Epilogue
Two years later
“Come on, Valerie! You can beat him!”
The cheering came from the dock, where Roger stood excitedly waving his beer. The summer was in full swing, and the lake was filled with people swimming and boating and jumping onto gigantic rafts that catapulted others up into the air before they fell shrieking into the water.
Valerie gave one last heroic push and shot past Nico, then held her paddle up in triumph. Her kayaking had come along beautifully in the last few times they’d come to visit Roger and his family at the cottage.
Rory jumped up and down, her short black hair covered by a ball cap. “You won!” She held out a beer to Valerie as Nico tied up the kayaks, his job as race loser. “That means it’s you and me in the next bracket.”
“I thought it was me,” called Dalia from the chair.
Rory checked the scoreboard. “You’re against Mom.”
Yuting—she preferred that name over Yvette—came down the dock in a pair of cutoffs and a tank top. Her hair was touched with gray, and laugh lines showed how much joy she got from life. “No more kayaking until an hour after lunch.” She put down a gigantic platter of dumplings.
Roger looked over with professional interest. “Is this the new Bundle line?” he asked, grabbing a plate. “David said the factory was set for a good run.”
“It is.” Yuting beamed at him and then pulled him down for a kiss that had them all groaning. “That’s enough from you bunch,” she said. “Now eat.”
“Excellent,” said Rory. “I’m starving.”
Roger’s face lit up and they all knew what was coming. “Hi, Starving, I’m Dad!”
Yuting swatted him. “You say that all the time.”
Roger was unrepentant. “Because I finally can.”
Valerie took the plate Nico handed her. The dumplings were from Bundle’s take-home frozen dumpling collaboration with the Bread Company and were amazing. She chose one with ube and corn, and another with tofu, basil, and pine nut.
Then she pulled out her jar and Nico laughed. “Again?”
“Want one?” She opened it to extract the pickled asparagus, having fallen in love with the tangy, grassy taste after her first jar. This was her own batch, since she’d recently gotten into canning. Nico gamely tried her creations, including her experimental kiwi cranberry jam.
“I’ll pass.”
They were all in the Mariposas for the August long weekend, and the weather and the company were living up to every expectation of a perfect cottage trip.
Even the mosquitoes had laid off. Valerie glanced over at Yuting and Roger, who were making sure everyone had enough food on their plates.
“Rory, do you want to do dumplings for the wedding?” she whispered.
Rory nodded. “I was thinking we’d have a selection for the reception appetizers and then some dessert ones for the sweets table. I’ve got a peach and amaretto flavor I want you to try.”
“With a cinnamon wrapper?”
“You read my mind.”
They started chatting about food. Yuting and Roger’s wedding was set for December, but since both Rory and Valerie wanted it to go perfectly, they’d been talking almost every day about the plan.
It had been nice to have a project to bring them closer, as Rory had been reticent at the beginning.
Now that they’d met in person, the differences in their physical appearance were more obvious, but they could easily pass for sisters.
Roger made his fiancée take a seat and brought her a drink before arranging an umbrella over her. Valerie watched with a deep happiness that somehow, against the odds, they had found each other.
It had been an intense two years. After the initial phone call, Yuting had refused to believe Roger was who he said until he flew out to Vancouver.
Even then, she hadn’t let him meet Rory until she’d been completely satisfied that he hadn’t known about his daughter.
Roger had given Valerie and Nico updates from his temporary Vancouver apartment, where he was living until Yuting made her decision. He had been patient.
“I don’t blame her,” he’d said. “She was treated monstrously by my family.”
He lived out west with Rory and Yvette now and worked out of the Bread Company’s Vancouver office. They came back to the cottage every summer for two weeks when Penny wasn’t there.
The full story, when he’d talked to Yuting, was as they’d suspected.
Penny had befriended Yuting and had known about Rory.
She had been the one Yuting had contacted twenty years ago.
Yuting had been told Roger wanted nothing to do with her, but thought he should know about her marriage in case he changed his mind about his daughter.
“I didn’t take the check she offered, though,” Yuting said.
Roger had confirmed the money had gone to fund Penny’s gallery, and apparently she’d been counting on the inheritance to give it another boost.
Penny must have been baffled when Valerie showed up, since Yuting had made it clear she’d kept her baby. “No doubt Penny assumed some manipulative long game was in play,” Roger had said, shaking his head. “I don’t know, and I suppose I don’t care.”
Yuting had led a happy life, as Roger had hoped. Rory had grown up simply knowing Roger wasn’t in the picture, and Alon had cherished her like a father. The two of them were working on what they’d lost, but it would take a long time for the wounds to heal, if ever.
Penny had refused to apologize to Yuting and Rory, and Roger and David had decided to cut her off until she did.
Once her husband, John, heard what Penny had done, he’d immediately called Roger to offer his sympathy and had filed for divorce.
The lawyers were currently fighting about who got the dogs.
Penny still insisted on her right to come to the cottage, but she came alone and only after negotiations through lawyers.
Apparently word of what happened had leaked out—Valerie suspected the Jenn-to-Tracey-Jefferies information pipeline—and Penny had been ostracized by her friends as well as her family circle.
Her gallery had been the first to feel the pinch, and she’d been forced to close it nine months ago and step down from her various charity boards.
Jim Walker had in fact called Valerie’s father, but luckily her father had thought it was part of the scam that Valerie had made up earlier and convinced Jim it was all false.
