and I have a feeling we have more than a few adventures ahead of us.
Epilogue
Jenna
Snow Valley may sparkle and shine in the winter, but it’s just as beautiful in the early summer. The air is sweet, the sun is bright, and the trees are huge and leafy. Flowers bloom in earnest, scenting the air with their gorgeous perfume.
Let me be the first to tell you--I don’t miss New York City at all with surroundings like this.
The park we’re strolling in is just five minutes from our house. Matt jokes that he wanted to propose to me here, but all plans went out the window when I started bawling my eyes out that fateful day. “I had to rearrange my plans just to get you to stop crying,” he’ll tease, and I always respond by sticking my tongue out at him. Motherhood, I must confess, has not made me much more mature.
“Mama!” My two-year-old, Joy, looks up at me with huge blue eyes. She has something in her hand. I wince, worrying that she plucked something off the dirty ground, but then she presents it with a flourish, and it’s just a bright yellow flower. “Take!”
“My sweet baby!” I coo. “Is that for me?”
“What, Daddy doesn’t get a flower?” Matt, pushing the stroller, asks in mock horror.
“Take!” Joy stamps her tiny purple shoe on the ground. “Mama!”
I laugh and shrug at Matt. “Sorry,” I tell him as I take the proffered blossom and tuck it behind my ear. “Mama wins again.”
Mama definitely won with the first word; “Daddy” wasn’t even in her lexicon until after “bath” and “puppy.” I brag about this often to Matt. He always, however, is the requested bedtime story teller, although I always get to sing the lullabies.
I was worried about being a mother, but as soon as Joy was born, all my fears disappeared. She was beautiful and perfect from the start, grinning at us with all the enthusiasm of her name. Calling her “Joy” was an easy choice because Matt’s mom is named Joy too. As a result, we’ve started calling Grandma Joy “Joy the First” and she loves it. It was Matt’s mother, after all, who brought us together. She certainly deserves some credit for that.
It was Joy the First, too, who brought all the Mistletoe brothers together with their brides. It was a wild idea from the start, but miraculously, it worked. All of us got married by Christmas, the brothers were able to purchase the town, and sweet Snow Valley was saved.
“Can you believe that you technically own this park?” I ask Matt as we continue our walk. A cute dog and her owner walk by, and Joy screams “Puppy!” with all the gusto of a child who doesn’t yet have one of her own.
Matt shrugs and aims a sideways grin at me. “And all because you decided to marry me.”
“Well, and because all the other ladies agreed to marry your brothers too,” I say. “Although I can never remember everyone’s names. I basically went from being an only child to being a sibling in a family of twelve within six months!”
Matt laughs. “Yeah, it’s a miracle, isn’t it?”
I smile with delight as we exit the park and walk to Moose Tracks, a nearby bar. I’ve been singing here every Tuesday and Friday night, and am working on getting an official band together to back me up. The crowds were modest at first, but they’ve grown with every performance. Kids aren’t technically allowed inside, but sometimes Matt will stand with Joy at the very back, and she’ll wave her little arms in glee watching her mama sing. I’m so grateful that Matt is such a great dad, and that he and Joy get along so beautifully even when I’m not around.
“Hey, Joey!” I call to the bartender as I head inside to pick up my paycheck. It’s early enough so that no one minds if Joy stands on a barstool and requests some apple juice. It’s one of the perks of living in a small town.
“Hey, Jenna!” he says, waving at Matt and I. “You actually had someone call here asking for you a little bit ago. They didn’t have your number. You might want to give them a call back.”
“Who is it?” I ask, but Joey just shakes his head and grins.
“I wrote down the number and put it on the bulletin board in the back,” he says. “Call ‘em now, okay?”
I head to the back and punch the number into