32. Love & Marriage
LOVE I handle the books—literally.
We hired Onyx to manage the floor. She’s fierce and funny and has themed cocktail nights on Thursdays .
Ricky pretends to be angry that I left and stole Onyx. But he’s not. He’s happy for us.
I still have hard days. So does Cain. But now we face them together. Not perfectly. But truthfully.
Paula has become part of our lives. The past is truly forgotten. She lives in Los Angeles. She went back to school, got a degree in education. She’s a teacher like her mother.
She met a man, married him. She’s happy.
Melody went to prison for three years, served for conspiracy, obstruction, and perjury. She wrote Cain letters from jail, requesting him to help her get early parole. He didn’t lift a finger to help her.
She asked to see me once. I said no.
Not out of hate. But because my peace matters more than anyone else’s guilt.
After she was released, no one knows what happened to her. Rumors float in and out of Silverton like fog—Arizona, Florida, maybe rehab. Maybe worse.
Ricky said someone saw her dancing at a strip club in Reno under a new name.
I don’t ask for details. I don’t need them. Some doors, once closed, should stay that way.
Cain and I built our lives with careful hands. And every year, it feels a little stronger, a little more ours. The past hasn’t disappeared—but it doesn’t own us anymore.
We built a home .
I still cannot believe that I have a home that I designed with my husband. Talk about crazy!
We sit on the closed back porch slash sunroom after we close up Ripley’s Eat It Or Not and Ripley’s Read It Or Not. We sit there on Mondays when we take the day off and on Tuesdays when we close early. We sit here a lot. It’s our favorite place in our home.
I love living here, I think, as I look up at the Oregon sky, a dusky canvas where the stars blink awake one by one. Cain’s arm is around me. He’s tracing circles on my forearm, slow and absentminded as he watches the twilight with me.
“I’ve been thinking,” I say.
“Don’t know if that’s a good thing,” he sasses me.
I smile. “We need to do something about one of the guestrooms.”
He frowns, confused. “Which one?”
“The one next to the master.”
Now he’s really puzzled. “Sweet thing, the room is all done up.”
I nod. “I think we need to change it completely.”
He raises his eyebrows, wanting to protest but also wanting to give me whatever I want. “Okay,” he says slowly. “What are you thinking?”
“I want to repaint the walls. Something yellow.”
He nods, waits.
“I want a mural.”
His eyes widen .
“Of animals. When I was growing up, I loved pictures of giraffes and elephants and monkeys.”
It takes him a second. My husband can be slow at times, but then I don’t make it easy for him.
“You’re—?”
“Yes,” I squeal.
He’s speechless for what feels like forever. Then he stands and pulls me to him, lifting me in a spin that makes me laugh.
“We’re having a baby,” he breathes. “Faith, we’re having a baby.”
“More than one, maybe,” I tease. “Who knows?”
He pulls back, brushing my hair away from my face. “We’re going to put together the best nursery a kid could want.”
I press my forehead to his.
This is the man who once failed me.
This is the man who shows up every day, every minute.
This is the life I never thought I could have, built not from fairy tales but from forgiveness.
And it is mine .
Ours.
And our child’s.
THE END