She laughs softly, her cheeks turning pink. “Thank you.”
The light from the ceiling catches her eyes—green and gold, alive. She’s still wearing her scarf, still glowing from the cold, but she looks different here. Grounded. This is the version of her I think I love most—the one that doesn’t try to be anyone’s muse or miracle. The one that builds beauty with her own hands.
When she pauses for breath, I step behind her, letting my hand rest gently at the small of her back. “You’re incredible, you know that?”
She looks up at me, surprised. “For what?”
“For this. For all of it.” I look down into her glowing eyes. “I’m proud of you angel.”
She blinks at me, and for a second the shine in her eyes looks like reflection from the lights. Her breath catches, and she presses the heel of her palm against her mouth like she’s trying to stop the emotion before it spills.
“Don’t cry angel,” I whisper cupping her cheeks and wiping her tears away with my thumb.
“It’s happy tears,” she whispers, grabbing my wrist. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
She pulls me through the narrow hall at the back of the gallery, past half-finished canvases leaning against the wall and a table littered with brushes, jars of pigment, and a mug stained with paintwater. The air smells like linseed oil and rosemary soap, like creation caught mid-breath.
At the end of the hall, she stops in front of a covered frame resting on its easel. Her fingers tremble slightly as she takes the corner of the drape and glances at me over her shoulder. “You’re the first to see it.”
She pulls the cloth away.
The canvas beneath steals the air straight from my chest.
It’s a winter landscape—bare branches, soft snow, a path that begins in shades of black and gray and gradually blooms intocolor. From one edge to the other, the world transforms—ashen sky to dawn, frost to thaw, emptiness to light. It feels alive, as though if you stood too close, the paint would warm beneath your breath.
The title scrawled in her careful handwriting at the bottom corner reads:Path to Happiness.
I step closer, eyes tracing the way she’s layered texture into the snow, how the strokes shift from sharp to tender, how the horizon seems to hum. “It’s beautiful,” I smile, my voice coming out as faint as a breath. “Like you caught hope in motion.”
She exhales a soft laugh, still watching my face instead of the painting. “It’s missing something.”
I look at her, brow raised. “What?”
Her smile is small but sure. “You.”
Before I can answer, she steps closer and takes my hand, guiding me toward the canvas. “All the kids, Damien, Vincent—they each added something.” She points to the petals scattered across the base of the painting, soft bursts of color layered over the snow. “Fingerprints,” she says. “Each of them made one. A mark of their place in our story.”
I study them—tiny, uneven prints in a riot of color. The girls’ petals are pale and delicate, Damien’s streak bold and blue, Vincent’s subtle, steady, gold. Every one of them stitched into the path she’s painted, turning a landscape into something alive.
My throat goes tight. “You’ve been working on this for a while.”
She nods. “Since last winter.”
I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. “It’s perfect, angel.”
“Not yet,” she murmurs. She reaches for a small dish of paint on the table beside her—rust red, flecked with bronze. “It’s waiting for you.”
She holds it out, and I hesitate, caught between pride and disbelief. “You’re sure?”
Her smile softens. “You’re part of this family too, Cast. You always have been.”
The words find their way under every layer of armor I’ve ever built. I swallow hard, then slip off my gloves. My hands are cold, rough from travel and work, but she doesn’t look away.
I dip my thumb into the paint, the texture smooth and cool against my skin. Then I press my thumb gently to the canvas, just beside the others. The color blooms against the white like a small fire.
When I pull back, she studies it and smiles. “Now it’s complete.”
She rises on her toes and kisses me softly, pulling at the collar of my jacket to draw me in closer and closer.
