Epilogue
DAISY
Daisy wheeled the chair slowly into the sun-drenched courtyard, the soft sound of the wheels rolling over the cobblestones echoing in the still afternoon, and Callan made a noise, one she’d come to learn as joy, as a pair of butterflies flew straight past them.
She paused beneath the old magnolia tree where petals scattered across the ground in the breeze, and smiled. Years had passed since the accident. Several long, winding years had filled the space of her life, each year more promising than the last.
Callan, once trapped in the prison of his own body, had begun to reclaim pieces of himself.
First, it was a flicker in his fingers, then the tremble of a smile that hinted at recognition.
The doctors had called it improbable, even miraculous.
His memory, once thought to be gone forever, had begun to stitch itself back together in the past five years.
She stayed with him, eventually becoming his full-time caregiver when his mother's health declined. And much to her surprise, it wasn’t the death sentence some had painted it to be.
Still, as time passed and age began to take hold, she never forgot him. She would see him everywhere, in strangers, and every time she heard Landslide on the radio, he was right there with her. It wasn’t until Ida started school though, that she really noticed it—the finch.
It first appeared on a rainy Easter weekend, perching on the windowsill as though waiting for her, and from that day forward, it never left.
In her loneliest moments, when despair crept in uninvited, the finch would appear, perched on the garden fence, watching her with bright, beaded eyes that carried an uncanny intelligence.
It always seemed to know when she needed someone, and as the years passed, a quiet suspicion took root in her heart. Perhaps, just perhaps, it was him.
In life, some say you’re granted three true loves, the kind that etch themselves into the fabric of your being and change everything.
Logan was, and always would be, one of those loves for her.
They may never have shared the intimacy of tangled sheets or whispered late-night confessions, but their bond ran deeper than that.
It had been instantaneous, a kind of knowing few ever experience and even fewer truly feel.
But it didn’t matter anymore. He’d given her something that no one else could: clarity. Through him, she’d come to understand that staying with Callan had never been about duty or obligation. It wasn’t just the morally right thing to do; it was the path life had chosen long before fate had its say.
The finch fluttered down from the tree and landed on the arm of the wheelchair. Daisy watched it for a long moment, her smile tinged with sorrow and peace.
“Hello again,” she whispered, inhaling a sharp breath. "I still miss you."
And for a fleeting heartbeat, it felt like the past and present folded into one, and a lone tear slid down her cheek.