Epilogue #2
“You’re definitely something.” He finally looks up, and his smile is soft. Private. The one he only gives me. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I got hit by a truck. A very cute, redheaded truck.” I reach out to touch Ettie’s hand. She’s still asleep, oblivious to the chaos she’s caused. “Worth it, though.”
“Yeah?”
“Every hour of it.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then: “I missed this with the twins.”
There’s no accusation in it, and not much sadness left either, we’ve done the work, grieved the lost time, found our way forward. But there’s still weight in it. There always will be.
“You’re here now,” I say. “For all of it. The midnight feedings. The diaper blowouts. The screaming for no reason at 3 a.m.”
“Can’t wait.”
“Liar.”
“Complete liar,” he agrees. “But I’ll be there anyway.”
I believe him. After everything, after the lies and the leaving and the long road back, I believe him completely. He’s shown me, which counts for more than any promise. Every day. In the small ways. The boring ways.
The ways that matter.
“Hey, Santino?”
“Mm?”
“Ti amo.”
His smile widens. “Your Italian’s gotten better.”
“I had a good teacher.” I pause. “Also, Chiara makes me practice swear words. I can now insult someone’s entire ancestry in three dialects.”
“That’s my sister.”
The door opens, again, and Hattie reappears with a thermos and a bag of what smells like Doris’s cinnamon rolls.
“Breakfast,” she announces. “The cafeteria food is a war crime. I took matters into my own hands.”
“Did you smuggle pastries into a hospital?”
“Did I smuggle-” Hattie looks offended. “I walked in through the front door. Nobody stops a woman my age with a sense of purpose.”
She sets up the rolls on the bedside table, pours from the thermos into a paper cup, and hands it to me.
“Chamomile,” she says before I can ask. “Don’t get excited.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Hattie settles back into her corner chair, her chair now, apparently, and watches us for a long moment.
Me, exhausted and happy. Santino, holding our daughter like she’s the most precious thing in the universe.
The twins, who are currently racing Chiara through the halls in a contest that will definitely get them all kicked out.
“You know,” Hattie says slowly, “when you showed up in my orchard five years ago, pregnant and stubborn and too proud to ask for help, I thought you were going to be a pain in my ass.”
“Was I?”
“Tremendous.” She takes a sip from her own thermos, definitely not chamomile. “Best thing to ever walk up my drive.”
My throat tightens. “Hattie-”
“Don’t get weepy. I’m making a point.” She gestures at the room. At the flowers and the chaos and the family we’ve built. “You made a life here. A real one. Not because everything went right, but because you stayed when it went wrong. You built a life worth keeping.”
I think about the orchard. The cidery with my name on the license and a tasting room that was full every weekend right up until I got too pregnant to pour.
The degree I finished at two in the morning with the twins asleep down the hall.
The string lights. The hay bales and good china.
The goat who tries to murder my husband every Tuesday.
The goose who terrorizes everyone equally.
The twins who have Hattie wrapped around their tiny fingers.
The man who crossed an ocean and rebuilt himself fence post by fence post.
The baby in his arms with my red hair and his stubborn chin.
“I didn’t build it alone,” I say.
“No.” Hattie’s eyes flick to Santino. “You didn’t. Credit where it’s due - vineyard boy earned his place.”
Santino looks up. “Did you just compliment me?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.” Hattie stands, brushing invisible dust off her suit. “I’m going to go wrangle the chaos twins before they get arrested. Try to sleep. You look like death warmed over.”
“Thanks, Hattie.”
“Any time.”
She pauses at the door. Turns back.
“Harriet,” she says quietly. “It’s a good name. Strong. She’ll need it, with this family.”
Then she’s gone.
***
Later, after Chiara finally leaves, after Massimo returns to his hotel with promises to visit tomorrow, after the twins are retrieved by Bree for a sleepover adventure, the room is quiet.
Just me and Santino and Ettie.
She’s awake now, blinking up at the world with unfocused newborn eyes. Santino is singing to her, soft Italian that I recognize from the first time he sang to Junie, a lullaby his grandmother taught him.
I close my eyes and let the sound wash over me.
