For The Fifth Vow

The bass thumped through Ava St. James’s bedroom like a heartbeat that refused to retire. Wrapped in a silk robe the color of champagne, she twirled in front of the mirror and laughed at herself for laughing. Usher’s “Bad Girl” was far too bold for a woman who knew better—and exactly right for a woman who knew herself. Seventy looked good. Better than forty, if she was honest. Forty still tried to impress people. Seventy only had to please the mirror.

Lipstick. Heels. Gold bangles that still fit. Each detail was both armor and invitation. On the dresser, four framed photographs watched her like a jury that had already ruled and still couldn’t stop talking. Joseph, the handsome liar. Alphonse, the true one. J.B., the mistake they never spoke of. Reverend Randall, the holy hustle. Ava lifted the champagne flute she was using as courage and toast in one, and nodded at each past version of herself.

“Gentlemen,” she told the frames, “thank you for the lessons—and all those tidy exits.”

She slipped into a silver dress that shimmered as if it had its own secrets, smoothing it over hips that had carried babies and disappointments with equal style. Her hair, a proud black with one stripe of silver, fell into waves that framed the face she had earned—cheekbones like willpower, a mouth that knew both prayer and punchline. She winked at the mirror. Still got it.

A horn honked outside; Ava gathered her clutch, let the scent of gardenia follow her through the hallway, and stepped onto the porch where the black limousine waited with rain pearls on its roof.

The driver stepped out to open the door, “Happy birthday, Ms. St. James.”

Ava smiled, voice warm as bourbon. “Thank you, baby.”

She settled into the leather and watched the city perform itself through the wet glass. Birthdays always tugged at her, even the joyful ones. They whispered the names of all the girls she had been, and whether the newest one deserved the cake.

She decided yes. Tonight absolutely deserved cake.

The limo turned off the boulevard and passed between two iron gates that rose like a storybook decision. Lanterns glowed along a drive flanked by manicured hedges. Beyond them, roses—hundreds—glistened in the rain, their colors running from blush to velvet. The du Prée Rose Estate looked like a memory someone had polished until it could see its own reflection.

In the great white party tent, people hurried, as if the rain had invented urgency for their benefit.  A planner whose pace overruled her breath nearly collided with her own clipboard when she spotted Ava.

“Ms. St. James! We are so excited—so honored—just a few last-minute elements, but everything is absolutely divine.”

Ava patted her arm. “Sugar, if you can say ‘absolutely divine’ without passing out, then I trust you.”

She drifted toward the garden, umbrella in hand, drawn the way people are drawn to what is already patient. And that was when she saw him: a man in a black sweater and dark slacks, bent over a rosebush as if listening to it reveal the end of a riddle. Rain touched his shoulders and was improved by the trip. He wasn’t hurrying. He wasn’t directing. He was trimming a spent bloom with the kind of care people reserve for secrets and bone china.

“You might melt if you stay out there much longer,” Ava called.

He looked up, surprised into a smile. He had the kind of smile that was halfway confession, halfway compliment. “Roses don’t stop for a little water,” he said. “Neither should birthdays.”

His voice didn’t match the sweater. It was too certain, too used to being obeyed. But his hands—his hands were gardener-honest, strong along the knuckles, tender at the fingertips. Ava stepped closer, and the rain made a curtain around them.

“You work here?” she asked.

“Every day,” he said.

“Then you’ve seen plenty of parties.”

“None like this one.”

He straightened, and she discovered he was taller than the umbrella could respectfully cover. A few strands of dark hair curled like guilty thoughts at his temple. He reached for a rose, snipped a spent blossom, and brushed the petals aside with something that looked like fondness.

“I’m Marcus,” he said.

“Marcus who?”

“For now,” he said, “just Marcus.”

Ava raised an eyebrow. Men who offered first names without surnames were usually singers, saints, or problems. He didn’t look like trouble. He looked like a man who had already had some and learned to sit with it on the porch without rushing it back into the yard.

