The Someday Garden

Sophie joins Juliette, Oliver, Eula, and Wykofski to test the fairy lights Wykofski has installed in the Willow Grove for the party. Although everyone is delighted with the results, Sophie remains consumed by her fear that she will fail to save Rus. She excuses herself and returns to her cottage, where she turns to Harrie’s Magic 8 Ball for guidance.

Eula arrives unexpectedly with a bottle of wine to celebrate Sophie’s hard work over the summer. While they sit on a bench outside, Eula confides in Sophie that she grew tired of her nephews being at odds, and that the bicentennial and inheritance announcement were designed to bring them back together. She and Henry had always intended to leave Lilymoor to both of them.

Eula hopes Cyrus will rediscover his love for Lilymoor and recognize that he deserves to return. As they toast to life, Sophie imagines for the first time what it might mean to remain at Lilymoor permanently. She thinks of the gardens and people she has come to love.

On the morning of the bicentennial, Sophie once again fails to find the garden door. She accompanies a nervous Eula on a walk through the Hedges, where Eula admits that, although she is exhausted, she fears retiring because she does not know who she will be without Lilymoor. Sophie reminds her that the estate’s community will continue to care for her and that she need not face the future alone.

Moved by their conversation, Eula gives Sophie a skeleton key on a necklace, a gift from her late husband, and formally asks her to stay on as head gardener for another season. Before Sophie can respond, they return to the manor and encounter Cyrus, who has arrived early for the celebration. Unlike the warm, affectionate Rus that Sophie knows from the garden, this Cyrus is distant, formal, and absorbed in his work. When Damnit the goose attacks him on the veranda steps, his glasses fall from his breast pocket, and Sophie grabs them before the goose can, inadvertently recreating an encounter Rus previously described. Before leaving, Cyrus tells Sophie to read her new employment contract on Eula’s desk.

Upstairs, Sophie finds the contract, which offers improved pay and benefits. Beside it, however, she finds Eula’s will and a note from Cyrus’s attached to a willow cutting. Cyrus has removed himself from the inheritance, naming Oliver the sole beneficiary. Unsettled by this, Sophie leaves the contract unsigned.

As the party begins, Sophie is surprised by the arrival of her mother and her stepfather, Eddie, who have driven up in an RV. Their reunion is interrupted when Juliette appears in a panic, unable to find Oliver anywhere. Sophie’s mother mentions she saw a blond man—Oliver—heading into the gardens with a tall, redheaded man she found very charming—Cyrus.

Realizing the two are together, Sophie fears Cyrus will find the garden and become trapped in it. She rushes into the grounds to stop him. She finds Oliver alone and angry in the Hedges, complaining that Cyrus walked off after a brief, disappointing conversation, leaving their estrangement unresolved. Sophie frantically searches the maze for Cyrus. As golden hour begins, the blue door appears before her, but a cloud covers the sun and the door vanishes before she can reach it, leaving her to believe she has failed.

Devastated, Sophie collapses and cries in the Hedges. Wykofski finds her, places a flower crown on her head, and gives her a comforting hug. This kindness finally breaks through her emotional defenses, and Sophie allows herself to cry openly over Harrie’s death. Sophie reflects on how she suppressed her grief since the funeral, afraid that without Harrie to help her, she would never be able to put herself back together.

After comforting her, Wykofski casually mentions that unusually abundant honeysuckle vines have sprung up out of nowhere right in the middle of the Central Garden, near the large oak tree. Sophie initially dismisses the observation and accompanies him to the bicentennial celebration. There, she watches the townspeople enjoy the gardens, sees Oliver and Juliette dancing, and receives encouragement from her mother.

During her retirement speech, Eula acknowledges that grief kept Lilymoor from changing after Henry’s death. She thanks Sophie for restoring the estate and recalls Henry’s belief that gardens must continually grow and change. She also reflects on her husband’s philosophy that “all paths will lead you back home” (342). Reflecting on those words, Sophie suddenly realizes where the Someday Garden must be hidden. She races from the celebration, determined to find a sledgehammer.

