Epilogue #2
“Because it’s always true.” He looked back at the water. “She would have loved this. The island, the beach, all of it. She always wanted to travel more.”
“I know.”
We stood in silence for a moment, the waves lapping at our feet.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I know I’ve said it before, and I know words don’t fix anything. But I need you to know, I’m sorry. For the drinking. For the gambling. For putting you in a position where marrying a stranger seemed like your only option.”
“Dad-”
“Let me finish. Please.” He took a shaky breath. “When your mother died, I lost myself. I couldn’t see past my own grief, my own failure. And I let you carry everything alone. You had to bury your mother and take care of your drunk father and sell yourself to save what was left of our family.”
His voice broke.
“I did that to you. I put that burden on your shoulders because I was too weak to carry my own. And I will never forgive myself for it.”
I didn’t know what to say. Part of me wanted to comfort him, to tell him it was okay, that I’d forgiven him, that we could move past it all. But that wasn’t true, and we both knew it.
“I’m not okay with what happened,” I said finally. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be completely okay with it. You missed so much, Dad. Mom’s last months. My wedding, both of them. Alma’s first three months.”
He flinched but didn’t look away.
“But you’re here now.” I reached out and took his hand. “You’re sober. You’re trying. And that counts for something.”
“Does it?”
“It does to me.” I squeezed his fingers. “Alma is going to need her grandfather. I want her to know you. The real you, the one who taught me to ride horses and told terrible jokes and made Mom laugh until she cried.”
“That man’s been gone a long time.”
“Maybe. But I think he’s still in there somewhere.” I smiled at him. “You have time, Dad. That’s more than a lot of people get. Don’t waste it.”
He pulled me into a hug, the first real hug we’d shared in years. He smelled like soap and salt air, nothing like the whiskey-soaked man I’d grown used to. When he pulled back, his eyes were wet.
“I love you, Freya. I know I haven’t shown it well. But I love you more than anything in this world.”
“I know, Dad.” And for the first time in a long time, I actually believed it. “I love you too.”
Rex appeared at my side, Alma stirring in his arms. She’d woken up from her nap and was blinking sleepily at the sunset, her flower crown now completely sideways.
“Everything okay?” he asked, his eyes moving between me and my father.
“Everything’s good.” I leaned into him, taking Alma’s tiny hand in mine. “We were just talking about the future.”
My father reached out, hesitant, and Alma grabbed his finger with surprising strength.
“Gampa,” she said, her newest word, learned just last week during one of his video calls.
Earl’s face crumpled. “That’s right, sweetheart. Grandpa’s right here.”
We stood there as the sun sank toward the water. Four people with more baggage than any family should have to carry, but carrying it anyway. Together.
“Come on,” Rex said eventually. “They’re about to cut the cake, and I’ve been told it’s the same flavor as our anniversary picnic. Apparently the macarons are being flown in from Austin.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“You married me anyway.”
“Twice.”
He grinned and pressed a kiss to my temple. “Best decisions you ever made.”
We walked back to the reception together, my father falling into step beside us.
Alma babbled happily, reaching for the fairy lights strung between the palm trees.
The band was playing something slow and sweet, and Clara was already crying again, this time while slow-dancing with one of Rex’s cousins.
This was my family. Imperfect and complicated and held together by sheer stubbornness sometimes. But mine.
I thought about the scared girl who’d married a stranger to save her father’s ranch. The lonely wife who’d felt invisible in her own home. The pregnant woman who’d packed one bag and driven away from everything she knew.
She felt like a different person now. Someone from a story I’d read once, not someone I’d actually been.
“What are you thinking about?” Rex asked.
“How far we’ve come.”
“Yeah.” He looked at me, his eyes soft. “We really have, haven’t we?”
Alma chose that moment to grab a fistful of his hair and yank, hard. He yelped, I laughed, and my father shook his head with something that might have been amusement.
“Daddy’s hair is not a toy,” Rex told her sternly.
“Da!” Alma yanked again, delighted.
“She gets that from you,” he told me.
“The hair-pulling?”
“The stubbornness.”
I grinned. “You love it.”
“I do.” He caught my hand and kissed my knuckles. “I really, really do.”
The sun set behind us. The party continued around us. And somewhere out there, our island waited. Full of possibilities and full of all the adventures we had yet to have.
But for now, this moment was enough.
My daughter in my husband’s arms. My father walking beside me, sober and present. My friends laughing and dancing under strings of lights. The life I’d fought for, finally, blessedly mine.
More than enough.
It was everything.
THE END