Ido.
Amelia Mae pulls the wagon to the front of the store to what’s left of the rainbow of love stories; thanks to Riley’s display, nearly all the paperbacks have gone to good homes.
I didn’t see it earlier, but someone, probably Miguel, has placed a framed photo of my Amelia in the center of the table. I know this shot; Dane took it years ago, not long after he started working here. In it, Amelia’s seated on the yellow velvet chair, with me at her feet, and Miguel’s smiling down at her. She’s so joyful—and of course she is. Her favorite place, she always said, was wherever we were.
As I stare at the photo, I finally understand that Amelia may have asked me to take care of Miguel, but she never meant for me to give up my own happiness. She wanted me to create more of it for both ofus.
I look across the store at Miguel, who’s standing with his arm around Fiona, listening to Dane and Miriam banter backand forth. Brenna and Riley are hip to hip at the register, selling book after book after book. Beside me, Amelia Mae’s yapping my ear off about the story she wants me to help her write tomorrow.
And I think to myself,What a very good dog I’ve been.
Epilogue
I am a summer creature, as that’s when I was born, and nearly a year later, Amelia found me and made me hers. But fall, she always said, is the superior season, and I know I’m lucky to have lived long enough to spend this one with Miguel and Amelia Mae.
She, Fiona, and Walter have rented a small house on the other side of town, which she claims is just the right amount of creepy. It’s also down the street from her new friend Ruby, who happens to be quite clever herself and doesn’t think Amelia Mae talks too much. They’re over here all the time. At Miguel’s encouragement, Amelia Mae even goes up to my Amelia’s office sometimes to work on her stories. Walter follows me around like I’m his hero, and while I won’t say he’s made me a dog’s dog, I have relented and taught him a few new tricks.
Our house feels like a home again when they’re in it. And something tells me that one day soon, they’ll stay for good.
The medicine doesn’t work, not the way Miguel’s hoping it will. I’m not in terrible pain, but my hips stick at their hinges and my chest is heavy and I’m tired all the time. That’s all right because Amelia Mae pulls me around in her old plastic wagon. I raise my head to the sun and close my eyes as we roll along. I smell the crisp air and the earth preparing to godormant before it begins again. I hear leaves crackling beneath the wagon’s wheels.
And, of course, I listen to Amelia Mae.
She tells me all aboutCarrieas well as her own stories but skipsPet Sematary—a mite too dark, she declares. Her tales are gory, but no one ever dies, even if they deserve it. As she explains, it’s actually best if they just live on and suffer. “I’m going to callmybookstore ‘Unhappy Endings,’ ” she says with a devilish grin as we pull up in front of the rainbow window one chilly October afternoon. “The whole store’s gonna be filled with Stabby Peeps. Isn’t that perfect, Harry?”
Oh, but it is. I suspect my other Amelia will be very famous one day.
At home, my bed is still beside the bookshelves, and Miguel has moved the urn and all the rainbow books back to the bottom shelf so I can rest my head near them. He helps me outside to use the bathroom and brings me bowls of the special food he cooks himself, and all of it is magically delicious. Amelia would be so very proud of him.
Fiona regularly goes to the bookstore with Miguel, and she’s spent the night a few times when Jonathan’s been in town and could watch Walter and Amelia Mae, because even she can admit that being alone overnight is an unreasonable amount of time. Miguel’s different with Fiona than he was with my Amelia—and yet he loves her all the way. They are content, which means I am, too.
The days are slow; the days are fast. Some are as clear as a blue September sky, while others are so foggy, I’m not sure I was really there. But every day is the best day other than the ones I had with my Amelia, because we are together.
Then one morning I awake, and I know, just as she must have, that it’s time.
I don’t want to go. I’d like to keep watching Miguel be alive in the truest sense of that word. And sunny Fiona and cloudy Amelia Mae: I’ve barely begun to enjoy them. I want to see who Dane and Miriam become as a couple—although I imagine it is who they already are, yet somehow even better. There are so many tomorrows that I won’t be a part of. I’ve been here a good long while, and that’s a gift. But I understand now why my Amelia said it’s never, ever enough.
Miguel seems to know, too, because he rises early and remains at my side, leaving only to bring me some water and my food, which I can’t manage to eat more than a bite of. He asks Fiona to bring Amelia Mae to our house, and she lies beside me and tells me the story of how we used our magic to help her mom and my Miguel see that there’s nothing less complicated than being with the one you love.
And then Miguel takes her place and tells me the story of everything.
Of a sparkling woman he spotted in a bookstore and instantly fell in love with, even though he thought that only happened in books—and how, miraculously, she loved him back, despite the fact that he wasn’t the kind of man she wrote about. But as he would later learn, he was part of every story she’d ever written.
Of the dog she discovered at the shelter one summer day and how nothing—not his relentless leash-pulling or barfing on the rugs or repeatedly running away and making her cry—could keep him from being her very best friend.
Of her dream to fill the world with books, which madetheirdream into a real place where readers could find their own happy endings.
Of the adventures and heartaches and triumphs of their life, which they shared with me and each other for as long as they could.
Miguel’s stopped talking now and is resting his hand gently on my head.
And I know that I am safe, and I am loved, so I let my eyes close once more.
Suddenly, there she is—my person, my love, my Amelia. She is standing across a grassy field that stretches forever, and she is callingme.
“Harold!” she says, and her smile’s as brilliant as the sun itself. “Come on, boy. Run to me!”
How can I not, when I’ve waited so long to see her again? And finally, she’s here. Right on time.
