Page 99 of The Best Trick

It was too late to call my sisters, but it’s the first thing I planned to do.

Tomorrow we would rejoin the world.

ONE YEAR LATER

One year later

Flower garlands decorated the entryway to the Severride Fine Arts Gallery in downtown Los Angeles. It was a sprawling place on the top floor of a historic building. There were several verandas and a rooftop entertainment area.

Vanessa ran up and pulled me over to one of the cheese and wine stations. Because of course, what could go better with an art exhibition than the best cheese in the land?

“What? It looks perfect,” I said.

“I feel like we're going to run out of the gouda,” she said.

“You worry too much!” said Kaitlin, coming up to join us, pulling Candace by her purse strap. “Plus, if we run out, it will just make people want to buy more for themselves.”

I looked at my three beautiful sisters, wanting everything perfect for our big night. I couldn't believe how lucky I was. “I missed you guys so much,” I said.

“Not this again,” Candace moaned.

“Yes, this again,” I said. “And again and again and again.”

Waiters were beginning to circulate with trays full of drinks.

“I’m so sorry for all that I missed,” I said.

“You protected us,” Vanessa said, taking a champagne. “If you hadn't done what you did, we would have lost the farm.”

“Yeah, you didn't just protect us, you showed us how to follow our hearts. You showed us how to fight for love,” Candace said with all the idealism and confidence of a college sophomore. But I suppose she was right.

Fighting for love.

You can’t do better than that. I waved away the champagne and grabbed a flute of orange juice.

Needless to say, I'd hopped a plane to Wisconsin as soon as our paperwork for immunity had been officially filed. Walking in that farmhouse front door as a free woman, it was an experience I'll never forget. I think we might have spent an hour just screaming and crying and laughing together.

I couldn't get enough of hanging out there in the days the followed. My guys came by a week later and we worked on the farm. I wanted to do everything—fix the fences, knit with Vanessa, hear about Candace’s classes over big juicy mushroom burgers. I even drove Kaitlin to the University of Madison and helped her set up her new dorm room.

The settlement we'd gotten from the government really was huge. I think they were just relieved that we didn't sue them.

Thor had taken a big chunk of his part of the settlement and created a state-of-the-art free community clinic in downtown L.A. I've never seen him happier than when he was interacting with people and improving lives. His amazing clinic was able to attract some of the top doctors and specialists across the nation, plus lots of big donors. He was in heaven.

I’d asked him one day out on the beach if he thought about going back overseas to work as a volunteer doctor again.

“Maybe,” he’d told me, “for a short amount of time, not months on end like before. It was okay the first time around because I didn't have a family. Now I do.”

Thor and I strolled around the gallery greeting old friends and looking at the massive canvases that Odin had painted. We’d built an addition onto the hills hideaway where the four of us lived, creating a huge bright studio for him to work in. His studio had so many windows, it was almost like a greenhouse, and he took to painting in there like a madman, creating this amazing, colorful body of work. He also continued to tinker with his tech inventions, of course, being the ultimate Renaissance man.

The four of us had taken a trip out to Rabat, Morocco, where Odin had grown up. We met his extended family and visited his childhood home. We had hosted one of his Moroccan nephews recently, a handsome, curly-haired boy who was clearly going to grow up as devastatingly handsome as his uncle.

The gallery doors weren't officially open yet, but lots of familiar faces were starting to appear. Sue from the Airbnb already had dibs on one of Odin’s paintings—we'd let her in early. We’d felt bad when we found out how many dogs-playing-pool pictures she’d purchased because of us.

The Gigis were out on the veranda, dripping with jewels. They were frequent fixtures at the house, and the four of us women had a standing date for yoga class. Some of the Guvveys gang had already shown, including Bentley, Stamos Strong, and even Matteo. The Gigis promised to make Matteo do a robot dance later.

I caught sight of Zeus across the room in his tuxedo. I waved and he strolled over and kissed me. “You’re not overexerting yourself, I hope,” he said.

“Yeah, this diamond tiara is so heavy on my head. How do I carry this weight one step further?” I joked.

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