Chap­ter 59 takes the read­er through an emo­tion­al jour­ney of heal­ing, recon­nec­tion, and a bit­ter­sweet real­iza­tion of love and time lost. Con­nor found her way back to life on the rocky shores of Aldiz, her recov­ery a slow but steady process, like a flower slow­ly bloom­ing after a long win­ter. She enjoyed the sim­ple plea­sures of play­ing Scrab­ble with Celia and, as promised, joined Eve­lyn for din­ner every evening. Some­times, she even arrived ear­ly to help in the kitchen, rolling out tor­tillas from scratch or stir­ring a pot of cal­do gal­lego, a tra­di­tion­al Gali­cian broth passed down from Evelyn’s moth­er. Each of these small actions sym­bol­ized her grad­ual reawak­en­ing, a return to some­thing more sta­ble, more whole.

Sur­pris­ing­ly, the per­son Con­nor grav­i­tat­ed toward the most was Robert, the easy­go­ing, sil­ver-haired man with a broad frame and a gen­tle nature. At first, Robert had no idea how to inter­act with a teenage girl—he was hes­i­tant, even a bit intim­i­dat­ed, unsure of what to say or how to con­nect. But rather than let­ting the silence stretch between them, it was Con­nor who reached out first, ask­ing him to teach her how to play pok­er, to share insights about finance, or even to take her fish­ing. Slow­ly, a bond formed between them, one that nei­ther of them had antic­i­pat­ed. Robert nev­er replaced Har­ry in Connor’s life—no one ever could—but in his own way, he offered a qui­et sta­bil­i­ty, a sense of com­fort that helped ease her grief. She sought out his advice, bought him a sweater for his birth­day, and let him into her life in small but mean­ing­ful ways.

Robert, in turn, showed his care through actions rather than words—painting her bed­room, prepar­ing her favorite bar­be­cue ribs on week­ends, and offer­ing sup­port with­out ever demand­ing it. With time, Con­nor began to rebuild her trust in the world, allow­ing her­self to believe that open­ing her heart again was not a mis­take. Her teenage years, marked by the deep wounds of los­ing her father, had left scars that would nev­er ful­ly fade. But Eve­lyn saw the changes—Connor stopped reck­less par­ty­ing, began focus­ing on school, and start­ed achiev­ing A’s and B’s. When she received her accep­tance let­ter to Stan­ford, Eve­lyn looked at her daugh­ter and real­ized that she had raised a young woman who was ground­ed, strong, and ready to take on the world.

The night before Eve­lyn and Con­nor left for the Unit­ed States to move her into col­lege, Celia, Robert, and Eve­lyn took her out for din­ner by the water. The small sea­side restau­rant was cozy and inti­mate, the air filled with the scent of salt and grilled seafood. Robert hand­ed Con­nor a neat­ly wrapped gift, a pok­er set, and grinned as he told her, “Take everybody’s mon­ey, like you’ve been tak­ing mine with all those flush­es.” Con­nor, with a mis­chie­vous glint in her eye, quipped, “And then you can help me invest it.” The exchange was sim­ple, but it encap­su­lat­ed the warmth and con­nec­tion they had built over time. Though Robert always insist­ed he mar­ried Eve­lyn for Celia, Eve­lyn sus­pect­ed that, deep down, he had also done it to be part of a fam­i­ly, to expe­ri­ence a kind of sta­bil­i­ty that had always elud­ed him. While he was nev­er meant to set­tle down with one woman, this uncon­ven­tion­al arrange­ment had giv­en him some­thing mean­ing­ful, some­thing he may not have real­ized he want­ed until he had it.

With Con­nor off at Stan­ford and return­ing only for breaks, Eve­lyn and Celia final­ly had the chance to expe­ri­ence the life they had always dreamed of—free from scruti­ny, free from the pres­sures of Hol­ly­wood. With­out the pry­ing eyes of the media, their days in Spain were peace­ful, spent walk­ing along the beach, read­ing news­pa­pers on their bal­cony, and savor­ing the sim­ple joy of just being togeth­er. For the first time in decades, they were able to love each oth­er open­ly, with­out fear of judg­ment or scan­dal. Eve­lyn felt an over­whelm­ing sense of peace wak­ing up beside Celia every morn­ing, watch­ing the sun­rise illu­mi­nate her gold­en hair as it fanned across the pil­low. These were the moments she had longed for, the ones she had fought so hard to reach.

