Jason stood at the front of the diner, feet planted like he needed the floor to keep him steady. His hair had clearly behaved for all of five minutes. His hands twisted together in front of him like he didn’t know what to do with them. He had stood in this diner a thousand times. Served pancakes, fixed theregister, and argued with the coffeemaker. But never like this. Never waiting for me.
I stood at the diner door, eyes fixed on him, waiting for my cue. The first notes of Canon in D drifted through the speakers. That was it. I stepped forward and walked in.
The dress wasn’t fancy. It didn’t need to be. A tea-length vintage number I’d found in a secondhand shop, sleeves stitched with fine embroidery, sash the color of sea glass. The lace at the collar had been my mother’s. Aunt Ophelia and I sewed it in together, hands side by side at the kitchen table. My magic pulsed beneath my skin, warm and calm. Like it finally had a home.
I zoomed in on Jason’s face when I stepped into the room. Everything else blurred. I didn’t rush. I just walked toward him, one breath at a time. His eyes never left mine. And in that moment, I knew I hadn’t given anything up. I had chosen this. All of it. Him.
Aunt Ophelia married us, of course. She wore baby blue linen and a sharp silver brooch shaped like a lighthouse. Her voice was clear and dry as always, tugging laughter out of people when they least expected it.
“Sometimes,” she said, looking at both of us like she saw straight through, “you have to let go of the life you thought you wanted. And if you’re lucky, you stay long enough to build something better.”
Levi sniffed dramatically in the second row, doing a poor job of pretending his eyes weren’t wet. My dad looked like he might burst from pride, his hands clasped so tight they turned red. Jason’s cousins had taken over one aisle like it was their personal jungle gym, legs dangling, elbows flying.
Desdemona sat near the front, dabbing her eyes with a neatly folded handkerchief. Her face held a mix of pride and disbelief, as if she couldn’t quite believe her son had grown intothis man. Beside her, Mike, Aunt Ophelia’s husband, wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders and handed her a fresh tissue without speaking.
And when Aunt Ophelia told Jason he could kiss the bride, he did. He kissed me like the world had narrowed to this single truth and he had waited years to speak it.
There was no music then. Only the hush of waves outside and the quiet roar of hearts that had finally come home.
After the wedding ceremony, I stepped out onto the back porch for a moment to collect myself. The string lights above flickered in the soft breeze, glowing like tiny stars caught in the twilight. My heels had been abandoned somewhere near the dessert table. The last streaks of sun stretched across the sky, melting into the water like honey. Laughter floated from inside the diner, muffled but full. I breathed in the salt air and felt it settle something inside me.
Aunt Ophelia sat on the porch swing, a floral mug in hand.
“You’re not going to turn into a werewolf and try to eat me again, are you?” I asked, leaning against the wooden rail.
She glanced up. Her mouth tugged into a grin. “Only if you break Jason’s heart.”
I laughed. So did she. It felt good. It felt easy.
I sat beside her on the swing, letting the creak of the chains fill the silence between us. We watched the light shift over the water, the whole town holding its breath in gold.
“You really remind me of myself,” Aunt Ophelia said after a while.
I turned. “How so?”
Her eyes lingered on the waves.
“I moved back here from New York City, too. When I was around forty. I was divorced. Burnt out. I thought my life was over. But it was just beginning.” She looked through the diner window. I followed her gaze. Mike was inside, deepin conversation with Desdemona. Someone had handed him a cupcake. He looked proud of it.
“If it weren’t for Mike and this diner, I don’t know what I would’ve done with myself,” Aunt Ophelia said. “This place gave me something to build again. Gave me room to grow.”
The swing rocked gently beneath us. The porch boards creaked. I rubbed my palms together.
“You’re smart,” she said. “You’ve got grit. You love him. That much is clear. Just don’t forget who you are in the middle of all this.”
“I won’t,” I said. “Or if I do, I’ll ask for a reminder.”
She smiled. “Good. And welcome to the family, Emily.”
I didn’t answer right away. I just reached for her hand. She let me take it.
We sat like that for a while. Just the soft buzz of string lights and the slow pull of the tide.
JASON
Several months later, the Lighthouse Diner still hummed. Not in a metaphorical way. The espresso machine sang sea shanties any time someone ordered the triple-shot seafoam latte. Off-key. Always off-key. I’d threatened to unplug it more than once, but tourists clapped every time it hit the chorus, so we let it live. Emily said it gave the place character.
She would know. Seven months pregnant and somehow still in charge. She ran the marketing with her sleeves rolled up and a clipboard under one arm. Two high school interns followed her like baby ducks, scribbling notes while she explained things like “target demographics” and “emotional resonance.” I didn’t understand half the words she used, but I understood the results. Newsday featured our enchanted pancake flight on the front page last week, and we had a two-hour wait on Sunday. All for mini pancakes that made people cry and hug strangers.
