Epilogue Caitlin
If there is one thing I’ve learned over the last five years, it’s being wary of absolutes.
Never is a dangerous word. Five years ago, I left Iowa heartbroken and alone, and I swore I’d never set foot in Mount Pella again.
Yet here I am, sitting in a vinyl booth in the small, shabby diner that sits across the street from our hotel, watching my daughter color on a children’s menu while Adam studies his own.
Life has a funny way of making liars out of all of us.
“Mommy, look!” Louisa holds up her paper, crayon marks spreading well beyond the outlined pancake she was supposed to be coloring. “It’s purple!”
“I see that, baby. It’s beautiful.” I smooth back a strand of her dark hair, so like her father’s. At three years old, Louisa is a force of nature, all curious mind and stubborn determination, with my freckles scattered across her nose and Adam’s dimples flashing when she smiles.
“Not a baby,” she corrects, brow furrowing in a perfect miniature of Adam’s serious face. “I’m a big girl.”
“The biggest,” Adam agrees, setting down his menu to help her color the bacon purple, too.
His sleeves are pushed up, revealing the intricate tattoo work that now covers his left arm completely; vines and flowers intertwined with images that tell our story: a Colorado mountain range, the outline of my grandmother’s house, our wedding anniversary and Louisa’s birth date in Roman numerals, my name hidden among leaves near his wrist.
Our waitress approaches, coffeepot in hand, her eyes darting eagerly between us. She’s older, with bottle-blonde hair and a nametag that reads “Darlene.” I’ve never seen her before, but she clearly knows who Adam is.
“Ready to order, hon?” she asks him, already pouring coffee before he can answer.
“You’re Gerald Kelley’s boy, aren’t you?
All grown up now.” Her eyes linger on his tattoos, the beard, the man bun he’s taken to wearing his hair in.
She doesn’t bother hiding her curiosity. “Almost didn’t recognize you.”
“Imagine that,” Adam says with a polite smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Heard your mama moved to Des Moines,” Darlene continues, clearly fishing. “And that poor Greene girl. Such a shame what happened with your sister and her fiance…” She tsks, shaking her head like she isn’t thoroughly enjoying this and greedy for every bit of gossip.
Adam’s jaw tightens, but his voice remains even. “Louisa, what do you want for breakfast, sweetheart?”
Our daughter looks up from her coloring, blissfully oblivious to the tension. “Pancakes!” she declares. “With blueberries!”
“Excellent choice,” Adam says, his focus entirely on Louisa, effectively dismissing Darlene. “I’ll have the same.”
Darlene hovers for a moment, clearly disappointed by Adam’s lack of engagement. Finally, with a small huff, she turns to me. “And for you, hon?”
“The veggie omelet, please.” I hand her our menus, my smile firmly in place but my eyes cool enough that she gets the message. With a last lingering glance at Adam, she retreats to put in our order.
“Every time,” Adam murmurs once she’s out of earshot. “It’s like they think I’ve been living under a rock and am desperate for updates on the town drama.”
“You’re still big news around here,” I say, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand. “The prodigal son who abandoned the family business and came back looking like he joined a biker gang.”
He laughs, and the sound still makes my heart skip after all these years. “If only they knew how boring we really are. Early to bed, early to rise, spending our days chasing after this little monster.” He tickles Louisa, who squeals with delight.
Watching my husband and child, I think of Darlene’s words, “What happened between your sister and her fiance”.
Such a simple phrase for the spectacular implosion that followed our departure five years ago.
Although Adam and I weren’t around for it, we hear bits and pieces of what happened every time we visit.
Millie’s public meltdown in the hospital waiting room had consequences beyond embarrassment.
As a nurse at the same hospital, her behavior raised serious red flags with administration.
It wasn’t the first time she’d displayed concerning behavior at work.
She’d apparently been becoming increasingly unstable in the months since Adam left Iowa.
The hospital placed her on administrative leave and encouraged her to seek mental health support.
Millie refused. Instead, she stopped communicating with her employer altogether, which led to her termination.
