EPILOGUE
The Following Summer
We’ve propped all the doors open, and people roam in and out of the house, from the living room to the kitchen to the stone patio. It’s not a farm yet, but it’s not far off. Felix and his dad built the greenhouse this spring. The foundation for the barn has been poured. A narrow stream winds its way through birch and white spruce at the back of the property, and there are rows of turned soil.
We haven’t had time to finish decorating, but even without curtains, our home is perfect—a modern farmhouse, with a charcoal exterior and a gabled roof. We’ve named it Primfield House.
Like a man possessed, Zach oversaw every detail of the design and construction, swearing it would be ready by the beginning of the August. And he was right. It was a good thing, too. Felix sold his place, so we were staying at Summer Wind, and he was getting grouchy about sharing a roof with his parents.
My life is almost unrecognizable from the day Felix and I stood on a beach together in Australia and decided to knit our lives together. I moved to the island in December. I gave up my apartment. I travel to Toronto once a month, and Farah is managing In Bloom. She says she’s “considering” my offer to buy in as a co-owner. I think she wants to do it, but I know she likes to keep me in suspense.
There are so many guests at our housewarming and so many questions.
What are my plans for the Farm at Primfield? How am I liking life on the island? Where did I find that light fixture? I lose track of Felix within an
hour. I suspect to find him in the kitchen with the teenager he hired to shuck for the evening, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
I’m putting out a tray of miniature fish cakes when Zach’s girlfriend, Lana, corners me to tell me she suspects Zach is going to ask her to marry him. Lana moved here from Montreal a few months ago, and I know for a fact that Zach has a ring. Their relationship is charmingly competitive, and she wants to propose first. She asks for my help brainstorming ideas. I don’t see it for the distraction that it is until I hear a clinking sound on the other side of the room. The crowd is so thick, I’m not sure where it’s coming from.
But then I see her on the staircase, a champagne glass and spoon in her hand. Our eyes meet. It’s been a year since Felix and I visited her in Sydney, a year since I’ve seen my best friend, and I’m already blinking away tears.
Bridget looks the same as she always has. Her cheeks are pink, and her hair is in a tizzy. She’s wearing a pair of old jean shorts and a sleeveless shirt.
But there’s a floral crown around her head—the kind I wore the night we became friends. She made it herself—it’s wilted, lopsided, and in a discordant combination of orange and purples. It’s ugly as sin, and it’s
spectacular.
I can’t pull my eyes away from Bridget.
“What the hell?” I mouth to her.
She blows me a kiss, then clinks her glass again. Between the chatter and Ken’s playlist, only a few people twist their necks toward her. Bridget sets down her glass, puts two fingers in her mouth, and whistles.
Her gaze travels to her right, where Miles is stepping out of the reading room, Rowan in his arms. They must have snuck in while Lana was showing me a video of a flash mob proposal. Rowan is trying to keep a hold of the Anne of Green Gables alphabet book Felix bought for her a few weeks ago.
He claimed he was mailing it to Australia.
An arm falls across my shoulders. “Surprise,” Felix says.
I turn my head. Felix is clean-shaven and dimpled. His beard comes and goes with the seasons. Here for the winter, vanishing with the snow in the spring.
“You,” I say to Felix. “You tricked me.”
“Uh-huh.” He kisses my cheek, and then smiles at his niece.
“Now I know why I couldn’t find you earlier,” I say.
He kisses the side of my head. “I asked my dad to keep the music loud so you wouldn’t hear Rowan.”
Bridget waves her hand. The room waves back.
“Wow,” she says, surveying our faces. Her parents. My brother and his husband. Her grandparents and various Clark aunts and uncles and cousins.
There’s a handful of Guinness World Record–holding oyster shuckers and half of Felix’s high school graduating class, Joy and Colin among them.
Bridget’s eyes land on my parents, and her smile broadens. “It’s so good to see you all, and it’s so good to be home. Actually . . .” She looks at Felix and me. “It’s even better to be right here, in Wolf and Bee’s home. And what a
lovely one it is.”
“I helped,” Zach pipes.
