I watch his eyes fill with tears as he pauses and clears his throat. I’m dumbfounded and I’ve suddenly forgotten how to blink.

“I don’t want to leave this earth with any regrets when my time comes. Right now, I have entirely too many and I want to change that. I’m proud of you. I’m so proud of both of you,” he tells us with a sad smile before walking away from us and back over to the group standing a few feet away.

“What in the hell just happened?” Lucy whispers as we both stare at my father while he chats easily with Lucy’s parents.

“I have no fucking idea,” I whisper back.

My father has been quite friendly since Trip passed away. Lucy had the wake and the ceremony at the inn and my father helped with everything, telling her to relax and not to lift a finger. He bragged about her and Butler House to everyone who walked through the door and pointed out every piece of furniture I’d made for the inn, praising my skills and telling everyone how proud he was of me. When I asked my mother about it, assuming he was just trying to showboat and be the center of attention, she told me he was grieving in his own way and wanted to make up for the past. It was nice hearing him say such good things about me, but I still wasn’t inclined to invite him to our wedding.

Maybe he finally realized what a shitty son he’d been or maybe he saw how devastated I was when I lost Trip and realized I wouldn’t grieve that way when he dies. Maybe he finally realized that the love of family and friends is the only thing that will truly sustain you through life, or maybe the letter Trip left behind was the kick in the ass he needed. When I read the letter Trip wrote to all of us on the day of his funeral, I watched my father cry for the first time in my entire life. Trip apologized to my father for the loss of his mother and for not doing everything he could to give him enough love to make up for her not being there. He told my father he would haunt him for the rest of his life if he didn’t stop making the same mistakes he did, and to be proud of me and accepting of Lucy. Then, he royally pissed Lucy off by enclosing the ‘paid in full’ deed to the inn, telling her that she better stop rolling her eyes and just say thank you. He told us that if we were reading that letter, we damn well better not be sad because he was finally where he belonged, with the woman he loves, and that he hoped we had finally stopped being idiots, gotten our shit together and gotten remarried. Every time we’ve waffled about whether we should continue with our wedding on the anniversary of our first date, all we had to do was think about that letter and know we were doing the right thing.

Whatever is going on with my father right now, I can only hope it continues because he has a whole new generation to be there for and to love and cherish.

Getting down on my knees in the sand, I hold onto Lucy’s hips and press my lips to her stomach.

“There’s hope for you yet, little one. Your grandfather might actually turn out to be a decent human being by the time you get here,” I speak softly.

Lucy laughs and runs her fingers through my hair as she smiles down at me. I stare up at her as the wind ruffles her curls and the sun forms a halo behind her, reminding me yet again that she is my angel and the child she carries inside of her is just the beginning of the amazing future we’re going to have together on this island. We no longer have to worry about the security of the inn, Ellie and Bobby can get married on the veranda just like they planned, our children will be born close together and will obviously grow up to be best friends, and Lucy and I can grow old together in the place where our story began, but will never, ever end. Rumor even has it that Melanie got her hooks into Stanford and they’ve fallen madly in love, so that’s two less annoyances Lucy and I will ever have to worry about. I’m sad that Trip will miss out on meeting his great-grandchild, but maybe my father really is turning over a new leaf and he can be a better grandfather than he was a father.

“Thank you for meeting me at the lighthouse,” I whisper.

Lucy pulls me up from the sand and wraps her arms around my shoulders, smiling at me through the tears.

“Thank you for finding your way back to me.”

The End