Dalia came back from the cooler and glanced at her phone, then groaned.
“What is it?” asked Valerie. Dalia had taken the entire fake-daughter story in stride, saying it was exactly the kind of weird stuff she expected rich people to get up to and agreeing Valerie had been in a tight spot about Roger’s secret.
After Valerie promised not to lie to her like that again (“Because how can I live vicariously through you if I don’t know what’s going on?
”), they’d become good friends. Dalia had taken the weekend off to visit.
She was staying in the city this summer while she decided whether she wanted to keep on with her booming, but boring, remote assistant work.
“Another Soulvinate ad.” Dalia put her phone down. “I can’t believe it.”
Soulvinate had become a real and huge thing. Despite backlash from those pointing out Fernie was completely disrespecting the principles and history of tai chi, people who were bored of SoulCycle and hot yoga were flocking to Soulvinate’s in-person classes for fifty dollars a session.
Fernie had blossomed and recently launched a merch line to sell her branded unitards for over two hundred dollars a pop.
She bought them from Bangladesh in bulk, and David couldn’t stop bragging about her entrepreneurial spirit.
The land-buying scheme had collapsed, although David continued to insist it only needed more time, and Jenn’s income from managing the business aspects of Soulvinate was necessary to work them out of their debt.
The three of them were due to arrive later that afternoon to spend a few days at the cottage and for Fernie to film promos by the lake.
Valerie’s mother said Erica swore by Soulvinate to deal with the stress of her wedding, which had been pushed back twice, and had invited Valerie to join them for a class.
When she’d refused, her mother had offered lunch.
It seemed as if she was making more of an effort to spend time with Valerie and had even recommended Ad Astra to one of her recently bereaved friends.
Because Ad Astra was thriving. The first year had been rough as Valerie tried to rebuild, but Nico had been there to keep her motivated with a steady flow of encouragement and some creative and satisfying rewards. She still blushed thinking about what he’d done when she landed her first new client.
Luckily, Helena Reeves’s daughter had been enthusiastic about singing Valerie’s praises, and one job had slowly turned into another, then two more.
Roger had done his part in convincing his contacts that what happened at Malcolm’s event had been an outlier, which had helped, as had his threats to Penny about leaving Valerie alone.
A call to one of Andrew Swanson’s contacts had buried the coverage of Malcolm’s celebration of life to the fourth search page.
Roger said this was as much for family pride as to help Ad Astra.
Ruth had provided support as well, and Valerie had been grateful to them both.
If Fernie was thriving, Brayden, on the other hand, hadn’t gotten far with his prot-min.
He was now looking for investment into his set of courses about how to succeed in life and had started an online channel to talk about his Tenets of Winning.
It had several hundred followers, astonishing Valerie and Nico, who had watched his uninspiring yet shirtless introductory video.
“Does anyone want some watermelon?” Alice came down, followed by her new husband, Mark, who was holding a platter.
They were only up for the day as they were going camping further north.
Alice wore a new flowered cover-up she’d crocheted, having finally moved on from washcloths.
She had told Mark the story of the boyfriend sweater, she’d said to Valerie earlier.
“He said that was bull and he’d been in love with me for years,” Alice said with a happy smile. “I’m not taking any chances, though.”
Roger’s phone rang and he glanced at it, then got to his feet. “It’s Annie,” he said. “Looks like the Bread Company kneads me.”
“Then you’d batter go,” Yuting said, and he laughed and gave her a big smacking kiss before leaving to take the call.
Annie was Roger’s new assistant, who he kept at a professional distance that suited them both.
Roger had taken Nico’s resignation with regret, but understood he’d wanted a change.
Nico was happy in his new roles as Roger’s friend and as a workflow analyst. It wasn’t with Gia’s company, although she’d been a fantastic resource for him.
Roger had offered to create a new role for Nico after his supplier workflow significantly increased the Bread Company’s efficiency, but Nico had wanted to make his way without the Badgertons.
Valerie had been thrilled when he’d gotten his job and had organized a private party for the two of them to celebrate.
He loved his work and had made friends with a few of his coworkers and joined their D&D campaign.
They’d all gone to the Ren faire together and camped with Fred and Ellie.
Nico’s phone dinged and he passed it to Valerie, who laughed when she saw it.
There was a picture of his parents, arms around each other and a huge waterslide in the background.
The anniversary cruise they’d taken last year had been such a success that they were on their second.
Then he pointed to a text from Stefanie.
Tell Valerie I finished the book she lent me and WE NEED TO TALK.
To no one’s surprise, Valerie, Kimmy, and Stefanie had gotten along well.
Stefanie was back together with Mike and they were working through their problems. Nico had been making a special effort to rebuild his relationship with both his sisters, and he and Stefanie had gotten better at telling each other to bug off and to respect being told the same.
Nico leaned over with that smile that always made her heart pound. They’d been together two years, and…
“Oh my God, is that a snake?” said Rory.
Valerie shrieked and jumped behind Nico. “Am I a shield?” he protested, turning to sweep her up in his arms.
“Sorry,” said Rory, looking guilty. “It’s a branch. My bad.”
Valerie turned to Nico, but he was laughing. “I love you,” he said.
She kissed him. “I love you.”
She was getting more used to the cottage and nature. But truly, thank God it wasn’t a water snake.