Epilogue
Six Months Later
Today’s youth are being indoctrinated by mediocrity, and it shows.
Exhibit A: The kid playing the daisy is wearing a costume made of cardboard. Cardboard. I learned to sew to make Addie a buttercup, and it paid off. She has the best costume by far.
And imagine how delighted she was when I found kid-sized Louboutins that could easily be covered in green glitter to match.
Nobody will notice a daisy made of cardboard.
“Her costume is the best, right?” I whisper to Gavin as we settle in our seats in the auditorium. “I mean, there’s no comparison.”
He laughs softly. “No comparison.”
“And did—”
“For the hundredth time—” He takes my hand and kisses my knuckles. “I saw the cardboard daisy. Addie’s is the best. You did good.”
I smile. I did. “Thank you.”
Down the row, Remy and her kids take their seats, and we exchange waves and nervous smiles.
Remy, whose tenure in Fontain was supposed to be as short as mine, accepted the position at the library full time after the teacher on maternity leave decided not to come back for the year.
She’s still a vault about Darren, but her taking a job in a town her husband isn’t tells us everything we already know: They’re done.
Even if she’s not ready to talk about it.
Next to Remy, Nancy, Mom, Nash, Bennie, and Rue file into their seats, Rue’s large belly leading the way. When she smiles, it’s both glowing and miserable. Turns out, being pregnant at forty-two is exhausting. Or so Rue claims every time she waddles into the room.
People settle around us as music and the mic are tested. Gavin and I exchange nervous smiles and squeeze hands. “She’ll be fine,” I say, mostly to myself.
He grins. “She will be.”
Neither of us know that for sure. In the fall production of Wizard of Oz, when Addie took the stage as Toto, she froze.
She stared at the crowd and couldn’t get a single bark out.
When the spring casting came around for Alice in Wonderland, I was surprised when she said she wanted to try again.
But she did, and here we are, me so nervous it’s like I’m the one getting up on that stage.
Banyan shows up at the last second to take the vacant seat to my left. “You’re late,” I snap.
“Time is a construct of man,” he says in his stupid voice. “And I had to pick up my date.”
When said date fills the seat next to him, I nearly fall over. “What the hell is she doing here?”
Sylvia smiles. “Reese,” she says, leaning forward to see past me and wave down the row to my mother. “I knew you’d be here.”
“Don’t Reese me,” I whisper through gritted teeth. “And of course I’m here.”
To Sylvia, Banyan says, “Fire Lady’s always like this.” To me: “Why are you always like this?”
Before I can answer, Sylvia says, “Trust me, I know.” She pins me with a high-browed look. “I had to sage the place—repeatedly—after her last visit.”
The lights of the auditorium dim. Sylvia leans over Banyan to whisper, “But I see you took my advice.” She points her dagger of a fingernail at my hand holding Gavin’s. “The answer was in plain sight, just like I told you.” To Banyan, she says, “I knew that would happen.”
“You can’t tell her anything, Syl,” Banyan says. “I think she’s a Republican.”
I bare my teeth and hiss. These two are a match made in hell.
“Relax.” Gavin pecks me on the cheek. “She’s harmless.”
“I hate her,” I snap. “And her fingernails should be outlawed.”
He laughs fully, making the parents in front of us scowl over their shoulders.
I take a breath and focus on the closed curtain of the stage.
“I’m nervous,” I admit. “What if it’s like last time?”
“She’ll be fine.”
The teacher steps to the mic and welcomes us.
Gavin whispers, “Try to enjoy it.”
That might be impossible.
A narrator in a subpar costume—his mother must have gone on a shopping spree at a Goodwill—nervously leads us into our journey. Alice appears then the White Rabbit and we’re off, moving from real life to Wonderland.
Three full scenes happen and I’m not sure I breathe—Addie’s up next.
My knee bounces, and she steps on stage as a buttercup. I stand with my hands clutched. “Flowers can’t talk,” I murmur along with Alice.
Addie steps up—it’s her turn—but instead of looking at Alice, she looks out in the audience. I wave and smile. With bright yellow petals around her face, she smiles and waves back. To Alice, she says, “But of course we can talk.”