“Well, Marcus-for-now,” she said, “tell your boss the flowers are forgiven. They’re doing their best under difficult circumstances.”

“I’ll pass it on,” he said, smiling like she had let him win something he didn’t want to flaunt.

Inside the tent, Rory St. James—her younger brother and self-appointed kitchen general—was pacing near the dessert table with a phone clamped to his ear as if it were trying to climb away.

“I been calling that office all day,” he said to the phone, to the room, to the history of unanswered prayers. “You hear me? All day. MAX Holdings can’t keep dodging us like we’re selling encyclopedias.”

Ava kissed his cheek. Rory smelled like pepper and patience. “Stop pacing, you’ll ruin the buttercream with your sighs.”

Rory hung up and covered her hand with both of his like a benediction. “Happy birthday, sis. You look like a secret I wouldn’t snitch on.”

“Flatterer,” she said. “How’s the jambalaya?”

“Ready to baptize the unbelievers,” he said, then lowered his voice. “You know who owns this place? That du Prée family. Old money with new habits. The son’s some kind of big shot—Maxumis something—runs MAX Holdings. I swear, if I could get ten minutes with that man, we’d have a second location before dessert.”

Ava’s mouth tugged toward a smile she managed to swallow. “I met a Marcus in the garden.”

“A who? Rory said," 

“Just Marcus,” she said.

Rory squinted, “Well, if your ‘just Marcus’ knows Maxumis' tell him I'm trying to hollier at a boy”

“I’ll deliver the message,” Ava said.

The family arrived in a parade of umbrellas and opinions. Asher, the eldest, wore a velvet robe under his raincoat, an offense he would justify by claiming it had a collar and history. He kissed his baby sister’s cheek and announced that seventy was the new fifty but only on her. Genevieve arrived with Willie Lee in tow and announced she had not decided whether she was divorcing him after fifty years, but she had decided to look like a woman who could. Delphine brushed in sleek and late, Antoine brushed past sleek and earlier, and Theo—dear Theo—rolled a keg of enthusiasm directly into a table leg, apologized to the table, and meant it.

“Ma,” Theo said, pulling her into a hug he never outgrew. “You look like money and manners.”

“You look like somebody I’d give both to,” she said, smoothing his lapel out of habit. “Where’s your uncle?”

“Rory’s over there trying to sell the dessert table on franchising,” Theo said. “Ma, you know the guy who owns this estate? His company invests in restaurants. I printed our deck. I got a meeting scheduled—well, I got a meeting scheduled with the receptionist’s email, which is the same thing in spirit.”

Ava squeezed his cheek. Theo had the kind of face that made mistakes look like rehearsals for triumph. “Go get ’em.”

She made small talk, and the small talk made its way, and the music lifted the tent until even the rain felt welcomed by invitation. Still, the garden called her again. She slipped away and found the place where the roses did their labor.

Marcus was there, of course, in the way a story puts people in the correct places, whether they admit to destiny or not.

“If you keep feeding those flowers all this praise,” Ava said, “they’ll get vain.”

“They’re already vain,” he answered. “But they earn it.”

She watched his hands. “You’re good with them.”

“Someone once said the way you tend a rose shows the way you tend a life,” he said. “I try to keep both pruned and honest.”

“And how’s that working for you?”

“Better than avoidance,” he said, then smiled to soften the confession.

A breeze tugged at the tent flaps and brought the sound of laughter. For a moment, Ava felt the strangeness of being seen by a stranger and recognized anyway. It was like standing in front of a painting that insisted you had been the one it meant all along.

“Happy birthday, Ms. St. James,” he said, as if he had practiced the line on the walk over and then decided to say it plainly.

“Thank you, Marcus-for-now.”

He studied her face with the kind of attention people used to bring to prayer. “Wish,” he said.

“For?”

“For whatever you want that still believes in you.”

She pretended to consider, though the answer had been waiting by the door for years. “Peace that lasts longer than music,” she said.