Rhonda was desperate to ‘fix’ Millie after that, and she got this idea that if Millie had a relationship of her own, she’d stop obsessing about Adam.
So Rhonda played matchmaker, introducing Millie to the son of family friends, an accountant named Thomas who worked at the same firm as Hailey.
The relationship moved swiftly; the engagement announced barely six months after they were introduced.
The whole town rallied around them, relieved to see Millie “moving on” and eager for a happy ending.
And then, Millie, coming home unexpectedly in the middle of the day, found Thomas in bed with none other than Hailey Kelley.
Apparently, the neighbors said they could hear the screaming from three buildings away.
Millie forced Thomas out of their apartment in his underwear.
Hailey tried to sneak away in the chaos, but Millie caught her before she got to her car.
The police were called. And Millie was arrested for assaulting her former best friend.
It turned out to be exactly what she needed, although it didn’t seem like it at the time.
She was put on an involuntary psych hold.
She got real help for the first time in her life.
Started therapy, first inpatient and then outpatient, got on medication, and apparently began to understand how Rhonda and Paula had manipulated her and Adam for years.
One day, after what Rhonda’s neighbors described as an “explosive fight”, Millie moved out of her mother’s house.
She left Mount Pella entirely and cut contact with both her mother and most of her former acquaintances.
Some people who claim to still be in contact with her swear that she moved to Florida and is working as a nurse again. But nobody knows for sure.
Rhonda still tells anyone who’ll listen that she doesn’t understand why Millie turned against her.
As for Hailey, for once in her life she’d miscalculated in a way that she couldn’t come back from.
She’d always had a mean streak, but she had always been smart enough to stay on the right side of the right people.
But betraying Millie, who was not only her best friend but the girl that everyone felt sorry for, crossed a line.
Her friends dropped her. She lost clients at work.
She couldn’t stand not being queen bee, so she eventually left Mount Pella too.
According to Gerald, she lives in Chicago now.
Neither Lauren nor Adam is in contact with her.
After Hailey was discovered with Thomas, decades of friendship between the Kelleys and the Greenes went up in smoke overnight.
Paula blamed Rhonda and Millie for driving her son away and for Hailey’s social downfall.
Rhonda blamed Paula for raising a daughter who would steal her friend’s man and a son who ran away from those who depended on him.
Paula found that the image she had worked so hard to cultivate was in ruins.
Her son and oldest daughter were estranged from her.
Her husband had divorced her. Her youngest daughter was disgraced.
Her closest friends turned their backs on her.
For a woman whose entire identity was wrapped up in appearances, it was a devastating fall.
Darlene returns with our food, setting down a stack of pancakes studded with blueberries for Louisa. Our daughter claps her hands in delight.
“I heard you’re in town for Lauren’s baby,” Darlene says, unable to help herself. “Boy or girl?”
This time, Adam answers. “A boy. Jackson. He’s beautiful.” There’s genuine pride in his voice. His relationship with Lauren has only grown stronger over the years, and he’s thrilled to be an uncle.
“That’s nice,” Darlene says, clearly hoping for more details. When none are forthcoming, she sighs and walks away.
Adam winks at me across the table, and I hide my smile behind my coffee cup. We’ve gotten good at these deflections over the years. Mount Pella is never going to stop seeing Adam as the golden boy who rebelled or me as the outsider who stole him away.
“Careful, Lou,” Adam says, helping our daughter pour syrup on her pancakes. “Just a little syrup.”
Naturally, “just a little” turns into a sticky puddle that threatens to overflow her plate. Adam quickly moves her milk glass out of the danger zone, and I hand him a stack of napkins, our parenting choreography well-practiced after three years.
Adam cuts Louisa’s pancakes into bite-sized pieces. His hands, which are both strong enough to shape hardwood and gentle enough to braid our daughter’s hair; move with practiced ease.
Back in Oregon, Adam splits his time between helping at Louise’s Table and crafting furniture in my grandfather’s old workshop.
At the restaurant, he handles the tasks that used to make Uncle Peter pull his hair out; payroll, ordering, bookkeeping, social media.
