Epilogue
Flora
We’re in a tiny diner somewhere in Portugal when it happens.
I don’t know the name of the town. We’ve been through so many this year that they’ve started to blur into one long patchwork of languages and pastries and train platforms. But this one has terrible coffee and excellent custard tarts and a window onto a square where old men play chess and children chase pigeons around a fountain.
Aster slides into the booth across from me, grinning like he’s about to do something ridiculous.
“Coffee’s terrible here,” I warn him.
“Just like old times.”
It is, actually. The bad lighting. The cracked vinyl seats. The total absence of anybody who knows or cares who he is. We could be anyone, two tourists killing an hour between trains.
He takes out his phone and slides it across the table.
“Put your number in,” he says.
I stare at him. “Seriously?”
“Dead serious.”
“You’ve had my number for five years.”
“Humor me.”
I pick it up. The contacts app is open and waiting. I type my number in and, for the name, I put the only one I’ve ever wanted in his phone.
Wife.
When I hand it back, his eyes are wet.
“I almost lost this,” he says quietly.
“You didn’t.”
“Because you let me fight for it.”
“Because you actually fought.” I reach across the table and lace my fingers through his. “Eventually.”
We sit for a while drinking terrible coffee and watching the square.
Somewhere in California his album is still on the charts, and it went platinum three months ago, and every song on it is a letter I’d already read.
Somewhere in Vermont my mother is in her garden threatening to take on more chickens than any one woman needs.
None of it feels as important as this does.
“Where next?” he asks.
“I don’t know.” I sit back and consider it. “Morocco? Greece? That town in Japan you found?”
“All of the above.” His thumb moves in circles on my palm. “We’ve got time.”
We do have time. That’s the part I never expected, not just him choosing me but both of us choosing a life that actually fits around two people. He writes when there’s something to write. He plays when he misses it. The rest of it he spends here, wherever here happens to be that month.
We still fight. He still gets restless around week three of anywhere, and I still have to tell him that a phone at dinner isn’t acceptable just because he’s not on tour. But we’re learning. Every day, both of us, still learning.
“I have something for you,” he says.
“If it’s more jewelry I’m running out of fingers.”
“It’s not jewelry.” He takes a folded paper out of his pocket. “It’s a song.”
“You wrote me a song. How novel.”
“Smartass.” He unfolds it and hands it over. “It’s not for the album. It’s just yours.”
I read it. It’s about a diner at two in the morning. A woman with impossible hair who didn’t care who he was and told him the pie was the least bad thing on the menu. The whole long road from that booth to this one, every way they nearly lost it and every reason they didn’t.
By the time I finish I’m crying into a cup of bad coffee in a country I can’t pronounce.
“You’re going to ruin me,” I tell him. “I can’t have a hot drink anymore without ending up like this.”
“That’s sort of the goal.” He reaches over and wipes my cheek with his thumb. “Making you feel things. It’s the one thing I’m good at.”
“You’re good at other things.”
“Yeah?”
“The shed’s holding up surprisingly well.”
He laughs, loud enough that two tables turn to look, and I don’t care even slightly. Let them look. Let them see two people who nearly destroyed something and worked out how to rebuild it instead.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you too.” I smile at him, this man who drives me insane, who gave away a stadium, who is still learning how to stay and is doing it. “Even when you’re ridiculous.”
“I’m never ridiculous.”
“You’re frequently ridiculous. It’s most of your charm.”
We finish the coffee and pay the bill and tip outrageously, because I remember exactly what it was like to live on tips, and he married the woman who did.
Outside, the sun is going down over the square. The children are still after the pigeons. The old men are still at their chess. And somewhere out past all of it there are trains waiting to take us wherever we decide to go next.
“Ready?” he asks, holding out his hand.
“For what?”
“Whatever’s next.”
I take his hand and lace my fingers through his and let him pull me out into a street full of strangers who don’t know our story and have no reason to care.
“Ready,” I say.
THE END