Epilogue: One Year Later

“Your hair has come back so pretty,” Rolf said.

“So different to how it was.” I twisted my head and examined the wavy blonde hair, which hit almost to my chin. “It’s lighter and curly. It never had a wave in it before.”

“It’s going to be gorgeous when it gets longer,” Rolf observed, before a thought suddenly occurred to me.

“I want it as long as it goes,” I admitted. “I hated being bald the first time. It didn’t seem so bad, this time, although I’ll be glad if I never have to go through chemo ever again.”

I had been in remission ever since. I still saw Doctor Brown regularly, but he told me he didn’t expect cancer to ever return, although you can never say never.

In the meantime, Rolf and I are living our lives together, making plans, and enjoying ourselves.

There is too much we want to do, too much we wanted to see and experience.

Rolf embraced my desire to live and experience every single moment.

One day, he asked me to marry him at the top of a mountain.

I said, yes, of course.

When the news spread around that we were going to get married, everyone in town wanted to help one way or another. We are family, after all.

Today, Rolf and I are going to say our vows, down on the beach, surrounded by our friends. Lukas, his wife, and his family flew from Austria to share this moment with us. Rolf’s parents traveled from Florida, especially for our day. We invited the whole town to our wedding. Every person brought their tables, chairs, and food.

Today will definitely be unforgettable.

“Rain,” Janice said, popping her head into the room, “are you ready?”

“Absolutely.” I followed Janice out and down to the waiting car.

I had asked Janice to be my maid of honor. “I won’t take no for an answer.”

It turns out she didn’t want to say no. She cried and said yes. She was the best maid of honor I could have ever chosen.

“What kind of wedding shower do you want?” she asked me.

“What?”

“Your wedding shower. That thing the maid of honor throws where you get a lot of stuff you don’t need and will never use but have to write thank-you cards for? You know what it is, right?”

I shook my head.

“Maybe, we can skip that...” she was going to scratch the item on her list, but I stopped her.

“No, a wedding shower sounds great. For the last months, I’ve been living with Rolf in his house, but I want to spend the night away from him with the girls. There is nothing traditional about my relationship with Rolf or our wedding, but I want a traditional wedding shower.”

We had a lot of clean fun, and it helped me to deal with my pre-wedding jitters.

They came rushing back to me when we arrived at the beach a few minutes later. I was really doing this. We were really doing this, and I began to feel all hot and itchy.

“Oh my! You look gorgeous, child,” Theodore said, when I walked down to the beach access. He was going to walk me down the aisle. Well, there was no actual aisle, but you get the idea.

“She does. Let’s go, Rain,” Janice said, “We don’t want Rolf to think you aren’t coming.”

A million ‘what ifs’ suddenly crammed themselves into my mind, and for a long moment I stood there, my bare feet sinking into the sand.

I was afraid to face cancer again. I was afraid that the next time I might not win.

Rolf needed more than that. He needed someone who would be there forever. He needed someone who could give him lots of babies and a happy house and security. I couldn’t give him those things, and I’d want him to have them.

The doctors had informed me that having children was no longer an option. Rolf had sat with me when they explained it to me, and he’d held my hand and then held me afterward as the reality of the situation washed over me.