I excused myself to search for her, and couldn’t help the stupid smile on my face when I found her on our back porch, looking at the dark silhouette of the mountain.
"Escaping your own party?" I asked, wrapping my arms around her from behind.
"Just taking a moment." She leaned back against my chest. "It's a lot."
"Good a lot or bad a lot?"
"The best a lot." She turned in my arms to face me. "I keep waiting for the panic to come. The fear. But it's just... quiet."
"Still scared sometimes?"
"Always," she admitted. "But it doesn't paralyze me anymore. Now it just means I have things worth protecting."
The sliding door opened, and Sarah padded out in her pajamas, the flower girl dress traded for unicorn-printed flannel.
"What are you doing?" she demanded.
"Being romantic," I said.
"Gross."
"Very gross," Emma agreed.
Sarah climbed onto the porch swing between us, wedging herself into the middle like she belonged there. Which she did.
"Tell me a story," she requested, yawning. "About my first mom. When she was brave."
I put my arm around her, drawing her close. The old grief was still there, but it was no longer a sharp wound, just a gentle ache that reminded me of how much I'd loved my sister.
"She was the most adventurous person I knew," I said. "She wasn't afraid of much. She wanted you to know the world is big and beautiful, and that being curious is the best way to live in it."
"Emma is brave too," Sarah said, looking up at Emma with sleepy adoration. "She was scared of the mountain, but she climbed it. That's really cool."
"The coolest," Emma agreed, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
Later, after Sarah was tucked into bed and the last guests had left, Emma sat on our bed flipping through a magazine she'd grabbed from the coffee table.
"Listen to this," she said, a smile playing on her lips. "'Literary Award Winner Patrick Reid Slams Penelope Carter's Bestselling Romance as Sugar-Coated Drivel.' There's a whole book world feud happening, and we've been too busy getting married to notice."
"Shocking," I said, not remotely interested.
"Apparently, he called her writing 'garbage and an insult to literature.'"
"Scandalous."
Emma looked up at me, eyes dancing with amusement. "Are you even listening?"
I took the magazine from her hands and set it on the nightstand. "We could focus on more important things," I said, leaning in to brush my lips against hers.
"Like what?"
"Like the fact that I just married the most amazing woman in the world." I kissed the corner of her smile. "And we have the rest of our lives to read about literary feuds."
She laughed, free and full and joyful, and let me pull her close.
Through the window, the mountain rose against the stars, steady and eternal.
No longer a monster.
