Surprise! One more, in all technicalities. Couldn't leave you hanging like that. x3

Note! This epilogue is not necessary. It's an add-on for those of you who wanted more of a happy ending. If you liked the tragedy, you might not like this as much. But here it is – if you want it. My wrap up.

The Open Book

She slams the door too much. I tell her she's like her mother and then she slams the hinges harder. I laugh and she makes sure to lock it.

I suppose these things happen when you're married for too long – you start to know the person too well. You know what will push their buttons the most and you time it just right. But then again, six years isn't all that long and I've learned what buttons never to touch. She's the same. She knows to avoid my childhood as much as she can – but in all truth, it doesn't bother me as much as I think it should. Some of those days were the happiest of my life.

My mother died nineteen years ago. Sometimes it's hard to believe… but she was happy when she died. Happiest to see him again, but I know part of her was delighted to spite Old Doctor Jin's diagnosis when she made it halfway through winter.

They didn't know what to do with me, but Kasey quickly took care of that. I lived with him – I still do. Mayor Gill also wormed his way into schooling me personally. He refused to let me go without mathematics. Only heaven knows why. But without those dreadful afternoons in his grossly over-decorated house, I would have never known her like I do. Or ended up where we are now. So I really can't complain.

Well, at the moment I might. We're both hot-headed and so that both gives us a license to pick a fight. I really shouldn't bother though when she's like this. Mothers get so moody… and demanding. But I can't blame her. I put her this way after all.

On some days when I'm outside working the ranch, now that Kasey claims he's too old, I look up the hill or even go in for a visit. I'm the only one who ever goes near the old house. Utterly in disrepair – I can't blame the youngest children creating rumors that it's haunted. I like to think it's not though. It was home. I think it always will be.

The porch still creaks, maybe more so than it used to, and the door's hinges crack with rust. The rugs are moth eaten and there is a thick blanket of dust on everything. I never went back in after she passed. Never went in to live that is. Everything went untouched – just as she left it. I like it. When my memory of her starts to fade, I can always step inside and see her everywhere: from her habit of folding the napkins on the tea table just so to her hand-stitched dresses in the wardrobe to the way she dog-eared the pages of her favorite books that lined the shelves. That always irritated me. But if she hadn't, I probably would have never found that dried flower she kept. Romeo and Juliet. Well, I never said she was original…

And when it rains and the water drips through the shingles, I remember Mathilde – what a terribly old, smelly cow. But she was good. It was all good. The chickens who would squawk when I got too close with my frog net and the crickets who sang in the high grass behind the barn. The cherry trees in the orchard in full bloom, practically dripping with treats too high for me to steal and once in reach – bitter and overripe. The wind that shakes the leaves and plays the lullaby that would send me to sleep on warm summer afternoons in the shade and send me into fits of laughter with the piles of debris to dive into in the crisp fall. My mind takes me back every time. If I pass by, it's all the same. It hasn't changed. Some things never do.

But the trees are dead and the chickens are gone. The leaves still sing, but their song has changed and I don't recognize it anymore – it's different from the tune I remembered. The frog net was lost years ago and Mathilde is in the ground. Things have changed – but I haven't. I don't think I can. I'll always be the loner – the prisoner delighted with his cell.

It must be how Maya felt being left in the dark – or still feels. No one knows. She and Dakota disappeared after that day. We never saw them again.

Time left me behind. I don't realize it has until I find myself on days like today – the sun is high and I'm back home once again where I belong. I am alone and I am eight years old. My fantasy unravels and my mother opens the door and my father comes up the hill. I meet him halfway up the road and he lifts me into the air – strong enough to do so with ease. I race him to the porch and he greets mother with a kiss. Then we enter the house, disappearing to be a family.

But the dream is gone. And I find myself a twenty-seven year old man with a wife and child on the way living down the road on a prosperous ranch with a loyal dog and plenty to eat and enough funds to support my family. I even have the village mayor as a father-in-law. My life is complete.

I can smile because I know this is what they almost had. What they wanted – what they deserved in a different world. They must be proud and someday I'll be able to look back and agree. Satisfied.

Before I go back home, I had better find a way to apologize. "You can't pick a fight with a pregnant woman – you'll never win." Kasey's wise words – no doubt gained through experience with my mother. I wish he married.

Pink cat flowers are in bloom this time of year. Vivian will forgive me with a bouquet of those – they're a favorite of hers. And I know just the spot in the forest where I can always find them…