He nodded, as if that were a recipe his father had taught him. “Good wish.”

“Your father taught you roses?” she asked.

His mouth did a private thing before it made a public one. “Yes,” he said. “He taught me the garden is the only argument you can win with patience.”

“Smart man.”

“He worked too hard,” Marcus added. “So I try not to.”

“And how’s that working?”

“Badly,” he admitted, and they both laughed.

When Ava returned to the tent, the family chorus had reorganized into a plan. Genevieve insisted on a toast before the official toast because she had purchased special napkins and did not pay for them to be ignored. Asher demanded the microphone, then talked himself into a sentimental corner and out of it with style. Ruth, Rory’s wife, moved through the crowd quietly, efficient, the way women do when they love a dream and the man attached to it and aren’t sure which requires more faith tonight.

“Ma,” Theo said, appearing at her elbow, his tie attempting mutiny. “You gotta meet the gardener. He’s got ideas, like, real ones. I told him about Uncle Rory’s expansion and the courtyard jazz concept. He said—well, he said some things I didn’t totally understand, but he sounded like he reads.”

Ava blinked. “Theo—”

“I know, I know, don’t pitch strangers. But sometimes strangers are just friends we haven’t embarrassed yet.”

He dragged her back toward the garden like a volunteer tide. Marcus turned at the same moment, as if the roses had whispered her arrival. Theo stuck out his hand.

“Sir,” he said, “not to be weird, but you ever think about how a rose bush is like a business? You prune, you water, you don’t scream at it for being a bush when you wanted a tree—you just build the trellis it needs.”

“That’s… not weird,” Marcus said, amused. “It’s good.”

“I knew it sounded smart,” Theo whispered aside to his mother, then louder to Marcus: “So my uncle’s restaurant—St. James Creole—has a courtyard in the back that used to be a smoking lot for regrets and broken resolutions. I want to turn it into live jazz and late-night desserts. We get tourists; we get the locals who like to pretend they don’t like tourists; we get the musicians who don’t want to play to tourists or locals but will absolutely play to the gumbo.”

“Sounds like you have a deck,” Marcus said.

“My brother has a deck,” Ava said. “Theo has a dream and a printer.”

Marcus smiled. “Dreams make better conversation.”

“See?” Theo said, triumphant. “He gets it.”

“Send the deck,” Marcus said, and Theo fumbled business cards like a magician who admired gravity.

“Wait,” Theo said, suspicious of luck. “You’re not just being nice because it’s my mama’s birthday, are you?”

“Birthdays deserve honesty,” Marcus said. “Send it. I’ll read it tonight.”

“Tonight?” Theo repeated, as if time had suddenly left him a note.

“Tonight,” Marcus confirmed.

Ava looked from one man to the other and wondered what arrangement of planets had decided to be kind to her family in this moment. Then Rory barreled into the scene with the urgency of a man who had just learned the oven was both too hot and not hot enough.

“We’re toasting,” he informed them. “I need my favorite sister and my second-favorite nephew—don’t make me choose in public—and whoever this kind gentleman is who’s keeping the roses from swallowing the cake table.”

“Marcus,” Marcus said.

“Marcus,” Rory repeated. “Thank you for the hospitality. Lovely place. If at any point you happen to trip over your boss, please inform him that a culinary revolution is being plated in our chafing dishes.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Marcus said, flawless.

They returned to the tent. Glass met glass. Toasts stacked like polite dominoes. Ava accepted compliments with the awkward grace of people who can dance but prefer to let the music speak first. She felt Marcus in the room without having to look; some presences introduce themselves to your nerves before your eyes are ready to file the paperwork.

When the official toast arrived, Rory banged his spoon against a glass in the traditional, unadvisable way. He cleared his throat, reconsidered clearing it, and then went ahead.

“My sister,” he said, “is proof that God loves a comeback.”

Laughter. Murmurs. A few soft “amens.” Rory’s voice grew steady.

