Epilogue
The group gathered around the grave in the oldest section of the Tolerance Cemetery was a large one, consisting of family—Kit, Beth, Abby, and Ned, who’d made the trip after having instructed Andrea on exactly what to do at the shop while he was gone—and those closest to Maxine—Banks, his daughter Caroline and her son Liam, Greta, Ruthie, Hal, and Elly Crosby—and members of the Tolerance community who’d known and loved Maxine.
Later they would gather at Ruthie’s for a memorial luncheon.
Kit had thought it might be more appropriate for only the family and those closest to the deceased to be present, but those in Tolerance who had known Maxine, who’d worked with her at the camp, had shared a childhood with the deceased, or had been the recipient of her kindness, had simply shown up on their own to pay their respects.
In retrospect, Kit thought that was just as it should be.
Banks, who’d known and kept almost all Maxine’s secrets, had declined to speak.
But as the only other person who’d been close to Maxine, Greta offered to say a few words once the polished Vermont granite stone was set in place.
Beneath the earth the handsome walnut casket held Maxine’s cremains in the blue-and-white urn, and she’d selected a copy of each of the works of Miles Easton, including a special leather-bound copy of A Cabin in the Woods: A Love Story, and the remains of Maxine and Miles’s son wrapped in the quilt where he’d lain for approximately the last sixty years.
Greta finished speaking, but Kit hadn’t heard but the occasional word.
She was happy Maxine’s little family was finally together—she and Miles, if only in spirit, and their child—as they had never been in life.
Despite her DNA, Kit did not see herself within that small circle, and yet she couldn’t deny the ties that bound her to Maxine and to Miles.
She honored them at the camp with their garden and represented them well when the media frenzy began once the story was released.
For weeks the phone calls and emails requesting her to appear on this show or that, to interview for any number of magazines and newspapers and online sites, had been almost constant, but eventually the story was replaced by another, as stories always were.
She twisted the emerald ring on the middle finger of her right hand before placing three white roses on the grave. She read the inscription on the gravestone one last time before she took Hal’s arm and followed the other mourners through the cemetery gates.
The Meadows-Easton Family
Miles—Maxine—Baby Son
resting in peace