But it’s the furniture making that truly sets his soul free.
There’s a waiting list now for his pieces, each one meticulously crafted by hand.
As I eat, I think about another relationship transformed, this one by forgiveness and second chances: the one between Adam and his father.
Five years ago, Gerald Kelley was a man who’d spent his life avoiding conflict, bending to his wife’s will, failing to protect his children.
His transformation from distant father to doting grandfather has been an unexpected gift.
After his heart attack and divorce from Paula, something in Gerald seemed to awaken.
He had a determination to live differently, to be present in a way he never had been before.
When he first came to visit us in Oregon, Adam was wary, still learning to trust that his father’s change was genuine. That first visit was awkward, full of halting conversations and careful navigating around painful subjects. But on the third day, Gerald asked Adam if he’d take him fishing.
“It was like being with a different person,” Adam told me later that night. “We talked more in those four hours than in my entire childhood. Told me he was proud of me. That he always had been.”
Now, Gerald splits his time between Iowa and Oregon, making sure he is equally present in both his children’s lives.
Gerald himself is almost unrecognizable from the man I first met in Mount Pella.
The heart attack changed him physically, leaving him thinner, with a more cautious relationship to food and exercise.
But the divorce from Paula changed him emotionally, freeing him from decades of tiptoeing around her moods and demands.
“I spent forty years trying not to rock the boat,” he confessed to us once over dinner at our house.
“Thinking that keeping the peace was the same as being a good husband, a good father. But all I did was let Paula create a family where only her feelings mattered.” He’d looked directly at Adam then.
“I failed you, son. I’m sorry it took almost losing you to realize that. ”
Those words formed the foundation of their healing. Adam could forgive his father because Gerald finally understood what needed forgiving.
Darlene returns with our check, unable to resist another attempt at conversation. “Your sister’s done wonders with the business,” she says to Adam, refilling his coffee cup without being asked. “Everyone said it would fold without you or your father at the helm, but she proved them wrong.”
For once, Adam’s smile in response is genuine. “Lauren was always smarter than me,” he says, pride evident in his voice. “The business is thriving because it’s finally in the right hands.”
That’s another relationship that has been healed.
For years, Lauren harbored resentment that Gerald had automatically assumed Adam would take over the family business, despite her business degree and years working for the company.
That Gerald never saw her potential, never considered her the natural successor, had wounded her deeply.
But watching how Lauren and the company thrived after Adam left, Gerald finally saw what should have been obvious all along: his daughter was perfect for this role.
“I got it all wrong,” he admitted to her. “Trying to force Adam into a mold he didn’t fit, while ignoring the fact that you were right there.”
That admission changed everything between them, and Lauren and Gerald have a much stronger and healthier relationship now.
“We should get going,” Adam breaks into my thoughts as he helps Louisa wipe the syrup from her hands and face. “Ready to meet your new cousin, Lou?”
“Is he bigger than me?” she asks seriously, clearly concerned about her status as “big girl” being usurped.
“No way,” Adam assures her. “He’s just a tiny baby. He’s going to need a big cousin like you to show him the ropes.”
Satisfied with this answer, Louisa allows herself to be lifted from the booster seat. Adam pays the bill, deflecting one last attempt from Darlene to extract gossip about his mother.
The bell above the diner door jingles as we step outside, Louisa skipping ahead of us into the bright morning light. Adam catches her hand before she can venture too far, swinging her up onto his shoulders in one fluid motion that makes her squeal with delight.
At our rental car, Adam buckles Louisa into her car seat while I slide into the passenger seat, adjusting my sunglasses against the glare. Adam gets in beside me and starts the car. Soon we are on our way, Louisa singing along with the kids’ music on the radio.
“Love you,” he mouths silently, taking my hand.
“Love you too,” I mouth back, and the truth of it fills me completely.
It wasn’t an easy journey. There were moments I thought we’d never find our way back to each other.
But here now, with the man I love and the daughter we created, I know with bone-deep certainty that every step, even the painful ones, especially the painful ones, led us exactly where we were meant to be.