Page 197 of Catch the Sun

Either way, I don’t think it matters.

I stretch a warm smile and crouch down in front of him. Inside the pocket of my orange dress is a familiar white stone. I slip my hand inside and pull it out, weighing it in my palm before handing it to Max’s father. “I want you to have this,” I tell him. “It means a lot to me. It’s kept me grounded for years, whenever my thoughts were dark and my mind was restless. Maybe it will do the same for you.” I reach for his sun-spotted hand and stretch out his fingers, pressing the little stone in his palm. “Maybe it will bring you closer to Vivian.”

He glances at it with cloudy eyes, his thumb grazing along the smooth ridges. “Thank you,” he whispers, clutching it tight. “This is very kind of you. I wish I had something to give you in return.”

Max comes up behind me then, pressing his palm to my lower back.

I glance up at Max before my focus floats back to Chuck. “You have given me something,” I say softly. “You’ve given me more than you know.”

Pulling to a stand, I watch as the two men clasp hands, Max’s father holding his son’s palm with both of his and tugging him forward for a long hug. I don’t hear the words said, but I feel the palpable love between them, the devotion. Max never gave up on his father. Not once.

And I will never give up on them.

We end the ceremony on two horses, me riding Dawn, and Max galloping atop our newest family member, Phoenix II, with a “Just Married” ribbon dangling from each tail as we wave goodbye to our friends and family who are cheering us on in the distance. And an hour later, we are back on Sunny Rose Farm, guiding our beloved horses to the grazing pen as we share an intimate dance beneath the shimmering sky.

Max turns on a familiar playlist, and “Surefire” by Wilderado fills the air while the same emotions I felt in Max’s truck on a crisp fall afternoon sweep me up in a tearful, emotional swirl.

Living.

Pure, wholesomeliving.

I’ve come to realize that some people have a way of making you feel as if living is more than just being alive. Being alive is a privilege, sure, but it’s basicbiology. Existing is the automatic rhythm of breathing in and out. But when your lungs breathe rapture, and your heart pumps with passion, and you find yourself fully present in every precious moment?

That’s where you find life’s true rhythm.

And living, I’ve learned, is a priceless gift.

The song fades into another sun-kissed melody as I wrap my arms around my husband and bury my nose against his chest, closing my eyes and letting him thaw the remainder of my frozen pieces.

We stay like that for a handful of blissful beats before Max glances down at me with a smile. “I’ll get the horses put away, then meet you inside so we can…consummatethis eternal commitment.” He kisses the tip of my nose and adds, “Wife.”

I lift up on my tiptoes and kiss him right back. “I’ll be waiting with a Dr Pepper.”

Moments later, I’m stepping inside our bedroom for the first time as Ella Manning, the sun mural lighting up the far wall and making me beam just as bright. Heading toward my work desk, I pull out the leather-bound book Max gave to me on a Christmas long ago—the book he created that predicted our happily-ever-after within pages of sweet words and vibrant sketches.

I graze my fingers down the front, smiling at the title.

Eeyore’s Happy Ending.

As I set it back down on top of the desk, I shift my gaze to the right and discover an old, tattered notebook resting out in the open, put there for me to find. Max must’ve uncovered it from one of the unpacked boxes still stored in our bedroom closet.

A frown furrows. I haven’t opened this notebook in years. Not since the day at the clearing when I was just a moody seventeen-year-old.

With a knot in my throat, I flip through the old notebook, memories coloring my mind and warming me up, head to toe. Doodles, drawings, notes, and wishes. Everything feels like a lifetime ago as a reminiscent sigh leaves me on a shaky breath, reminding me of how far I’ve come.

But before I return the notebook to the desk, I stop when something catches my eye.

I go back, reread.

My eyes glaze over, my heart skipping like a smooth stone across a lake.

My unfinished letter to Jonah stares back at me, the one I’d started in the clearing that sunny afternoon when Max wandered through the trees and changed my whole life.

I still never finished that letter. I never intended to.

But…

Someone did.

---