Epilogue
Maggie
One year later
The fire had burned down to embers, a steady orange heartbeat inside the stone hearth. Maggie curled into the corner of the couch with a paperback open on her knees, reading the same sentence three times.
Upstairs, she could hear Gwen’s voice: low, patient, and steady, the way it always was when bedtime stretched too long.
A door shut. Water rushed briefly in the hall bath.
Then a soft thump — Rosie’s duck hitting carpet, probably.
The twins had fought over the top bunk for a full ten minutes before deciding they hated it and wanted the bottom together.
Rosie, in her “stories with feelings” era, had requested three: one funny, one brave, one with a funny and brave dragon. Gwen obliged. Of course she did.
Maggie marked her place and listened, smiling like a thief getting away with something. The book was good, but this was better.
She’d forgotten, once, how much she loved this part… the in-between hum of their life. For a long time, the house had been brittle silence, every interaction sharp at the edges. Now it felt… whole. Different.
Gwen padded down a minute later, sweater sleeves shoved to her elbows, hair loosely falling around her face. She dropped onto the couch beside Maggie and cuddled close.
“All three down,” Gwen reported, pressing her cold toes into Maggie’s thigh. “Rosie’s duck is fine. The twins’ dignity, less so.”
Maggie tilted her face for a kiss, got two. “Tragic.”
They fell into quiet again, but not the old careful kind.
This was the comfortable silence that came after long drives, unpacked groceries, and the chaos of discovering mittens in the wrong box.
The chilly Colorado night pressed against the windows, deep and cold and full of stars. The fire popped and resettled.
Maggie traced the seam of Gwen’s sleeve with her thumb and let her mind drift.
Gwen hadn’t touched her work computer all weekend.
Maggie knew because she’d been keeping score — not to catch her out, but to marvel.
A year ago, Gwen would’ve been tethered to her inbox even here on a family vacation in a small Colorado mountain town, frowning at deadlines while the kids begged for attention.
Now, with her firm — her own firm — she chose the projects she wanted.
Historic renovations, not leveled lots and boxy disgraces in their wake.
No clients who treated her like a line item.
No bosses reminding her she was almost but not quite enough.
Gwen was finally building the work life she’d always deserved.
And Maggie was building, too. Just in smaller, messier ways.
Found & Chosen gave her a paycheck and a reason to leave the house, sure, but it was more than that: Colette’s chaos had a way of rubbing off on her.
Between the stacks of vintage curiosities and treasures, Maggie had found herself laughing and creating art again.
Little canvases smuggled onto the counter.
Bowls from Tuesday night ceramics at the Y, lopsided but hers.
She’d tucked some of them into Gwen’s office — by the window, on the shelf behind the desk.
Gwen never called them “cute.” She’d once said, “This one makes the room feel less heavy.” Maggie hadn’t cried in front of her, but she’d come close.
Grief had a funny way of ebbing and flowing through her days, but she was learning to let the waves of it flow through her instead of pull her under. To accept that some days, the ache of missing her mom was so palpable, and other times, she went days without thinking about that heavy loss.
Gwen shifted, pulling Maggie closer. “Tomorrow’s going to be chaos.”
“Mm.” Maggie could already see it: Pete and Danica pulling up with Gladys, who would barrel into the snow like she’d been released from a prison cell.
Izzy and Kiera lugging in a tote full of board games.
Eliza and Quinn racing through the house to claim their “kingdom.” Their first family vacation, here in the mountains. A new place on purpose.
“I put extra blankets in the bunk room,” Maggie murmured. “And sleds in the mudroom. Cocoa mix is on the counter.”
“Prepared as ever,” Gwen teased.
“Someone has to be. You saw the text — Eliza’s in her ‘more marshmallows than cocoa’ era.”
“What an era,” Gwen repeated, amused.
Maggie snorted. “Better than her glitter glue era.”
Gwen smirked. “You’ve taken over that one, right?”
“Ceramics is not glitter glue,” Maggie said, mock-indignant, though her chest warmed at the acknowledgment.
Because a year ago she hadn’t believed she’d ever return to any of it — art, joy, softness.
Now she had clay under her nails and paint smudges on her jeans again, and somehow Gwen didn’t just accept it, she made room for it.
Maggie tipped her head against Gwen’s. “You’re thinking pancakes tomorrow, aren’t you?”
“I may have bribed the children with them,” Gwen admitted. “But yes. Pancakes.”
“Chocolate chips?”
“Strawberries, if Pete doesn’t eat them at midnight.”
Maggie laughed softly into her shoulder. This was the good part. The part where life wasn’t dramatic or fragile, just full of small things that stacked into something bigger.
She thought of Vegas and Michigan a year ago, of meddling friends and shared suites and jealousy and string lights and swans and forced laughter. Back then she hadn’t trusted her face to remember how to smile. Now it was second nature.
Gwen’s sleeve was pushed to her elbows, firelight catching the ink along her forearm. The window, the vines — it looked softer now somehow. Not because it had faded, but because Gwen had softened, too. The edges didn’t remind Maggie of defenses anymore. They were just lines on skin, part of her.
Maggie’s gaze drifted to the petals of her peony where it peeked from her sweater cuff.
The colors had dulled a little, but the shape still held.
Once, she’d thought Gwen’s tattoo meant permanence and hers meant change.
Now they looked like parts of the same story — structure and bloom, frame and color, two halves finally learning how to share the same space.
Gwen noticed her looking and smiled, small and knowing. “What?”
“I love you,” Maggie said. “I love us.”
“I love you,” Gwen said, leaning in to kiss her.
The fire faded to glowing coals. Maggie should’ve gotten up to add a log, but she stayed. Gwen’s weight pressed warm against her side, her hand covering Maggie’s knee. Upstairs, the floors creaked once, then stilled. Outside, snow slid off the deck railing.
Maggie let the book slip shut in her lap and pressed her lips to Gwen’s hair.
A year ago, she’d been afraid to want this — afraid of what wanting could cost. Tonight, she wanted everything: the noise, the quiet, the people they loved tramping in tomorrow with wind-pinked cheeks, the way choosing each other had started to feel less like a gamble and more like a sure bet.
In the end, love wasn’t what they’d lost. It was what they chose, again and again and again.