Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Maya
The house Victor and Alex chose for the twins has a green front door, a wide porch, and a maple tree in the yard that has already begun to lose its leaves.
Erin decides she loves it before we are even inside.
“There is a swing,” she says, pressing both hands to the passenger window. “A real swing. Not one of those tiny plastic ones that breaks when you look at it.”
Heath leans across the seat to inspect it with more caution. “It might be old.”
“It is supposed to be old,” Erin says. “That makes it better.”
“Old things break.”
“So do new things.”
Heath gives her a look that says she has missed the point entirely.
I sit beside them in the backseat, one hand resting against the small contour of my stomach underneath my coat.
It is too early for anyone else to notice.
Too early for the world to see what has changed.
But I feel different anyway. Not in some mystical way.
More like my body has become a room I have to learn again, filled with new limits, new fears, and a future already rearranging everything around it.
And even now, as I gaze ahead to the house, I want this to be right for them and worry what it means to let them go.
Stefano’s hand finds mine between us.
He does not squeeze.
He just leaves his palm open.
I slide my fingers into it.
The social worker is waiting on the porch when we arrive.
She is smiling too intensely, the way people do when they are trying to make difficult things feel celebratory.
Victor stands next to her in a dark coat, one hand tucked into his pocket.
Alex is behind him, nervous enough that he keeps smoothing the front of his shirt even though it is already perfectly straight.
The house looks warm through the windows.
There are curtains in Erin’s favorite color in the upstairs bedroom. A stack of books sits beside a reading chair. Someone has left a small basketball hoop in the driveway for Heath, along with a new bike that looks just large enough to feel grown-up without being impossible to ride.
They thought about everything.
That should make this easy.
It does not.
Erin runs ahead before I can stop her, racing up the porch steps and throwing herself into Alex’s arms. He catches her with a laugh, lifting her off the ground while she talks too quickly about the swing and the upstairs rooms and whether she can paint her bedroom wall.
“Not today,” Alex says, smiling against her hair. “But we can talk about it.”
“You said I could choose.”
“I said you could choose a color.”
“That is basically the same thing.”
Heath stays beside me.
His hand slips into mine without looking at me.
I hold on.
Victor crouches a few feet away, keeping his voice subdued. “There is a room upstairs with your name on it.”
Heath studies him. “What color?”
“Whatever color you want.”
“That sounds like a trick.”
Victor’s mouth twitches. “It is not.”
“You have a lot of books.”
“I do.”
“Are they boring?”
“Most of them.”
Heath considers that.
“Can I have books that aren’t boring?”
“Yes.”
“Even scary ones?”
Victor glances at me.
I nod.
“Within reason,” Victor says.
Heath lets go of my hand and walks toward the porch.
Not fast.
Not eager.
But he goes.
The social worker talks while I watch him.
She explains the transition plan again, even though we have gone over it more times than I can count.
School enrollment. Counseling. Weekly visits.
Video calls. Holidays. Emergency contacts.
She says no one is removing me from their lives.
She says this is not goodbye. But it feels like the kind of not-goodbye that can still break something if I hold it wrong.
I nod at the right moments.
My chest still feels like it is folding in on itself.
Stefano stands behind me, quiet for once. His hand rests at the small of my back, warm through the fabric of my coat. Anyone looking at us would see a man supporting his fiancée through a hard day.
They would not see the way I keep waiting for someone to tell me I have failed them.
They would not know how many nights I have lain awake wondering whether keeping Erin and Heath close was selfish. Whether love becomes another kind of cage when you cannot give children the things they need, but refuse to let anyone else try.
The twins disappear upstairs with Alex.
Their voices float down through the open stairwell. Erin gasps over something. Heath says, “That is too many pillows,” with all the offense of a man who has been personally insulted by decorative bedding.
A laugh escapes me.
Then it catches.
Stefano feels the shift before anyone else.