Sophie grabs a sledgehammer and smashes through a stone wall covered in honeysuckle vines in the middle of the Central Garden. As she works, she reflects on how she has tried to contain her grief for Harrie, recognizing that preserving someone’s memory means sharing their stories rather than keeping them hidden. When the wall finally collapses, Sophie discovers the real blue door. Using the skeleton key Eula gave her, she unlocks it and steps inside.

Unlike the flourishing garden where she visited Rus, the real garden is overgrown and unfinished, with no willow tree, gazebo, or cultivated flower beds. Sophie finds Cyrus asleep beneath a thicket of flowering honeysuckle vines. He awakens, recognizing her immediately, and they embrace and kiss. Although the garden’s magical change has reversed itself, Cyrus considers the time he spent restoring it worthwhile because he shared it with Sophie.

Oliver, who followed Sophie from the celebration, enters the garden and punches Cyrus in the jaw. Cyrus accepts the blow, acknowledging that his decision to remove himself from Eula’s inheritance was hurtful. When his phone rings with a call from his client, Cyrus ignores it, choosing to stay with Sophie. She places her flower crown on his head, and they leave the garden together to rejoin the party.

Sophie and Cyrus leave the party at midnight and return to her cottage, where they make love. The next morning, Sophie tells Cyrus she loves him and wants to stay at Lilymoor, but only if he is part of her life there. Cyrus reciprocates her feelings, although he insists that he must first resolve his differences with Oliver.

When Oliver arrives at the cottage to say goodbye to Sophie, assuming she is leaving, he discovers Cyrus there. Cyrus apologizes for changing the will, explaining that he believed Oliver would be better suited to manage Lilymoor alone. Oliver rejects this reasoning, insisting that he only wants to inherit Lilymoor if they can do it together, as they had planned when they were younger. To Oliver’s surprise, Cyrus agrees, and the two reconcile with a hug. They leave together to speak with Eula about their new arrangement, while Sophie watches them go, relieved that their long-standing estrangement has finally ended.

While seeking refuge from Damnit the goose in the Hedges, Sophie sits on a familiar stone bench. She suddenly hears Harrie’s voice from 10 years in the past, as if she is calling to her from the other side of the hedge. Sophie realizes she is hearing an “echo” of their visit to Lilymoor 10 years earlier, when they became separated in the maze and Harrie claimed to have heard the voice of her true love.

Sophie speaks briefly with Harrie, expressing her gratitude for their time together. Before the voice fades, she asks Harrie to remind her of the word for waking early to listen to birdsong. Harrie identifies it as the Swedish word gökotta. Sophie tells Harrie she loves her, and Harrie responds in kind before disappearing into the past.

Sophie remains on the bench, allowing herself to cry and reflecting on how her grief has changed. Although she will always miss Harrie, she recognizes that the emptiness left by her death has gradually become a place where new love and happiness can grow.

She rejoins Rus, who can see she has been crying. She tells him about gökotta, recalling their earlier conversation from inside the garden. He suggests they spend their future mornings together, listening to the birds and planting a willow tree in the real Someday Garden. Rus also considers changing his legal career to allow more time at Lilymoor. AS they imagine the years ahead, he tells Sophie that he wants to grow old with her, and she embraces the possibility of a shared future.

The epilogue recounts the years after the bicentennial. Rus moves into the cottage with Sophie that autumn, gradually spending less time working and more time enjoying the garden. As the seasons pass, their relationship eventually leads to a marriage proposal. Meanwhile, Juliette and Oliver leave Lilymoor for a road trip, and Wykofski falls in love with a touring harmonica player from Idaho and departs to pursue a new adventure.

Sophie and Rus remain at Lilymoor, as does Eula, who lives another 10 years before passing away peacefully in her sleep. The couple eventually building the gazebo they dreamed of in the Someday Garden, as Henry’s unfinished project becomes a permanent part of the estate.

Although Sophie never hears Harriett’s voice again, she continues to honor her friend’s memory. The magical experiences that once defined her relationship with Lilymoor become less important than the life she and Rus have built together. They continue falling in love with one another through the changing seasons, “in that someday garden on the cliffs by the sea” (369).