She doesn’t hesitate or wait for permission. She simply steps over Owen and runs across the couch—something I’ve fuss at her for countless times—and launches herself into his waiting arms.
He catches her without missing a beat, holding her close like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Pine and cinnamon drift across the air, almost like the house is quietly celebrating this moment too.
I press my hand to my chest and keep my distance, watching our daughter claim the man I’ve always loved as her father. And it feels every bit as wonderful as I imagined it would.
Even better when I let myself sit in the moment.
I have many fractured beliefs I’ve learned over the years. And I’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying to fix the moments that break, rather than just letting myself experience them.
Some of it was hiding, but most of it was trying to readjust so we could find the course.
The marriage clause was the antithesis of everything I believed. Control dressed up as certainty. It forced me to pretty much abandon every plan I made and step into an entirely new world that made me uncomfortable.
It didn’t follow the map I created, and it especially didn’t do it in the “right” order. But the endgame is still the same.
Maybe going back to Texas is about more than choosing something for myself. Maybe it’s my chance to lay the old lies down and walk toward the life that’s already here, waiting for me to claim it.
And that might be the scariest realization so far.
forty-six
AIDEN
The last timemy world flipped on its axis to this degree, I learned both my parents were gone.
It doesn’t matter that I haven’t physically lost anyone. Chloe is still here, upstairs with Phoebe. But she’s quietly folded into herself all night, shrinking to a version of herself that worries me.
It’s a coping mechanism, I’m sure. The safety net that propelled us into this marriage just dissolved. It’s reframing everything we’ve built here, and that takes adjustment.
I’ve fully embraced every choice I've made, because every step has paved the way to forever with Chloe. But I’m not sure if she’s realized she was also doing the same.
Not yet.
Evie and Owen are still on the couch after I come back downstairs. Chloe wanted to snuggle with Phoebe, and I sense that’s a familiar instinct, too. It’s been the two of them longer than it’s been the two of us.
Patience is the only way we’ll survive this.
Frozen still flickers across the screen in the living room, Owen and Evie exactly where we left them. They don’t need to say anything. That’s enough. In roughly six weeks, Phoebe has enamored every single one of us, and the space is too quiet right now.
Bedtime usually feels like a button on the end of a long day, but tonight it feels like a zipper that’s gone off-track.
Somewhere deep in the house, a floorboard settles with a soft creak.
I never imagined I’d get so used to the clatter of pans and singing extremely off-key to the point that I’d prefer it to silence.
“I hate this,” Owen mutters, like he can’t stand it either.
Evie flicks a lazy wrist toward the television. “I told you to turn it off.”
“Not the movie.” He smacks her with a pillow. “Can’t you just remove the ice queen mask for five seconds and admit this sucks?”
She turns to him, and for a second, as her blue eyes flash, I think I’m going to have to hurl myself between them and run interference. But she doesn’t lash out.
“Of course it does,” she snaps. “I feel like my best friend broke up with me. Even though she’ll be back—eventually.” She jabs a finger in my direction. “Nothing from you.”
I hold my hands up in surrender. “Wasn’t about to argue,” I say, quietly.