“She taught me that love is not a lottery ticket. It’s a garden. You don’t win it—you tend it. And when frost takes it, you curse the sky, you brew some chicory, and you start again in spring.”

He looked toward Ava, who looked up at the tent ceiling because it was easier than looking at the people who loved her or the man who might.

“So,” Rory finished, “to spring. And to the stubborn gardeners who refuse to let beauty die. Happy birthday, Ava.”

They drank. Ava swallowed a small storm. She found Marcus at the edge of the tent, just inside the world, just outside the noise. He raised his glass toward her, the gesture almost invisible and therefore perfect. She returned it.

Later, as the band swung into a tune that made knees remember, Genevieve organized the nieces into a conga line and Asher attempted sustainability by dancing in place. Delphine arrived at Ava’s elbow with the particular smile of daughters who plan to offend and hug in the same breath.

“You look dangerous,” Delphine said.

“I look employed,” Ava answered. “By joy.”

Delphine’s gaze slid to the garden. “Who’s that? The plant whisperer?”

“Marcus,” Ava said.

Delphine observed him like a sister assessing a gift receipt. “Do I need to g****e him for felonies or wives?”

“You need to let your mother enjoy her birthday,” Ava said.

Delphine exhaled. “Okay, but if he turns out to be broke, married, or in a band, I reserve the right to say I told you so.”

“He’s in a garden,” Ava said. “That’s different.”

“Temporary,” Delphine countered, and went to dance.

Ava stayed by the flap of the tent, half inside, half out, where the rain softened the edges of the world. Marcus moved down the row of roses, trimming where necessary, encouraging where not. 

“Ms. St. James?” The planner reappeared, breathless with the news that desserts were ready to do the Lord’s work. “Your cake is a marvel.”

Ava nodded, but her attention strayed to the garden again, to the man who moved through it like a promise.

Across the tent, Theo tapped at his phone furiously and then stared at the sent message as if prayer could follow email. He drifted to the garden, drawn by a gravity he recognized now belonged to new beginnings.

“Mr. Marcus,” he said, startling the roses and no one else. “I sent it.”

“Good,” Marcus said.

“Can I ask you a dumb question?” Theo added. “Do you ever get afraid right before the good thing actually happens?”

“All the time,” Marcus said. “That’s how you know it matters.”

Theo nodded like someone who had been handed a small torch. “Thanks.”

He went back into the tent and left Marcus alone with the rain and the thought of a woman who wore seventy like silk.

Marcus touched a bloom that had taken the storm personally and whispered something his father used to say when weather did its worst: “We bend. We don’t break.”

Inside, as the band took a breath and the crowd turned toward a fresh song, the power flickered. The tent gasped, then laughed when the lights returned brighter than before. Ava looked up as if to thank whatever ran electricity and mercy. When she lowered her gaze, Marcus was standing just at the opening, a silhouette with rain on his shoulders and the softest smile waiting its turn.

“Dance?” he asked.

Ava’s heart did a small, skeptical pirouette. “With a stranger?”

“With a gardener,” he said.

“With just Marcus,” she corrected.

“For now,” he agreed.

She stepped toward him and discovered that even after four broken promises, her feet remembered how to be brave.

Ava stepped closer. The band’s rhythm filtered through the tent—horns flirting with laughter—and she realized the rain had stopped. Marcus held out his hand. “Just one song,” he said.

She laughed softly. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I think I do.”

Her fingers rested in his, and the moment was quieter than the weather. They began to move, slow and sure, and the grass whispered under their shoes. It wasn’t the graceful waltz of youth; it was the practiced rhythm of two people who had already fallen, gotten up, and learned to keep time with the ache.

“Careful,” she murmured, “you’ll ruin your reputation as a gardener.”

“I’m a gardener,” he said, “not a saint.”

Ava smiled and let him draw her closer. The scent of roses rose between them, lush and knowing.

