Epilogue
JUDE
Two weeks later
We go through the front of an old iron gate that somehow still opens and closes.
After so many visits, I know the way by heart.
I drop Greer’s hand just long enough to leave the arrangement on my mother’s headstone.
I don’t feel sadness here, more of a respect for the woman who brought me onto this earth.
Mom might not have lived to see us marry, but at least we can share our wedding flowers with her.
I was determined to elope, but Greer and the old ladies threw together a small ceremony at the compound.
Allie was Greer’s maid of honor, and I asked Folgers to stand with me.
Neither of us wanted the fuss of a big wedding, so we kept things intimate.
Greer says she’ll let her mom and aunt plan a reception later, but today was for us.
With all the excitement, I’m only just now noticing the flowers. They’re all white with splashes of…
Violets.
I wrap my arm around my new wife’s blossoming waistline, the fabric of her cream colored dress hiding the very beginning of a bump, and lead her towards the entryway to the graveyard. “I think you have something to tell me.”
“Maybe,” she says with a sly grin.
“Your prenatal testing came back from the neonatologist, didn’t it?” Greer and I made a deal. If the baby is a boy, we’ll name him Jeremiah after my father. Greer’s dead set on a particular name for a girl, so she’ll get the final say on the name of our princess.
Violet. The words toy around in my brain. Greer wants to name our daughter after the color that coated the land where I proposed. “As of today, I have an amazing wife and a daughter named Violet.”
“Third happiest day?”
“Yes, but I demand a fourth for the day I meet our angel,” I swear, bringing her palm to my lips. “I love you.”
“You’re alright,” she sasses, blue eyes bright. “I might spend forever with you or something.”
After closing the gate to the cemetery, I step away towards the limestone grave marker that’s slowly weathered with time.
The eternal resting place of Parran’s forbidden lovers.
The earth covering the shared coffin has always been barren, presumably from the hot summer sun scorching the grass.
For the first time in my life, fresh sprigs of green are spreading, as if the land is finally healing.
“Can you imagine what they would think about a Clairmont married to one of Delphine’s descendants?” Greer quips with a chuckle.
But I don’t see the irony. I think Delphine and Anton understand the destiny of it all just as well as I do.