Epilogue

Well. Who in Ribbonwood would have expected that twist? Lara Bennett a late in life lesbian!It strikes some women that way, Dottie Parsons told everyone.You could go half your life, everything hunky dory and then, bam , wake up one day a lesbian.At least, that’s what she’d heard that from a friend, that is.

Stephen Westerson said that was garbage. It was hardly surprising that Lara had switched to women, after all she’d already been through all the damn men in this town.

Kimberley Evans said that wasn’t it either.Lara had always been a schemer.She simply couldn’t let go of the chance to snag a single doctor no matter who they were ; she was an equal opportunity golddigger that was all. Oh for god’s sake, said Esme Walker, that’s enough of that rubbish.Have you got any idea how profitable that damn store is?Lara Bennett probably has more money than god at this point.She doesn’t need to dig anyone else’s gold.

Now that was the real problem.Suddenly, Lara Bennett defenders were everywhere.Ribbonwood was split right down the middle; it was worse than the covid vaccine!One minute you were innocently remarking to your neighbour that Lara was really quite brazen, kissing a woman all over town, obviously knowing full well how much everyone’s husbands liked watching that kind of thing, and the next minute your neighbour - Robyn Lowe, of all people -would snap, oh for fuck’s sake Stacey, have you honestly ever seen two people more in love?The truth is right there for anyone with half a brain to see it.

It was quite out of control.All of a sudden there were people everywhere more than willing to stop you in your tracks and swear on their mother’s grave that Lara Bennett was, in fact, the very best thing that had ever happened to Ribbonwood. Albert Sanderson shook his head gravely from his perch on his bar stool.He’d had no idea there was such a scourge of lesbians in town but suddenly half the women in Ribbonwood were going on and on about how much they bloody adored her.Converted them all with her feminine wiles no doubt, damn unnatural when you thought about it.Of course Albert Sanderson always did had have a bit of dirty mind so no one paid him too much attention.

He had a little bit of a point though.Even Nate Kerr had been spotted recently wearing a t-shirt with the word Ally in great big rainbow font across the front like he was fronting a bloody Mardi Gras float while he changed your tyres.Everyone, it seemed, was taking a side, but one side in particular seemed to be growing.

Maybe it was something to do with the fact that Lara’s doctor was Francesca Gabrielli’s youngest child, a prodigal daughter returned from the big smoke down south, all the way home to Ribbonwood. Once Francesca had made up her mind about something there was no changing it.

Not only was her son engaged to Sadie O’Malley - a cross-cultural marriage, you know - but as far as Francesca was concerned, Lara belonged to the Gabrielli family every bit as much.You couldn’t go to the Silverbloom chicken auction without finding Lara at her side, smiling and playing every bit the dutiful daughter-in-law, her own daughter jumping up and down excitedly beside her like another grandchild to the mix.It was quite clear Francesca was holding out hopes of adding a same-sex wedding to the Gabriellis’ extensive social calendar but despite the gold-digging accusations no ring had yet appeared on Lara Bennett’s finger.

Some said she’d never marry again and as the years went by that seemed more and more likely.Ollie Gabrielli didn’t seem to care one whit; you’d see the two of them down at the Ribbonwood Pub, laughing and gazing at each other like no one else existed, Ollie even pulling her out on the dance floor to whirl her around and kiss her right on the mouth like they really were newlyweds, rings be damned.Some weekends you’d even find Lara cheering on the sidelines as Ollie singlehandedly resurrected the Ribbonwood women’s soccer team.It felt quite strange to see Lara Bennett all carefree and excited about something in public, but perhaps she was just passionate about women’s sports (another point in the maybe she’s actually gay column if you were still in the business of trying to work that one out.)

Amber O’Brien said lesbians were supposed to do a thing called U-Hauling which made Myrtle Jenkins open her eyes very wide and tell her to mind the children for goodness sake. Amber said no, actually, it just meant they moved in together almost instantly, no men to put the brakes on things, you know how it is.But Ollie and Lara didn’t even seem to do that, Ollie keeping that little house on Vine Street for years, though the rumour was she really didn’t use it for anything other than the odd bit of work these days.

It’s the daughter I feel sorry for, Myrtle shook her head. Imagine trying to have a boyfriend with those two watching your every move. Lara was still over protective as far as she was concerned and Ollie had been seen giving Chris Wiseman’s youngest boy a solid lecture when he’d said something surely innocent and cheeky about fourteen-year-old Tilly, who was now almost as pretty as Lara had been at that age, though thankfully nowhere near as precocious. Tilly had just rolled her eyes complaining about how embarrassing her parents were. Don’t you think it’s actually pretty nice, Eva Sinclair argued, that after Lara had to grow up with no mother at all, her daughter gets to have two of them? Myrtle was a bit annoyed about that point, especially because suddenly she’d gotten something in her eye and had to scurry off to fix it.

So fine, perhaps Lara really had changed for the better, or maybe, pointed out Chloe Perkins, maybe Ribbonwood has? Of course Chloe would think that.It was commonly believed that no matter the result of the inquest, Lara had been the one to push Dale Winchester into the dam that night.The thing was, Dale Winchester was an incredibly nasty piece of work, so if that really was the case it might be the one time Ribbonwood was actually united in thinking Lara had perhaps done the right thing for once. Tread carefully, women warned their husbands, or I’ll send Lara Bennett after you .

One thing was for sure: Ribbonwood had once held Lara on the outskirts and now she seemed firmly in the centre of it all.The general store became such a meeting point for residents - a social hub it seemed - that Lara got annoyed by the deadlock around the counter and branched out the business to include some tables and chairs out the front of the store and a coffee machine and pastries just inside the door.It was Jessica Webb’s daughter she hired to staff it, because of all the miracles on earth she and Jess seemed to be friends these days. What times, Dottie Parsons shook her head in wonder.

Lara Bennett.Some said she was a witch and others some kind of a town goddess.Either way she’d become a bit of a Ribbonwood legend.After all, there’s nothing a small town likes more than a real life redemption story.