“He put it in his drawer. He didn’t throw it away.”
“I know that too.”
She’s quiet for a moment. Then: “Would you?—”
“I’ll finish it. Hot chocolate at Michelle’s. Hermit crabs on the shoreline. Whatever’s left. We’ll get through every item.”
“He’ll add more. You know that, right? Once you start, he’ll just keep adding.”
“Good. I like his lists.”
She leans into me. Her head on my shoulder. Her hair smells like salt air and hairspray and the gardenias from Delilah’s arrangements. I put my arm around her, and we sit there on the houseboat steps watching the empty slip where a yacht used to be.
The fairy lights are on. The coffee is terrible. Aidan is asleep behind us with an elephant and a list that’s about to get a lot longer.
Somewhere on the ocean, Levi and Delilah are sailing toward their honeymoon.
And in the marina office, Holly's sticky note is still tucked into the logbook, and tomorrow morning I'll read it, and I'll smile. And then I'll start the rest of my life.
But right now is enough.
Emma’s breathing slows, the fairy lights hum, and the water does what water does.
I stay.
EPILOGUE
LOTTIE
Saralynn Lennox is eleven days old and already has opinions about lighting.
She’s curled in the little woven basket I bought specifically for newborn sessions—knees tucked, fists balled, wearing a cream-colored wrap that took me four minutes to swaddle perfectly. The studio is warm. The diffuser is running something lavender. The backdrop is soft white muslin, and the window light is hitting at exactly the right angle, that golden late-afternoon glow that makes babies look like Renaissance paintings.
Everything is perfect. Except Saralynn has decided that she does not, in fact, want to sleep.
“She was out cold in the car,” Mads says from the velvet chair in the corner. She’s eating a granolabar like it’s her first meal in days, which it might be. “Dead asleep. Snoring. The second we walked in here she opened her eyes like she sensed a camera.”
“She’s Asher’s daughter. She’s suspicious of everything.”
“She’smydaughter. She’s suspiciousandhungry about it.”
I adjust the wrap. Saralynn blinks at me. Her eyes are that dark newborn blue that hasn’t decided what color it wants to be yet, and her hair—she has so much hair—is dark like Asher’s, curling at the tips. She’s going to be stunning. She’s already stunning. She just needs to close her eyes for approximately ninety seconds so I can get the shot.
“Talk to me,” I say, because background noise sometimes works. Babies who won’t sleep for silence will sleep for conversation. Something about voices being familiar. “Tell me something. Distract me. Anything.”
“Gossip.” Mads takes another bite. Chews. Considers. “Harold brought Grandma Hensley a bouquet yesterday. At her house. In front of witnesses.”
“From Delilah’s shop?”
“Daffodils. Wrapped and everything.Walked up her front steps in broad daylight like a man with zero shame.”
“Good for him.”
“Grandma Hensley told Jo she’s ‘evaluating her options.’ She has a spreadsheet.”
“She does not have a spreadsheet.”
“She has a spreadsheet. Color-coded. Categories include ‘punctuality,’ ‘romantic initiative,’ and ‘likelihood of dying before me.’”
