Epilogue
Hydrangea: A flowering shrub with large spherical clusters of blossoms whose soft, honey-vanilla scent evokes feelings of both abundance and maternal love
ELEVEN MONTHS LATER
“Your mother used to say that there’s a bit of magic in every garden gate,” my father tells me as we walk down into the gardens of the Oceanview Home.
“Did she?” I ask, looking at him in surprise. “I’ve always thought that, too.”
“What a load of bologna,” my grandfather grumbles from my other side, making my father and me laugh.
I’ve spent the afternoon being beaten in chess, first by my father and then by Fitz.
“I see there’s no mercy around here,” I said cheerfully.
It turns out that Fitz did an excellent job teaching my father to play the game when he was a boy—those games were some of the few moments of connection between them for many years.
“No mercy at all,” my father responded, and then glanced meaningfully at Fitz. “But we do have a bit of a surprise.”
And so here we are, the three of us and Gully as well, walking past the reflecting pool as we make our way to the California garden. Beyond the western wall, the sun hangs above the sea, warming our shoulders and bathing the majestic expanse of the Oceanview Home in its golden light.
“After you,” my father says.
I reach out and push open the gate, thinking, as I always do when I see these gates, of Adam.
“Congratulations, Lucy!”
I draw in my breath. There, gathered in front of a long table that has been set up in the middle of the garden, are Adam and Sophie.
There is Marjorie, glorious in head-to-toe purple.
There’s Jill standing beside Donovan Pike, who has proven himself to be far more softhearted than any of us could have guessed.
The two of them look so elegant and right together that I wish they’d finally see what I saw on my very first day here—that there’s an undeniable chemistry between them.
There’s Louis and his granddaughter, Katie, whom I’ve become quite close to over the year.
And there are Adele and Vikram, and Eva and Mario and Isobel and Noreen and Vince and a clutch of other residents and staff members—there’s been an influx of both over the past year, with the home’s newfound fame (the flowers, rumor has it, stir up the most wonderful memories).
Jody is here, too, of course, and Roger, and Naomi, and a couple of my father’s friends from the community center.
I turn to my father and grandfather.
“Congratulations… for what?” I ask, laughing and completely confused.
“It’s the anniversary of the day you started working at the home,” my father says. “You’ve stayed in one place for an entire year!”
“It was all Marjorie’s doing, really. She loves a good party,” Fitz tells me, just before I’m engulfed in a crush of hugs and good wishes.
At the table, I’m seated next to Adam. Fitz is on my other side, with Marjorie beside him—the two have become good friends, with Fitz offering a surprising amount of empathy and support to Marjorie as the excitement of saving the home faded and she began to process the grief she felt without Cynthia in her life.
In the weeks after the spring party, Cynthia’s niece installed a plaque with Cynthia’s name on it on her favorite bench among the honeysuckle in the cottage garden.
It’s the bench I often come across Marjorie and Fitz sharing these days, chatting about who knows what, and managing to distract me from my work every time I pass.
Sophie, on the other side of Adam, spends much of the evening sneaking Gully bits of her dinner—perfectly pink salmon and mounds of frilly green salad and deliciously warm, buttered hunks of bread.
All made by Roger, of course, who lifts his glass of champagne to silently toast me from halfway down the long, boisterous table when I lean forward, catch his eye, and mouth the words, Thank you.
“I can’t believe you were able to keep this all secret,” I whisper to Adam, bending my head toward his.
The feelings that had sparked within me over the first few weeks of knowing him have grown into so much more over the past year.
Sophie and I have only grown closer, as well, and while I happily spend Monday through Friday with my father, I often spend my weekends at Adam and Sophie’s house, watching movies, or tackling some renovation project or another, or drinking wine in the ever-growing garden out back.
It was a couple of weeks ago, while I was lying in Sophie’s bed, reading her a story, Gully warming our feet, that Sophie let slip the news that her father had been to a jeweler and had bought the most beautiful ring she’d ever seen.
“It’s vintage,” she said importantly, “with lots of happy history.” Then she’d clapped her hand over her mouth. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you any of that!” she whispered, her eyes wide and worried.
“Tell me what?” I asked, smiling.
Now, Adam leans toward me and kisses my neck. “You know Marjorie and her plans,” he says in my ear. “This was an ironclad operation. Nothing could have ruined the surprise.”
I laugh. “She has her ways, doesn’t she?”
“Hold on to that feeling within you right now,” I hear my grandfather say. He leans in close from my other side. I turn toward him, feeling a blush creep up my cheeks. Fitz raises his white eyebrows and gives me a stern look. “No matter what happens. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t,” I promise.
Fitz comes outside to visit Gully and me every day.
There are days when I worry that his mind might be wandering in new, disquieting ways, but when I guide him toward a bench to sit for a moment, he inevitably bats away my hand and tells me that thanks to his daily walks, he is in better shape than he’s been in years.
I can’t say if this is true, but he certainly seems to have a more optimistic view on life than he had when we first met.
Every couple of weeks, I drive him to our house for lunch with my dad, and even though he complains that he’d rather just stay put at the Oceanview Home, he says it with a certain glint in his eye that lets me know he doesn’t really mean it.
As the dinner nears its end and the golden hour (or hours, as my mother would have said) settles into a soft, warm dusk, an enormous cake made by Adele and Vikram is placed on the table in front of me, twinkling with candles and decorated, of course, with flowers that I recognize from the gardens—pink peonies and ruffled damask roses, pale green hydrangea and sprays of sweet pea.
I breathe in. Together, the scents of these flowers that I have grown travel toward me, through me, whispering of protection and comfort, of the firm yet gentle guidance of a mother’s love.
“Make a wish!” Sophie says, as though it’s my birthday.
But what could I possibly wish for after an evening like this?
Only for the night to be remembered, I realize, thinking of Fitz’s words.
For the love that I feel in this moment to carry me through whatever might lie ahead.
Before I blow out the candles, I look around the long table at my family and friends and I take a picture with my mind, tucking the moment away—saving it, with any luck, for when I might need it again.