It is nothing and everything, and I can’t stop myself from clapping, Gavin doing the same as he stands next to me—our whole row having an impromptu standing ovation for a flower with one line.
It’s funny how things work. How the sliding scale of excellence shifts with a little perspective. Half of this auditorium doesn’t care about what that flower just said, but I can’t think of any six words that matter more.
The scene moves on and we all take our seats. Rue and Remy give me thumbs-ups from down the row.
“She did good,” I say to Gavin. “Right? Just like we practiced.”
He pecks me on the cheek. “She did great.”
“And her costume is the best.”
He chuckles. “Yes, Reese, it was the best.”
I sit up a little straighter even though I already knew that. The Cheshire Cat waltzes onto the stage and talks in riddles to Alice.
“Next year,” I whisper to Gavin, “I think we should—”
Gavin whispers, “Knock, knock.”
“What?” I cut my eyes to his. “I’m not playing jokes with you in the middle of the play.”
“Knock, knock,” he repeats.
Keeping my eyes on the stage, I relent. “Who’s there?”
He digs into his pocket and pulls out a piece of candy. He whispers, “William.”
I barely look at him. “William who?”
Gavin puts the candy in my hand and brings his mouth to my ear. “William Mary Me Reese Conway.”
William Mary Me Reese Conway? I repeat the words in my mind as I look at the candy in my hand—a Ring Pop—and it clicks.
My gaze meets his, his handsome face illuminated by the stage lights, and my heart goes from flatlining to pounding out of my chest. “What about kids?”
Since leaving Chicago, we’ve shelved the topic.
Partially because we’ve been busy, but also because I needed some distance from the blow.
I may have him, and Addie, but even with all my money, the odds of me ever having a child that’s biologically mine are slim to none.
I’ve accepted it, but it still hurts. It likely always will.
Instead of dwelling on that, I’ve been focusing on today.
On the vineyard and spending my nights around people I love and in a house that happens to be a shed.
A finished trendy shed, now that I’m involved.
But if he’s serious—he usually is when it comes to us—then we need to have a serious conversation about it. An elementary school play isn’t quite where I pictured it.
“We could get goats,” he says. “Kids. Get it?”
I roll my eyes—this is how he’s doing this?
“No.”
“Fine,” he whispers. “We can do whatever you want because it’s your body, but I think we can either be happy with just us—” He half shrugs. “And I’ll always be happy that way.”
As hard as it is for me to accept, I believe him. I will too. “Or?”
“Or we adopt.” He pauses, eyes bouncing. “Not yours or mine, but still ours. A level playing field with the same difference between all of us. That way you can’t blame my genes if they aren’t as smart as you.”
I fight a smile. That is something I would do.
On stage, the Red Queen and cards are shouting.
“And if I want to illegally acquire information about the birth parents?” I challenge. “What then?”
He chuckles. “You’ll be my wife, so I’ll go along with it.”
The curtain closes then reopens, the whole cast lining the stage to take a bow. Around us, the entire audience, including our family—and Sylvia—leap to their feet, shouting Addie’s name. Gavin and I stay seated, looking at each other. He unwraps the Ring Pop and slips it on my finger.
“Ask me again,” I say through the roar of the crowd. “Not in a knock-knock joke like the child you are.”
He smiles his smile that I feel in my belly. “Marry me, Reese.”
It’s not a question and I like it better that way.
“Fine,” I say. “But you’re signing a prenup and I get the barndo if shit goes south.” I start to stand then add, “And you’ll be wearing that tux.”
Then I kiss him like I love him, because I really, really do.
I love him enough I don’t care about his age or that he cuts grass.
I love him enough I’ll spend my days running a vineyard and my nights with him.
On Saturday mornings, I’ll watch him blow the glass that I accidentally taught him about all those years ago.
“You’re a glass bubble,” he says.
For one split second, the world goes silent and still. A volume knob turns down and every person ceases to exist except him and me. “So are you,” I say.
Then the world returns and we stand, both smiling as we join the crowd to cheer for the girl who was never meant to be ours but will be for the rest of our lives.