EPILOGUE

Just as the first snow fell softly to the ground in late January, Mama G passed away quietly in her sleep.

The entire town of Dove Pond came to the funeral. Preacher Thompson and Preacher Lewis forgot their differences long enough to give a joint eulogy. At the graveside, Grace wept so much that Sarah wondered that a body could hold so many tears and not drown. But Grace had Trav and Daisy and Sarah, who all stayed nearby. Love can’t cure a broken heart, but it can hold the two sides together while they heal. It took all three of them, but that’s what they did for Grace.

A few days after the funeral, Daisy showed an astonished Grace Mama G’s garden. In each row, there were items—a bent spoon, a broken watch, a brooch missing a garnet. Nothing of value, and yet each one held a memory that made Grace wet the ground with fresh tears. The next spring, roses bloomed where Grace’s tears had fallen—large, red, lush, vibrant roses that were so beautiful, Ava asked for some to add to a special tea she called Giano’s Red Gold. It was said that the spicy scent of the tea caused people to remember things they’d long forgotten—a special Christmas or birthday, the smell of freshly made bread from the oven of a long-gone loved one, and even the whisper of a favorite but lost sweater.

To Sarah’s huge relief and Trav’s eternal happiness, Grace stayed in Dove Pond. And while she and Daisy never stopped missing Mama G, with the help of their friends, and the time they spent together learning to knit from a very special book, they became a family.

And in the deep crack left by Mama G’s death, love found a home it would never leave.