My parents arrive together, my mother immediately making a beeline for Sabrina like gravity pulled her there. I watch from across the room as she takes Sabrina’s hands, her face lighting up, her posture softening in a way I don’t see often. They’ve been meeting for lunch for weeks now—planning, brainstorming, building this thing together—and it shows.
They look like family.
My mother says something that makes Sabrina laugh, and the sound cuts straight through me.
That’s when it hits me—quiet, undeniable.
This isn’t just an event.
It’s a life.
One Sabrina is building with intention and heart and a stubborn refusal to be small.
I didn’t give her this.
I didn’t create her.
I just had the sense not to stand in her way—and the privilege of standing beside her now.
She catches my eye from across the room, her smile soft and knowing, and for a moment everything else fades.
I lift my glass slightly in her direction.
You did this, I think.
And for the first time in my life, success doesn’t feel like something I conquered.
It feels like something I get to witness.
It hits me out of nowhere.
Not like a slow realization. Not like something I can logic my way into.
It’s a truth that lands fully formed in my chest and steals the air from my lungs.
I love my wife.
The thought is so sudden, so complete, that I actually still. Like if I move, it might disappear. I watch Sabrina across the room—how she leans in to listen, how she touches someone’s arm when she thanks them, how her smile softens when a single mother tells her what this night means.
And I know.
Not want.
Not desire.
Not obligation.
Love.
The kind that settles in your bones and rewires your priorities without asking permission.
I’m so caught in it that I don’t even register the presence beside me until a hand slides onto my arm.
I glance down.
Of course.
It’s the woman from her father’s team.