This is it, I think. This is the life I never thought I’d have. I wanted it. I’d just stopped believing it was possible. I thought I knew what my story was: single mother, self-sufficient, alone by necessity if not by choice.
But stories can change.
People can change.
Second chances can be real, if you’re willing to work for them.
“You’re thinking too loudly,” Santino murmurs. “I can hear it from here.”
“I’m having a moment.”
“A good moment?”
I open my eyes. Watch him, this man who fought his way back to me, who let a two-year-old set the pace of his redemption, who wears my name over his heart.
“The best moment,” I say.
He smiles. Leans down to kiss Ettie’s forehead, then crosses to kiss mine.
“Get some sleep, amore mio. I’ve got her.”
“You’ll wake me if she needs me?”
“Only if the building’s on fire.” His hand finds mine, squeezes. “I’ve got all of you. Always.”
I believe him.
***
I must doze, because when I open my eyes again, the light has changed. Late afternoon now, golden and warm.
Santino is asleep in the chair, Ettie on his chest, both of them breathing in the same slow rhythm. His hand rests on her back, protective even in sleep.
The door is slightly ajar, and through it I can hear voices:
Leo’s: “-and then Gerald ATE the WHOLE centerpiece and Papà had to CHASE him-”
Junie’s, quieter: “The baby has Mama’s hair. I think that’s good.”
And Hattie’s, dry as dust: “Of course it’s good. Redheads are superior. It’s science.”
I smile.
The door opens fully. Hattie pokes her head in, sees Santino asleep, and raises an eyebrow at me.
“He’s out cold,” she observes. “Should I let the goat in? Tuesday’s almost over. Might be his only chance.”
“Hattie. Did you bring Gerald to the hospital?”
“He’s in the parking lot. Very well-behaved. Only headbutted one orderly.”
“Why is the goat here?”
“Family portrait.” Hattie says this like it’s obvious. “Chiara’s idea. Don’t blame me.”
I start laughing. I can’t help it. It hurts, everything hurts, but I laugh anyway, at the absurdity of it all. At this life I’ve built in a town called Wisteria, with a demon goat and a vengeful goose and a sharp-tongued widow who has become the grandmother I always needed.
At the tattooed ex-billionaire sleeping in a hospital chair with our daughter on his chest.
At the twins in the hallway, already planning what trouble to teach their baby sister.
At all of it. Every ridiculous, beautiful, ordinary piece.
Hattie watches me laugh, and her face softens.
“You did good, kid,” she says quietly. “Real good.”
“I know.” I wipe my eyes, still grinning. “I really did.”
Santino stirs. Ettie makes a small noise. The sun continues its slow descent toward the orchard, where the apple trees are probably blooming by now, where the string lights are probably still tangled from the last storm.
Where home is waiting.
“Alright,” Hattie says, straightening up. “Nap time’s over. You’ve got a goat to photograph and a goose to avoid and a whole town waiting to meet this one.” She nods at Ettie. “Welcome to Wisteria, little girl. You’re going to fit right in.”
From the hallway, Leo’s voice rises: “CAN I HOLD HER YET? I PROMISE I WON’T DROP HER!”
Junie’s, exasperated: “You dropped your sandwich this morning.”
“THAT WAS DIFFERENT!”
Santino opens his eyes, looks at me, and smiles.
“Ready?” he asks.
I look at my daughter. My husband. My chaotic, imperfect, miraculous family.
“Yeah,” I say. “I really am.”
Hattie snorts from the doorway.
“Good. Because Gerald’s gotten into the vending machines and someone needs to handle that before he figures out the elevator.” She pauses, considers. “Actually, never mind. That I want to see.”
She disappears.
Santino and I look at each other.
“Our life,” he says, “is completely insane.”
“Yep.”
“I love it.”
“Yep.”
He grins, that real grin, the one that took me years to earn, and shifts Ettie carefully into my arms.
“Come on, Mrs. Bianchi. Let’s go save a hospital from a goat.”
I lean up to kiss him, soft and quick and full of promise.
“Lead the way, vineyard boy.”
And he does.
THE END