As the years passed, Eve­lyn found her­self recon­nect­ing with the lan­guage of her youth, embrac­ing Span­ish once more—at first out of neces­si­ty, but even­tu­al­ly out of pride. She enjoyed chal­leng­ing Celia and Robert to piece togeth­er what she was say­ing with their lim­it­ed Span­ish skills, laugh­ing as they tried to keep up. It felt like redis­cov­er­ing a part of her­self she had buried long ago, a part that had been wait­ing patient­ly to be revived. But even in the beau­ty of these moments, there was an unspo­ken truth hang­ing over them like a dark cloud—Celia’s health was fail­ing, and time was run­ning out. No mat­ter how per­fect their days seemed, Eve­lyn knew that their hap­pi­ness had an expi­ra­tion date.

One evening, as they lay in bed togeth­er in the dark­ness, Celia whis­pered a painful con­fes­sion. “I know I shouldn’t,” she said, voice thick with regret, “but some­times I get so mad at us for all the years we lost.” The weight of missed time, of love wast­ed on fear and cir­cum­stance, set­tled over them like a heavy fog. Eve­lyn reached for her hand, squeez­ing it tight­ly. “I know,” she whis­pered back, feel­ing the same ache deep in her bones. Celia’s voice cracked as she asked, “If we loved each oth­er this much, why couldn’t we have made it work soon­er?”

Eve­lyn thought for a moment before answer­ing. “We did,” she said soft­ly. “We’re here now.” But Celia shook her head. “But all the years, Eve­lyn. All the years we wast­ed.” They both knew the truth—they had fought so hard against them­selves, against the world, against the expec­ta­tions placed upon them. The world had made their love dif­fi­cult, forc­ing them into silence, into sep­a­ra­tions that had cost them so much. Celia sighed. “Being yourself—your true, entire self—will always feel like swim­ming upstream.” But even then, she admit­ted, “The last few years with you have felt like tak­ing your bra off at the end of the day.” Eve­lyn laughed at the com­par­i­son, even as her heart ached.

At that moment, the fear of los­ing Celia again, this time per­ma­nent­ly, was unbear­able. The thought of a world with­out Celia in it was a night­mare Eve­lyn could­n’t face. She had lost her before, but this time, there would be no chance to get her back. And so, with­out hes­i­ta­tion, Eve­lyn blurt­ed out the only thing that made sense. “Will you mar­ry me?” Celia laughed at first, assum­ing she was jok­ing, but Eve­lyn stopped her. “I’m seri­ous. I want to mar­ry you. Sev­en mar­riages in, shouldn’t I final­ly get to mar­ry the love of my life?”

Celia shook her head, her voice tinged with sad­ness. “We both know that’s not pos­si­ble.” But Eve­lyn wouldn’t accept that. “Mar­riage is just a promise,” she insist­ed. “Who needs legal doc­u­ments or wit­ness­es? All we need is each oth­er.” Celia was qui­et for a long time, con­sid­er­ing the weight of what Eve­lyn was say­ing. And then, at last, she exhaled and said, “OK. I’m in.”

Eve­lyn turned on the lamp, and they sat up in bed, fac­ing each oth­er, hold­ing hands as they per­formed their own pri­vate wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny. In that moment, there were no tabloids, no agents, no judg­men­tal whispers—just the two of them, promis­ing each oth­er for­ev­er. Eve­lyn looked into Celia’s eyes and asked, “Do you, Celia, take me, Eve­lyn, to be your wife? In sick­ness and in health, for rich­er or poor­er, till death do us part?” Celia’s lips curled into a small smile, her eyes glassy with emo­tion. “I do.” Eve­lyn repeat­ed the words back to her, seal­ing the moment with a qui­et but pow­er­ful “I do.”

Then Eve­lyn frowned. “Wait—we don’t have rings.”