Bridget raises her glass in his direction. “Of course you did, Zach.” She pulls in a breath. “I’ll be honest: Seeing my best friend and my brother standing over there”—she nods toward us—“holding each other, seems both completely natural and totally weird.”
Felix is fast. A palm turns my face to his, and the other hand burrows into my hair. He kisses me the way he does when we’re alone. There are whoops and whistles, and I can feel my chest heating, but I loop my arms around his waist, and draw him closer. We don’t have to hide our love from anyone, including ourselves.
“I guess I was asking for that.” Bridget’s voice is dry, but her smile cuts dimples into her cheeks. She takes a sheet of paper from her pocket.
“I was desperately homesick when I met Bee. As you all know, I’m an islander at heart, and I liked Toronto well enough, especially at night. Back when I was in my early twenties, I’d ride my bike through Cabbagetown, catching glimpses of people inside their homes. I loved seeing the city lit up in the dark. But I missed my family. I missed the island—the wind and the water and Mom’s cooking. I was lonely. And then I met Bee.
“The night we became friends, she was wearing a floral crown, made with real flowers.” She points to her head. “Much nicer than this one. I used to be
wary of women who looked like her—feminine and stylish, with cheekbones people pay for. At work, her makeup was always flawless. I thought she was probably all frills and gloss. I was wrong.
“She looks sweet, with those dresses and that smile, but Bee is tough.
Tougher than she thinks. She hates fighting, but she won’t stand down when it matters. It’s one of the things I admire most about her. I used to wish that we had met earlier in life, when we were kids or teenagers, but now I think we found each other at the right time. We became adults together. Our friendship is how I learned to compromise. It’s how I learned that the families we make are as significant as the ones we’re born into. It’s how I learned that the greatest loves are not always romances.”
Bridget’s speech is far longer than the one I gave at her wedding, and by the time she’s almost finished, I’ve ruined one of my good napkins with my mascara. Felix stands behind me, arms banded around my middle, chin resting on my shoulder. Every so often I feel his laugh on my back or his smile against my cheek. I turn to look at him when Bridget speaks about what a wonderful brother he is, and I see that his eyes are shimmering.
“It’s so wild, the things we do for love,” Bridget says, looking right at us, her chin trembling. I put my hand on Felix’s cheek. It’s damp now, like his sister’s. He turns his head and kisses my fingers. “Sometimes where we find it is even wilder.”
Bridget raises her champagne flute, and the rest of the room follows. “To Lucy and Felix and their new home.” She winks at us. “It’s about time.”
• • •
EVERYONE HAS CLEARED OUT EXCEPT FOR THE SIX OF US. MY FAMILY IS STAYING AT Salt Cottages, and Christine and Ken are babysitting Rowan at Summer Wind. Bridget and I sit side by side on the back steps. It’s growing dark, but we can see Miles’s and Felix’s silhouettes. They’re lighting a bonfire in the field. Zach and Lana are already settled by the pit, wool blankets across their laps. We’re having a sleepover tonight, although one couple is on an air mattress. Our third bedroom has no furniture.
“This place is unreal, Bee. I can’t believe everything you’ve done,”
Bridget says. “You and Wolf are a good team.”
My gaze drifts to Felix. “We are.”
I had a stall at a farmer’s market for two weekends earlier this month. I didn’t have a lot of material, but I managed to pull together bouquets with this year’s annuals. It seemed like a good idea, but it was a lot to take on with the construction and the flower shop. Felix found me crying in the field, one of several of my “I’m in over my head” moments.
He held me and whispered, “You and me, Lucy. We’ve got this.” I focused on the weight of his arms and the smell of his skin, and I knew he was right. We ended up sprawled on the grass, my dress pushed above my waist, his pants around his ankles, laughing and covered in petals. Afterward, Felix watched me arrange a few bouquets, then asked to do some himself. He has a better eye than his sister.
“I didn’t know it would feel so nice,” I say to Bridget now.
“What’s that?”
“Having a partner.” I used to think doing things on my own was the highest of achievements, and it is fulfilling, but asking Felix for help doesn’t make me feel smaller. When I’m with him, anything seems possible. It’s almost drugging, how powerful I feel. How sacred and adored. On the evenings when we’re so tired all we can do is curl up on the couch in silence, Felix reading while I watch TV, I don’t worry that we’re tiptoeing toward monotony. I don’t feel like a piece of furniture. I just feel lucky.
