Epilogue






LATE OCTOBER

So what is my truth?

Because I fell in love in 1969, I married a philandering man. A number of years later, I took up with a philandering married man.

Was it fate? Or coincidence? Or just piss-poor decision making?

Though we are still seeing each other, Stu has been withdrawn. Uncertain. Distracted.

I understood a little, after seeing a People magazine story about the reunion of J. Ross Nelson and her biological daughter. The world was charmed. Delphi was surprised. Ron Adler crowed. In the picture, Janelle stood, looking proud and maternal, her arm around a truly beautiful young woman who was tall and slim, with sandy-brown hair and astonishing green eyes.

I should have known from the start. Lisa and Debbie did when Benny showed them her picture. Stu knew as soon as Janelle hit Delphi, since she hot-footed it over to the feed store to tell him. And then insinuated herself into his house, and stayed around after Doug's drowning, to try to reconcile him to the situation.

Did it work? I don't know. I do know that Stu is seriously considering meeting the girl. I also know that he misses his son terribly. I know that he wants to be a good father. Whether he wants to be a good husband remains to be seen.

Debbie Fischbach has blossomed in widowhood. She joined numerous boards and charitable organizations, playing Lady Bountiful. She made a brave, public showing of the return of the gold circle pin to a very surprised Aunt Juanita. I imagine that Junior had some explaining to do.

Cameron headed into a spiral at the end of September. His attempted suicide prompted Hugh's public confession of his role in Doug Fischbach's death, to the shock of the entire town. There were no charges pressed; the question of whether one who deliberately does not rescue can be called a murderer has not been answered. In his desperation to clear Cameron publicly, Hugh let slip the explosive news of his own sexual orientation. There was a brief and vehement flurry of demands for Hugh's resignation, ostensibly because of the drowning, but the real reason was small-town homophobia. The crowd will probably get its way.

Janelle drove back to California in her Corvette. I hear she got that major break-through role she wanted. When the movie comes out, I'll go and see it—or rent the video, since first-run movies rarely make it to our wing of the Hotel South Dakota.

Rhonda, in rumpled chinos, flannel, and all-cotton T-shirts, made the transition from Earth Mother to Eddie Bauer Poster Child. One day, she sat in the cafe, talking endlessly about Neil and how much fun she had with him, how cool his cars were, and what a great all-around guy he was.

"Are you falling in love with Neil?" I asked finally, surprised at my own irritation.

She grinned, almost as though she had maneuvered me into asking. "The real question," the newly declared psychology major said, "is, Are you falling in love with Neil Pascoe?"

I sat back in the booth and looked out the window at the feed store across the street. Then I got up and busied myself behind the counter, ignoring Rhonda's question.

And her laughter.