pat too.”
They sat with that for a moment, the names of their loves settling between them.
Chip woke up, stretched, and scampered out from under the bench to retrieve the peanut that had been waiting for him in the grass.
“You ever feel bad about it?” Walt asked.
“About what?”
“The nudging.”
Willard considered that, then looked back toward Jake and Emory dancing in the middle of The Green.
“No,” Willard said.
Walt nodded. “Me neither.”
Fifty years of friendship. Two widowers who understood that love didn’t end when someone left.
It just changed shape. They’d both lost theirs.
They’d both kept living. And somewhere in the quiet of that shared grief, they’d decided that if they couldn’t have their own love stories anymore, they’d make damn sure everyone else got theirs.
They sat quietly and watched the crowd.
Walt’s mouth twitched. “Well now,” he said softly.
Willard made a thoughtful sound low in his throat.
Across The Green, one person laughed.
Another looked away a second too late.
That was all it took.
Walt made a small sound into his coffee. “You seeing what I’m seeing?”
“I do believe I am.”
“Potential’s there.”
Willard tipped his hat back a fraction. “Mm.”
The moment disappeared back into the crowd. Easy to miss if a person didn’t know what to look for.
Willard and Walt looked at each other.
Willard raised his cup.
Walt raised his.
They touched the rims together with a quiet tap.
The music carried on. The town kept eating and drinking and laughing around the happy couple in the middle of it all, none of them aware that while one story settled.
Another stirred.