Epilogue
Two Years Later
Sawyer
IT’S THE KIND of late summer day that reminds me why I love this place.
The sun is high, the sky endlessly blue, and cicadas hum in the trees. We’re back in Bull Run Cove, where the water is glass smooth. Ideal conditions for Hannah’s water-skiing lesson.
She’s been working on it for weeks, determined. Jake is patient with her, his voice never losing its calm.
“There you go,” he calls, tossing her the rope. “Keep the edge of your ski angled once you’re up.”
“Okay, Daddy. I think I’ve got it.”
She started calling us “Mama” and “Daddy” a while ago. The words just came one day, unannounced but completely right. Her choice, her timing.
Jake and I got married over a year ago, nearly a year after I finalized Hannah’s adoption.
Because I’d been the doctor who helped her at the scene of the accident, and because the county’s social worker knew my family’s long roots here, the foster approval process moved faster than I ever imagined possible.
After the wedding, Jake adopted her too.
The process wasn’t without its struggles.
Nothing about the last two years has been.
There were home visits and pressing, painful interviews, nights when Hannah couldn’t sleep from nightmares, mornings when I questioned whether I was strong enough for any of it.
But I know that healing doesn’t follow a straight line.
And little by little, we found our way forward.
There are moments, like this one today, where I still can’t quite believe where I am. Who I am. What we’ve become.
Jake sits beside me in the boat, steady, kind, quietly strong. I look at our daughter, cutting across the lake. I think about Hattie, tail wagging from her perch at the back of the boat.
And I feel… peace.
It’s not that I think nothing bad will ever happen again. Of course, I know better than that. We’re all temporary here, and pain is a recurrent visitor.
But I believe in now. In this moment. In the life the four of us have together.
I volunteer two days a week at a local free healthcare clinic. The work grounds me.
At the clinic, I still see the aftershocks, lungs that never fully healed, families still unraveling, grief that shows up in quiet, unspoken ways. But I also see resilience. And that helps.
I let myself remember on a regular basis. Not to reopen wounds, but to honor the people I couldn’t save. To remind myself why I keep showing up.
And sometimes, before the house is awake, I walk the rows of the strawberry field.
It’s peaceful in the early light. The dew clings to the leaves. The air smells like soil and sweetness.
There’s something sacred about those rows. Something honest.
Jake says strawberries are stubborn. That they’ll survive a frost when they shouldn’t. That they come back even after a burn, growing through the ash, quietly beginning again.
Sometimes I think I understand them better than I understand myself.
There was a time, not so long ago, when I didn’t believe anything would grow in me again. Not joy. Not purpose. Not love.
But here we are.
The strawberries came back.
And so did I. So did we.
Hannah wipes out mid-run, tumbling with a splash. From her seat at the back of the boat, Hattie barks frantically until Jake slows the boat and circles back. She watches, waiting, until we reach Hannah again.
“I’m okay, Hattie!” Hannah calls out, laughing as she swims.
That bond between them, it’s something special. Hattie’s claimed Hannah’s room as her own. No one asked her to. She just knew where she was needed most.
Sometimes, when Hannah skis, she uses Tommy’s old water ski. She knows it was his. One afternoon while we sat at the dock, I told her what a great skier he was, his ski resting beside us like a time capsule.
“He was brave,” she said, running her fingers over the worn bindings. “I want to be like that,” she added, without looking up.
And I remember thinking, she already is.
Hannah still has hard days. She grieved her grandmother deeply. We visit her grave site regularly, and Hannah takes flowers. Over time, with help and space, she’s come to believe it’s okay to feel joy again. And sometimes, it's braided with sadness. That's okay, too.
“I think I’m done for now!” she shouts.
Jake reaches down to lift her onto the boat.
“That was awesome,” he says.
She grins. “Not awesome yet, but I’m getting there.”
“I think you’re awesome,” Jake says, squeezing her shoulder. He hands her a towel, then turns to me. “You skiing?”
“I think I’m in a floating mood today,” I say. “Too peaceful not to just float.”
“Floating it is,” Jake says. He pulls out life jackets from under the seat, straps one on Hattie, and we all step onto the platform.
“Ready,” Hannah says. “Set. Go!”
We dive in.
Hattie belly-flops into the water and swims straight for Hannah, circling her once, then chasing water bugs across the surface.
“She never catches them,” Hannah says. “But she really tries.”
Jake chuckles. “I think they like teasing her.”
We float side by side, sunlight dancing on the water. Jake slips an arm around my waist, and I rest my head lightly against his shoulder.
From a few feet away, Hannah treads water, watching minnows flash below her toes.
“Mama?” she says. “Can we do that picnic float again this weekend? The one where we tie up to the dock and just read books and eat snacks?”
I smile.
Two years ago, she would never have asked for something like that. Grief and guilt have a way of making us think we don’t deserve happiness.
“I’d love that,” I say. “We’ll make it a tradition.”
Jake leans in and kisses my temple. “Perfect day,” he says.
“It really is.”
I kiss him, softly, slowly. When we pull apart, I whisper, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For loving me. For believing this life was still possible.”
He smiles. “Thank you,” he says, brushing my cheek. “For trusting me. For believing in me.”
We roll onto our backs and float, the sun warm on our faces, the lake wrapping around us like a promise.
It’s not a perfect world.
Far from it.
There’s sorrow. There’s loss. Unimaginable pain at times.
But there’s also love.
And for me, for us, that’s reason enough.
To stay.
To hope.
To begin again. Renewed. Like Jake’s strawberry field.