She shivers. “Your policies are very thorough.”
“Always.”
She tips my jaw back up with a finger. “Also—and I’m just brainstorming here, don’t panic—Axelle.”
I pretend to think, then deadpan, “Approved.”
“Stop.” She laughs into my mouth when I kiss her. “We are not naming our daughter after you.”
“It’s a strong name.”
“It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.”
“Firefly?” I offer, because her eyes do that thing when she’s happy.
“Now you’re just trying to seduce me.”
“It working?”
“Yes,” she says simply, and heat sweeps the room in a way the hearth can’t compete with.
I set the photo carefully on the coffee table, the way you set a lantern down on a night trail—deliberate, with respect—and pull her into me like gravity met its match. The kiss starts soft because that’s the only way to hold this much, then deepens because I don’t know any other way to tell her what the ultrasound took out of me and filled me with. Her hands go under my sweatshirt, palms flat to my back, and for a heartbeat I’m not a hero or a husband or a man who survived a fire. I’m just a person who gets to love her without apology.
“Axel,” she breathes when I slow us down again, mouths barely apart. “We’re really doing this.”
“We always were,” I say, forehead to hers. “We just didn’t know which page we were on.”
She smiles and it’s the one that gets me—bright, a little feral, a lot free. “You’re going to be ridiculous.”
“I’m going to be lethal.” I tip my head, meet her eyes. “I’m going to build railings on every surface. I’m going to research car seats like a psycho. I’m going to invent a new smoke detector that also sings lullabies.”
She laughs so hard she wheezes. “Please don’t.”
“I’m going to carry you when you pretend you’re not tired.”
“You do that anyway.”
“I’m going to put a bassinet in every room.”
“I want one on the porch.”
“Done.” I trace her lower lip with my thumb. “I’m going to teach our kid how to listen to the river and how to come home when the mountain calls.”
She swallows. Her fingers curl at my nape. “I’m going to teach them how to run toward people who need help and how to stop when they’ve given enough. I’m going to teach them that joy is a skill.”
“We’ll show them,” I say. “We won’t just tell them.”
She nods, misted eyes steady. “Read one old letter. Write a new one. That’s going to be our parenting plan too, isn’t it?”
“Rituals and fire safety,” I agree. “And breakfast tacos.”
“God, marry me.”
“Already did,” I remind her, and she kisses me for it, happy and hungry.
When we finally peel ourselves off the couch, the room feels different. Not bigger. Truer. I tuck the ultrasound into the shadowbox behind the front layer of letters, not hidden, not front and center—just there, where it belongs, the newest pagejoining the stack. Savannah watches, arms folded, that crooked grin I’d go to war for curving her mouth.
I step back. We take it in together: the box, the fire, the river outside moving like a long, slow word. The past is present, but it’s not the loudest voice anymore.