“But I do miss my best friend,” I say. “Another two years Down Under, huh?” She and Miles have decided to extend their stay.
“Yeah, and then back to Toronto, although I’m not sure how I’ll ever cope with winter again.”
“I would prefer you to be right next door, or at least in Charlottetown, but I’ll take what I can get.”
“The flight here will feel like nothing after traveling to and from Australia,” Bridget says. “We’ll come out so often, you’ll be sick of us.”
Felix is crouched, crumpling newspaper and arranging kindling in a pyramid. A flame begins to flicker.
“You better. I caught your brother watching a video tutorial about swing set construction. He’s going to build a playground out there for Rowan and the kids who visit the farm.”
“And for your own kids one day?” Bridget gives me a guilty smile.
“Maybe,” I say. “Or maybe not. We’re not really thinking about that yet.”
Felix and I have taken the questions of marriage and children off the table, at least for now. I give Bridget a flat look. “Funny, I thought I’d mentioned that to you. On multiple occasions.”
She gives me a sheepish grin. “Noted.” Bridget hops up. “Wait one sec.”
I watch Felix while she’s gone. He’s waited, patient, until the flame burns steady to set small logs onto the fire. I can see his satisfaction in the orange glow. He turns toward me, his eyes finding mine. My stomach dips. It still catches me off guard—how clear his love is—how openly he offers it up.
Bridget returns holding a round wooden tray. On it is a bottle of expensive rye and six glasses that look like vintage crystal. A bag of peanuts is tucked under her arm.
“Your housewarming gift,” she says. “Like old times.”
I rise and kiss her cheek. “Almost.”
When the fire is strong and everyone has a drink, I snuggle on Felix’s lap.
The conversation is one born of friends old and new—stories that slip into nostalgia and inside jokes that get translated for those who don’t know them yet.
Bridget forcing Felix and Zach to do her Barbies’ hair.
The night my aunt tried to replicate her favorite restaurant’s pasta alla vodka, and we ended up drunk on the sauce.
Felix stabbing himself with an oyster knife when we met.
“So you really didn’t know who the other was?” Lana asks Felix and me.
“No,” we reply in unison.
“Really?”
“Really,” we say.
“My best friend and my brother. It’s mildly disturbing, but I wouldn’t
have it any other way,” Bridget says.
I throw a peanut at her.
It’s the kind of night where I can feel something lock into place. This is it, I think. This is everything I want.
At one point, Zach retrieves a gift-wrapped box from his car and hands it to me. It’s a game of Trivial Pursuit.
“Is this for me, or is this for you?” I ask.
“Don’t raise questions you don’t want answers to,” he says, taking out a box of cards. “I’ll just ask a few to the group.”
Zach and Bridget are debating the validity of one of her answers when I feel Felix’s fingers in my hair. He’s braiding it down the center of my back.
When he finishes, he wraps the end around his hand and gently tugs my ear to his lips.
“I’ve been waiting to get you alone all day.” He kisses my temple, then slides a hand toward my inner thigh.
“You go first,” I say. “I’ll distract them.”
I stand to let Felix out of his chair.
“I need to take care of something in the house,” he announces.
“He’ll be right back,” I say.
Felix looks at me over his shoulder as he’s walking away, and even in the dusk, I can see the mischief in his eyes. After a minute, I tell everyone I’m going to get a sweater. Zach snorts.
I use our knock. Tap, tap, pause . . . But I don’t get to the third tap before Felix opens the door, laughing.
“They all know what we’re doing, right?” I ask as he pulls me inside and shuts the door.
“Of course,” he says. “But now no one will come inside for at least thirty minutes. Until then, it’s just us, Lucy.”
Felix backs me against the wall, and we kiss. He tastes like good rye and woodsmoke and the sweetest end to the best day of my life. When we part, he takes my hand and tugs me toward the stairs. Fingers laced, we climb up to our bedroom in the home we’ve built together. A house full of books. A field full of flowers. Our own special island.
At last Felix. At last mine.
