Epilogue

Three years later

Owen

Everyone is dressed up for a big family photo shoot, because our oldest sister, Mills, and her husband Hayden are visiting for the holidays.

After the shoot at the lightly snow-covered Daisy Hill Farm and Event Center (the name I chose and Daisy relented to after I couldn’t be budged to change it), the photographer follows us around town. We agreeably pause for pictures at the courthouse plaza, then pose as a group in front of the festively-decorated new sign at the Fate Home, Garden and Farm Store.

Finally, exhausted from smiling and posing in the cold, we all head to Little Spoon for desserts and hot drinks.

The shop has been open for a couple of years and is going well, even if business is slower in the winter. Summer, Harmony, and their partners make the best of it by offering seasonal flavors, coffee, and desserts.

Today, we have the place to ourselves.

Five-year-old Graham and his younger cousin Quentin, son of Hayden and Mills, mix the cookie dough yogurt and lemon-flavored yogurt together in one cup, making a disgusting-looking mixture. Their younger cousins, Summer’s daughter Natali and Harmony’s daughter Lia, come to the table with cups of pineapple and mint chip.

“Graham,” says Natali. “Let’s mix our yogurts together.”

“Graham,” I say, trying to warn the kids that this is a terrible idea.

Daisy rests a hand on my forearm. “Take a beat, and let them figure it out on their own.”

She’s right.

The doctor has become a better mom for Graham than I could have dreamed of.

In the end, Daisy and I laugh as the cousins and friends use their kid-sized spoons to mix their yogurts together, creating a mess of green, yellow, red, brown, and beige.

Lia is the first to take a bite.

Daisy cringes. “How is it?” I ask.

“Awesome!” Lia cries.

With that glowing review, Graham dives in and takes a huge mouthful of the mixture, followed by Natali and Quentin.

“Amazing!” Graham shouts through a mouthful of frozen yogurt.

Everyone joins in, and soon everyone in the family, young and old, has made mixtures of the most unlikely combinations. Some of it’s terrible. Some of it is pretty good. Some of the kids cry, and some of the adults are so disgusted they nearly cry.

The photographer snaps more photos of everyone enjoying their day together.

Pretty soon, the festivities spill outside into a full-fledged snowball fight, nobody much caring that we’re all still dressed in our best from the photo shoot.

We’ll clean it up later.

For now, this is everything.

THE END