Inside the tent, Genevieve spotted them through the flap and gasped like gossip had paid her rent. “Would you look at that—our sister’s out there waltzing with the help!”

Asher leaned over, squinting through his bifocals. “If that’s the help, we need to tip him double.”

“Lord have mercy,” Genevieve said, already grinning. “Rory! Ruth! Our sister’s getting her groove back!”

Music shifted, laughter followed, and a few guests hurried toward the entrance. Ava stepped back just in time to see her family pretending they weren’t staring.

Marcus bowed slightly. “Happy birthday, Ms. St. James.”

“Thank you, Marcus.”

She started to retreat toward the tent. Genevieve met her halfway, all curiosity and perfume. “Who was that?”

“A gardener,” Ava said, nonchalantly.

“Mm-hmm.” Genevieve folded her arms. “You sure he’s not the gift?”

Rory appeared, balancing a plate and disapproval. “Don’t start, Genny.”

“I’m not starting,” Genevieve said. “I’m observing.”

Ava sighed. “You’re both exhausting.”

The planner announced that dessert was ready, which distracted them long enough for Marcus to disappear into the darkness like a polite dream.

Theo, still lit from his chat, told anyone near: “That gardener thinks like a manager—prune or it collapses.”

Asher waved a fork. “Ain’t no sermons in pruning, Rory. That’s wisdom.”

Genevieve leaned in. “I’m telling y’all, he’s not just some gardener. He got presence. The kind of presence that makes you sit up straight and question your life choices.”

Willie Lee chuckled. “Woman, you’d question your life choices over a good piece of cornbread.”

Genevieve pointed her fork at him. “And don’t you forget it.”

The laughter was loud enough to make Ava’s chest ache in the best way. This was her family—flawed, noisy, loving. She wouldn’t trade them for peace on her richest day.

Still, when the night ended, she found herself standing alone in the garden again. The rain had left diamonds on every petal. She brushed one rose with her fingertips. “Thank you for the dance,” she whispered.

From behind her came a low voice. “Anytime.”

She turned, startled. Marcus was there again, jacket draped over one arm, shirt sleeves rolled.

“You move quietly for a man that tall.”

“Old habit,” he said. “I like to watch people before I join them.”

Ava tilted her head. “That sounds dangerous.”

“Only if you get caught.”

She smiled despite herself. “Well, you’re caught.”

“Then I’ll consider it a good night.”

Their silence settled like warmth. Somewhere, the band played its last chord.

Marcus nodded toward the driveway. “Your car’s waiting.”

“I know.”

“Will you come back to see the garden when it’s dry?”

Ava hesitated. “You always invite strangers to your roses?”

“Only the ones who look like they could teach them something.”

She chuckled. “You’re smooth, Marcus.”

“Just honest,” he said.

She left him there under the soft glow of string lights, wondering if honesty was the new charm.

The next morning, sunlight spilled through Ava’s kitchen, and Ruth was already seated with coffee and opinions.

“Girl,” Ruth said, “you were floating last night.”

“I was dancing.”

“With purpose,” Ruth teased. “Who was he?”

“A gardener.”

Ruth smirked. “And I’m the Queen of France.”

“He is,” Ava insisted, pouring herself coffee. “A gardener with very nice manners.”

“And arms.”

Ava nearly choked. “Ruth!”

“Don’t you ‘Ruth’ me,” she said. “At seventy, you’re allowed to notice arms again. You done paid your dues.”

Ava shook her head, laughing. “You and Genny should start a gossip column.”

“Wouldn’t need to,” Ruth said. “You, St. James women, provide all the content.”

As they talked, the doorbell rang. Ava answered it, expecting flowers, maybe another delivery mix-up. Instead, a courier stood holding a small white box tied with a green ribbon.

“From the du Prée Estate, ma’am,” he said.

Ava opened it at the table. Inside lay a single white rose, still dewy, and a folded note.

Thank you for the dance. — Marcus

Ruth whistled. “Oh, this ain’t no gardener.”

