We stood there for a moment longer, forehead to forehead, the night around us and the past behind us.
"Come on," he whispered, his fingers lacing through mine. "Let's go get our girl."
Epilogue
Madison
The wall between the two houses had come down in March.
Jack had bought the place next door over the winter. He’d said it was for the "long-term investment," but we all knew it was because Lily was outgrowing her bedroom and I was increasingly unwilling to leave at the end of the night. It turned out the most permanent thing he could do was anchor us to two foundations instead of one.
He’d done most of the demolition himself. I’d had opinions about that—specifically about load-bearing beams and the fact that he hadn’t touched a sledgehammer since the oil rigs. He’d listened with patience, as if he’d learned exactly when to nod and when to actually change course. He called a structural engineer, who confirmed the house wasn't going to collapse, and then the wall came down. Now the two houses were one, and we were living in the middle of a renovation that showed no signs of finishing. I had never been happier.
Lily had strong opinions about her new room.
This was not surprising. She had discovered the concept of an opinion around the time she turned six and had been refining her expertise ever since. Her new space was twice the size of herold one, with a window that overlooked the back garden. She’d spent an entire Saturday directing the painting with a focus I suspected she’d inherited from her mother. It was going to serve her well.
Gerald was sitting on a temporary crate for now, waiting for his permanent spot. He'd been promised a dedicated shelf in the new library, and Lily was taking that promise very seriously.
I was standing in the hallway with my coffee and my hand on my stomach—a habit I’d developed recently, a quiet, physical confirmation—when I heard them in the room at the end. Jack’s voice was a low, patient rumble; Lily’s was higher, explaining something with terrifying precision. They had a lot of projects, the two of them. I’d learned to identify their specific silences: the working silence, the thinking silence, and thewe’ve-done-something-we-should-probably-tell-Maddie-aboutsilence.
I walked toward the doorway and leaned against the frame.
They were on the floor, the two of them, surrounded by pieces of flat-pack shelving that were currently refusing to become shelving. Lily had the instructions. Jack had a screwdriver and the expression of a man who had survived oil rigs only to be defeated by an Allen key.
"It says B goes into C," Lily said, pointing.
"I see that."
"You put A into C."
"I know."
"So now you have to?—"
"I know, Lily."
She looked at him. He looked at the wood. She handed him a different screw without comment, which was the most diplomatic thing I’d ever seen her do.
I watched them for a moment. The morning light coming through the new window, Jack's hands on the wood, Lily's complete confidence that she was the one who understood theinstructions and her equal confidence that Jack would get there eventually. It was the quiet ease of two people who had finally learned each other’s rhythms.
My hand drifted to my stomach. It was a reflexive gesture now, a private way of checking the pulse of a future I hadn't yet named out loud.
I turned and walked back down the hall, my bare feet silent on the new floorboards.
The photo was at the end of the corridor, where the old house met the new one—at the seam of things, where the plaster was still a slightly different shade of white. I’d chosen the spot deliberately. It felt right to place it where the transition happened.
It was a photo I’d kept for twelve years. It had survived Baltimore, residency, and a dozen different apartments, usually tucked away in the back of a drawer or at the bottom of a box. I’d never displayed it; I’d never been able to put it away. It was Jack and Cassie and me. We were twenty-one, maybe twenty-two, blurred by the golden light of a summer afternoon.
Cassie was in the middle—she was always in the middle—with an arm around each of us, her head thrown back, laughing at something we’d all forgotten five minutes after the shutter clicked. Jack was looking at her with a look of pure, brotherly exasperation. I was looking at the camera, self-conscious but happy.
I’d finally had it framed. She belonged here, at the junction of our lives. She was in the bones of this house, in the way Lily held her head when she was thinking, and in the way Jack put his arm around our girl without even realizing he was doing it.
I stood in front of it for a moment, the coffee cooling in my mug.
We’re okay,I thought, the words a silent promise to the girl in the center of the frame.We’re more than okay. You wouldhave been absolutely insufferable about all of this, and I wish you were here to see it.
Something moved—a low, fluttering sensation, barely there. I looked down at my hand.