Red lily

epilogue

THE SUN FILTERED through the leaves of sycamores and oaks and cast pretty patterns of light and shadows on the green of the grass. On the branches birds sang, filling the balmy air with music.

Gravestones stood, marble white, granite gray, carved to mark the dead. On some, flowers lay, petals fading, petals fluttering in the light breeze. Tributes to those who’d passed before.

Harper stood between his mother and Hayley, holding their hands as the casket was lowered.

“I don’t feel sad,” Hayley declared. “Not anymore. This feels right. More than right, it feels kind.”

“She earned the right to be here. Beside her son.” Roz looked at the graves, the names. Reginald and Beatrice, Reginald and Elizabeth.

And there, her parents. Their aunts and uncles, cousins, all links in the long chain of Harpers. “In the spring,” she said, “we’ll put a marker for her. Amelia Ellen Connor.”

“You already have, in a way.” Mitch turned his head to kiss her hair. “Burying her son’s rattle with her, his picture. Hayley’s right. It’s kind.”

“Without her, I’m not. Without her, Harper, Austin, Mason are not. Nor are the children who come from them. She deserves her place.”

“Whatever she did, she deserved better than what was done to her.” Stella sighed. “I’m proud I was part of this, of giving her back her name, and I hope, giving her peace.” She smiled at Logan, then over at David and all the others. “We were all part of it.”

“Tossed in the pond. Discarded.” Logan rubbed a hand over the small of Stella’s back. “All to protect, what? Reputation.”

“She’s found now,” David added. “You did good, Roz, pushing through the system to have her buried here.”

“The Harper name still has the weight to shove the bureaucrats. Truth be told I wanted to give her this nearly as much as I wanted her out of my house, away from what and who I love.” She rose up to peck Harper’s cheek. “My boy. My brave boy. She owes you most of all.”

“I don’t think so,” he disagreed.

“You went back.” Hayley pressed her lips together. “Even after she tried to hurt you, you went back to help bring her out.”

“I told her I would. Ashbys keep their word as well as Harpers. I’m both.” He picked up a fist of earth, held it over the grave, let it sift through his fingers. “Now it’s done.”

“What can we say about Amelia?” Roz lifted a red rose. “She was mad—let’s be honest. She died badly, and didn’t live much better. But she sang to me, and to my children. Her life gave me mine. So rest now, Great-grandmama.” She dropped the rose onto the casket.

In turn the others sent a rose into the grave, and stepped back. “Let’s give them a minute alone,” Roz said, nodding toward Harper and Hayley.

“She’s gone.” Hayley closed her eyes, settled her mind. “I can feel it. I knew she was gone before you came up. Knew you’d found her before you told us. It was like the rope tying me to her was cut.”

“Happiest day of my life. So far.”

“Whatever she needed, she has.” She stared down at the casket, at the flowers that lay on it. “I was so afraid, when you were in the pond, that you wouldn’t come back to me.”

“I wasn’t finished with you. Not nearly.” He took her shoulders, turned her away from the grave, toward him, toward the sunlight. “We’ve got a life to live. It’s our time now.”

He took the ring out of his pocket, slipped it onto her finger. “Fits now. It’s yours now.” He lowered his lips to hers. “Let’s go get married.”

“I think that’s a great idea.”

With their hands clasped, they walked away from death, into love, and life.

In Harper House, the wide halls and gracious rooms were quiet, full of sun, full of memories. Full of past, open to tomorrow.

No one sang there.

But its gardens bloomed.