Ava smiled down at the rose, heart-warming in slow degrees. “I’m starting to suspect that.”

Across town, in a sleek office overlooking the San Gabriel Mountains, Marcus du Prée stepped out of his elevator into a world of glass and silence. His assistant, Cameron, looked up in mild shock. “Sir, I didn’t expect you so early.”

“Neither did I,” Marcus said, shrugging into a blazer.

Cameron handed him a stack of reports. “You have calls with Singapore and London, and your mother has left three messages.”

“Of course she has,” Marcus muttered. “Any sign of my aunt yet?”

“She’s already in your office,” Cameron said apologetically.

Marcus sighed. Mabel du Prée was a hurricane with pearls. She turned from the window as he entered, voice already mid-storm. “Three years since your father passed, Marcus, and you’re still hiding in the dirt. You are not a gardener. You are the head of MAX Holdings.”

“Morning to you, too, Aunt Mabel.”

She ignored him. “Do you know what your father built? What people expect from the du Prée name?”

“Yes. Which is exactly why I need to breathe before I choke on it.”

Mabel narrowed her eyes. “You think trimming roses makes you free? It makes you ridiculous.”

“Better ridiculous than resentful.”

Before Mabel could retort, Marvella du Prée, his mother, entered with quiet grace that filled the room faster than Mabel’s volume. “That’s enough, Mabel. Let the boy be.”

Marcus kissed her cheek. “Morning, Mother.”

Marvella studied his face. “You’ve been in the garden again.”

“Guilty.”

“Your father would approve,” she said softly, “if you didn’t use it as an excuse to avoid the living.”

Marcus leaned on the desk. “I met someone last night.”

Mabel groaned. “Of course you did.”

Marvella’s brow lifted. “Someone… interesting?”

He hesitated, then smiled. “Very.”

“Name?”

“Ava St. James.”

Mabel froze mid-complaint. “St. James? As in that Creole family with the restaurant? Lord, they’re chaos in a cast-iron skillet.”

Marvella hid a smile. “She made an impression, didn’t she?”

Marcus looked out the window at the city below. “She reminded me that some people still live like the sun is personal.”

His mother’s eyes softened. “Then maybe you’ve finally found a reason to come out of the garden.”

Back in New Orleans, Rory’s kitchen smelled like ambition and garlic. Theo was talking fast, words tumbling over hope.

“I swear, Uncle Rory, the gardener said, send the deck. He gave me his card. I emailed it. It didn’t bounce. That’s practically destiny!”

Rory waved a spoon. “You trust emails now? Boy, if destiny had an inbox, it’d be full of spam.”

“Uncle, come on—this could be big. Expansion money, new courtyard, live jazz!”

Ruth placed her hand on Rory’s shoulder. “Let him dream, love. You were his age once.”

Rory chuckled. “At his age, I was washing dishes and dreaming of sleep.”

Theo grinned. “And now you’re washing success.”

Ruth laughed. “Lord, he’s good.”

That afternoon, Ava walked in, still holding her rose. Rory’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that?”

“A flower.”

“From who?”

“A friend.”

He pointed with the spoon. “You make that face every time you call a man a friend. Next thing you know, he’s family or in hiding.”

“Maybe both,” Ava said.

Theo leaned forward. “Is it the gardener?”

Rory frowned. “Gardener?”

Ava ignored them and went to hang her coat. “You all gossip worse than the church choir.”

Ruth leaned close to Rory. “She’s glowing. Let her be.”

Rory sighed. “Glowing leads to trouble.”

“Then let her have a little,” Ruth said.

Ava turned. “What are you two whispering about?”

“Nothing,” they said in harmony.

She shook her head, smiling.

That evening, Ava placed the rose in a vase beside her bed. She touched the petal once and whispered, “Let’s see where this goes.”

Somewhere, Marcus was thinking the same thing.

