Epilogue
Poppy
One Year Later…
The clearing is the same.
I'm not. But the clearing looks the same: the boulder I sat on, the tree line where Gibb stepped out of the trees, the expanse of sky, which today is the deep, electric blue of a perfect May afternoon.
A year ago, I sat on that boulder in a pink jacket with a sprained ankle and a granola bar, fighting off a squirrel who had serious boundary issues and I thought, I believe in happy endings but I'm starting to feel like I might not believe in mine.
I walk into the clearing now — both feet, no crutches, sturdy boots that have been broken in properly over the past twelve months on trails I'm actually allowed to walk on — and stop.
Because Gibson is standing at the far side of the clearing.
And he's holding Stevie.
Or rather, Stevie is standing next to him, because she is eighteen months old now and has strong opinions about being held that she communicates loudly and at length, and she's wearing what appears to be a red velvet ribbon around her neck with a small wooden box attached.
The box is Treyton Berg's work. I can tell from ten feet away by the quality of it the same fine craftsmanship, the same sheen of walnut that matches the most beautiful furniture in the cabin.
It sits against Stevie's chest like a tiny treasure chest and she is twisting her neck to try and nibble on it.
Gibb is watching me. He's wearing a plaid jacket and looks far more like a mountain man, than a rock star. But he’s writing music again, and singing and I think maybe he’s happy about it.
"Hi," I say.
"Hi," he says.
My heart is doing something I don't have a word for. It involves my whole body.
"You asked me to meet you here?"
"Come here," he says.
I walk toward him. The clearing is full of late afternoon light, golden and the grass is new and green under the year's first real warmth. Birds are chirping and my heart is beating hard and fast.
Stevie watches me approach bouncing a little then attempts to eat the box around her neck.
"Stevie," Gibson says.
She stops. Bleats once, in protest.
"She's been doing that the entire walk up here," he says to me. "I almost lost it three times."
I am laughing before I mean to. I'm also, embarrassingly, already crying a little, because I know what this is, because I've known Gibb for a year and he doesn't do things by halves and he doesn't say things he doesn't mean and this clearing and this goat in a ribbon is so exactly perfect that I'd be crying even if the box were empty.
He undoes the ribbon from Stevie's neck with careful hands — she takes the opportunity to nose at his jacket pocket, and he says no firmly, and she pretends she wasn't doing anything, dancing her little jig, and he opens the box and turns it toward me.
The ring is simple and perfect: a round sparkling stone that flashes in the sun, set in a thin gold band that I know fits my finger perfectly.
Because Gibb does everything like that.
"Gibb," I say.
He goes down on one knee.
Stevie takes the opportunity to stand directly behind him and look over his shoulder with enormous, interested eyes.
"Stevie," he says, without turning.
She does not move.
"She wants to see," I say, crying properly now.
"Of course she does." He looks up at me, and his face is open and warm and a little undone, and I don't know what I did in any previous life to deserve this man but I am profoundly grateful for him.
"Poppy," he says. "I came to this mountain to disappear. I built something here and called it enough. And then an ice storm dropped you into my clearing and you held my goat in a pink jacket and the mountain whispered you were mine."
A laugh comes out of me that is also a sob.
"You are the bravest person I know," he says.
"Not because you're never afraid — because you're afraid of the right things and you do them anyway.
You built a life here that made this place feel like ours instead of just mine.
I want to spend the rest of my life with you.
" He pauses. His voice is rough. "You're my everything, Poppy. "
I cannot speak.
"Will you marry me?" he says.
Stevie bleats.
"That's a yes from her," I say.
"Poppy.” He sounds pained.
"Yes," I say. "Gibb. Yes. Obviously yes. A million times yes."
He slides the ring onto my finger and stands, lifting me into his arms and I squeal as ground falls away from my feet. “You have to stop doing that,” I say.
“Never.” He kisses me in the clearing in the May light, one hand in my hair, Stevie poking at his jacket for treats, the mountain enormous and quiet above us.
I was abandoned here once, but Gibb found me and then I found myself. Now we have a life together, precious and simple and I know happy endings really do exist.
THE END
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