There’s a beat before she does. Like she wants to hold on to this moment with me. I step between her thighs, holding her face as she lies flat. “Thank you for staying. For saving me. For your stubbornness, for the rest of my life.”
She looks at me like she’s ready to say the same. But tonight isn’t about what we’ve overcome, our battles or our scars, or even our losses. It’s about what we’ve found. A new home, a new family. And a forever neither one of us thought we’d get.
35
Six weeks later
I kiss my baby girl on the forehead, keeping her quilt tucked under her chin, and turn off her light. It’s going to be a cold night and Ellie keeps hoping for a white Christmas.
I walk quietly to the door.
“Daddy?”
I turn back with a smile, my heart still warming every time I hear the word.
“What if Santa goes to look for me at Grandma and Grandpa’s house?”
My chest tightens, reminding me this is her first Christmas with me, the pressure to make it a memorable one. A special one.
“You don’t have to worry, cupcake.” I wink. “Santa always finds the good ones. And if he happens to drop a present off for you there, Grandpa will bring it when he comes for breakfast.”
She grins, satisfied, eyes already drifting shut.
I watch her for a moment until her breath evens before stepping out.
I make my way down the stairs slowly, tracing the handrail for the first time since I built it. Remembering the sadness. That hollowness that eventually turned into conviction and purpose, a new start. A new beginning for Ellie and me. A profound resolve that came from wanting to give her the world.
But there was still that emptiness. Tangled up with fear and doubt.
It occurs to me thatshe’sbeen here since day one. Fallen from some cloud to help me through it all. To fill the hole in my heart.
No matter how much I give in return, it will never measure up to my gratitude for her.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and the house shows it. Presents are piled up around the tree that nearly reaches the ceiling. Stockings lined up along the fireplace. Lightseverywhere.
With the kitchen clean and empty, I know where to find my wife.
Shortly after our wedding, I started a new project in the house. One I had kept quiet about until the day Silas and I started breaking down walls.
At first, Willow thought it was that extra room for Cole in case he decides to move in. But when the gold sound-absorbing panels and special lighting started going up, that was a dead giveaway.
She realized I was building her dream studio.
Together, we furnished the room to perfection; leather loveseat, digital keyboard, speakers, microphones and fully equipped recording workstation.
Willow insisted on using some of the funds her grandmother left her to buy the equipment and hire professional producers in Denver to help record her first album.
Now that the room’s done, the boys are in here at least once a week helping her learn to use half this stuff and get her sound just right.
But it’s the practicing and singing her and Ellie started almost every night after dinner that has my heart twisted in the best damn way.
I couldn’t be happier. Couldn’t be prouder of both my girls.
The guilt still comes and goes, but it’s less stabbing now. It’s just a way I deal with Millie’s memory and I’ve got the most patient woman in the world by my side.
Epilogue
Four months later