He sat in his study at the du Prée estate. On the desk, a tumbler of bourbon waited beside a single white rose—the twin of the one he’d sent Ava. He wasn’t sure why he’d done it.  Maybe it was the first time in three years he’d wanted someone to know where to find him.

His phone buzzed. Mother.

He smiled before answering. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Marvella’s voice came soft and steady, “No mother sleeps when her son starts acting mysterious again. You met a woman, didn’t you?”

He leaned back, pretending the chair was an ally. “You’re psychic.”

“I’m observant,” she said. “Is she kind?”

“She’s alive,” Marcus answered. “In every way a person can be.”

Marvella paused, hearing what he didn’t say. “Then don’t talk yourself out of it. You’re too much like your father that way—always afraid joy will notice you and leave.”

He laughed softly. “Maybe this time, I’ll notice it first.”

From the hall came the sound of Mabel’s heels. “If you’re whispering about women, at least pour me a drink!” she shouted.

Marcus ended the call, shaking his head. Mabel burst in without invitation, dressed in a silk robe and self-importance. “So, the rumors are true—you’re smiling again. Dangerous. Smiling men buy rings.”

“Goodnight, Aunt Mabel.”

“Goodnight nothing,” she said, plopping into a chair. “Tell me, is she young?”

“Not particularly.”

“Beautiful?”

“Absolutely.”

Mabel smirked. “Then she’ll be trouble. Beautiful women past forty know what they want, and men who aren’t ready for that should invest in running shoes.”

Marcus smiled. “Maybe I’m tired of running.”

Mabel blinked, seeing something in his eyes that startled her into quiet. “Well,” she said finally, “at least pick one who can cook.”

The St. James siblings gathered for their ritual Sunday brunch. The kitchen was the kind of loud that made walls proud. Rory flipped beignets with military precision; Asher argued with the coffee maker; Genevieve hummed gospel under her breath while side-eyeing everyone’s choices.

“So,” Genevieve said finally, “who’s the mysterious man who got my sister smiling like she found her twenties in a thrift store?”

Ava didn’t look up from her plate. “You all have too much time.”

“Don’t deflect,” Asher said, robe tied like a flag of persistence. “That man was fine. I saw him. Even the roses stood taller when he passed.”

Rory groaned. “Lord, here we go.”

Genevieve smirked. “We’re just saying, Ava. After J.B., we thought you retired from the field.”

That name made the room shift. Theo coughed. Ruth muttered, “Here it comes…”

Ava set down her fork. “Don’t start.”

The room tensed at J.B.’s name. Asher lifted a hand—then thought better of it. Genevieve rolled her eyes, Ruth changed the subject, and the moment passed with a collective breath.

Rory banged the counter for percussion. “But it was our wedding day—”

“It wasn’t even your wedding!” Ava protested, laughing despite herself.

“Still ruined the weekend!” Genevieve belted.

Even Ruth joined, spinning a spoon like a microphone. “J.B. hit the gumbo pot—”

“Ruth!” Ava gasped, half laughing, half scandalized.

The whole kitchen erupted. By the time they finished, Ava was crying with laughter, shoulders shaking, stomach aching.

When the noise faded, Rory poured mimosas for everyone and raised his glass. “To Ava St. James,” he said, voice rich with affection. “Four husbands, zero regrets, one new smile. May whatever this is be gentler than the last one.”

“Amen,” said Genevieve, clinking glasses.

“Amen,” said Ava, eyes soft.

That night, when the house fell quiet, Ava sat on her porch under the Louisiana moon. The magnolias hummed with the night breeze, and the scent of rain lingered on the air. She thought of Marcus—of his steady hands, the warmth behind his reserve, the look he gave her like she was something blooming out of season.

Inside, her phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number:

Ava smiled, feeling her pulse dance to the rhythm of possibility.

“Lord,” she murmured, “I was just getting comfortable.”

The moonlight brushed her shoulders like a benediction, and for the first time in years, Ava St. James allowed herself to imagine a beginning that didn’t apologize for being late.