“I still love you,” she says, her voice unsteady. “I always will. But I don’t think I’d know how to be who we were anymore… and I don’t think you would either.”
Her words fade into silence as we admire Ivy sleeping like it’s too good to be true. It feels like the world has finally stopped moving. For a long moment, I don’t say anything.
Because the truth is… I don’t even know where to start.
“When she was taken, you’re right,” I say quietly, “something in me broke in a way I didn’t understand at the time. It wasn’tjust grief. It was… like my entire sense of order collapsed. The rules of the world stopped making sense.”
Maddison watches me without interrupting.
“I couldn’t accept a universe where that could happen for no reason,” I continue. “So I turned it into a problem that had to be solved. A puzzle. A hunt. If I stayed in motion, if I stayed focused, if I stayed sharp… then maybe I didn’t have to feel how completely powerless I was.”
I glance at Ivy.
“And I was terrified. Not just of losing her. Of what it meant if I couldn’t fix it.”
I swallow.
“At some point, I realized I was living like a man who thought he could outwork fate.” A quiet, bitter breath leaves me. “I couldn’t.”
I look back at Maddison.
“So I had to learn something I’d never been good at. How to sit in the not knowing. How to live without answers. How to exist in a world that didn’t make sense anymore.”
I shake my head.
Maddison exhales slowly.
“I think some things break us open so completely that they rearrange what we’re capable of,” I continue. “And the people we become after… they don’t always fit back into the lives we had before.”
I meet her eyes.
“You’re right. We’re not those people anymore. And that doesn’t mean what we had wasn’t real. It just… belongs to a different version of us.”
I look back at Ivy.
“And somehow… all of this still led here.” My voice drops. “Which is the only miracle I care about.”
Chapter 47
Nathan
The next morning, we stand in the doorway watching Ivy sleep in her room…the room that’s been empty for three years.
For a long time, neither of us says a word. It feels too good to be true.
Like if I blink, it’ll all fade. The sound of her breathing, the way her tiny fingers curl around the blanket, the impossible fact that she’s here…I can’t let it escape again.
I glance at Maddison. She’s already looking at me.
We both smile, a small, quiet smile that says everything we’re too afraid to speak aloud.
“Thanks again for making up the spare room for me,” I say softly.
She looks over, smiling faintly. “No problem.”
Our voices break the stillness… just enough to wake Ivy.
She stirs, blinking, and then her sleepy eyes light up.