“You want to leave,” he says quietly.
I look up at him.
“No.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I do not want to leave them.”
“That is different.”
The truth of it stings.
He guides me a few steps away from the porch, toward the edge of the yard where the maple leaves have gathered in wet red and gold piles. He keeps his hand against my back, but he does not steer me anywhere I do not choose to go.
“I know what this feels like,” he says.
I look at him sharply. “Do you?”
His jaw tightens.
“Yes.”
The answer comes without defense.
I remember Dolores in the kitchen. I remember the story of a little boy pulled away from his mother and taken into a house wherein love became weakness, and obedience became survival.
My anger softens before I can stop it.
“This is not the same,” I say.
“No.” His eyes hold mine. “They are being given a home. I was taken from one.”
I look back at the house.
Erin is visible through the upstairs window now, waving something bright and purple. Alex stands behind her with both hands raised in surrender, as if she has already won an argument I cannot hear.
Heath appears next to her a second later. When he sees me looking, he presses his hand against the window.
My throat closes.
“You are still their family,” Stefano says.
“I am their aunt.”
“You are the woman who went into hell for them.”
“That doesn’t make me their mother.”
“No.” His voice turns gentler. “It makes you their family, the one person who will be there for them always.”
I look down at the ring on my hand. Dark stone. Sharp light. A promise I am still learning to believe in.
“I am scared they will think I left,” I whisper. I am scared that loving them is not enough to hold onto them. “That this change will sound like abandonment, no matter how many times we explain it.”
Stefano’s hand moves from my back to my cheek.
“Then you keep coming back.”
Simple.
Not easy.
But simple.
A screen door squeaks open behind us.
Erin comes running down the porch steps, her coat flapping open behind her.
“Aunt Maya,” she calls. “Come see my room!”
I wipe away the moisture that's accumulated below my eyes quickly, before she can see the tears.
“I’m coming.”
She takes my hand and pulls me toward the house, already talking too fast about the purple curtains, the blanket Alex picked out, and how there is a shelf where Mr. Buttons can sit “like a real person.”
Heath waits at the top of the stairs.
When I reach him, he looks at me for a long second.
“You are still coming for Christmas?” he asks.
The question is quiet enough that no one else hears it.
“Yes,” I say.
“And my birthday?”
“Yes.”
“And if I get in trouble at school?”
“Yes.”
His eyes narrow slightly. “Even if I do something bad?”
I crouch in front of him.
“Especially then.”
He watches my face.
“You promise?”
I take his hand.
“I promise.”
This time, the word does not feel like something fragile.
It feels like a direction.
He nods once, then opens the bedroom door.
The room is painted a deep blue-gray, with a desk beneath the window and a bookshelf already half-filled. There is a small framed photograph on the dresser: Erin, Heath, and me in the apartment, all three of us caught mid-laugh. I do not know when Alex took it. I do not ask.
I walk to the window.
From here, I can see Stefano standing in the yard with Victor. They are speaking quietly, two men who understand different kinds of damage and have spent their lives pretending they do not.
Stefano looks up.
His gaze finds mine immediately.
He does not smile.
He does not wave.
He just stands there, solid and waiting, as if he knows I need to see him before I can let myself believe anything good may stay.
Later, after the social worker leaves and the twins have chosen where every pillow belongs, Alex brings out a stack of envelopes from the kitchen counter.
“Mail came for you,” he says.
I take them automatically.
Most are boring. Insurance. A counseling appointment reminder. One envelope from Raven with a note inside confirming the final pieces of Leon’s network are moving toward prosecution.
Then I see the last one. Cream paper. Heavy stock.
Stefano sees it over my shoulder.
“What is it?” I ask.
He holds out his hand. The return address says, Savarese.
I look at him. “You didn't tell me.”
“I didn't know it arrived.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It is a wedding invitation.”
“That is still not reassuring.”
Erin appears at my elbow. “Can I see?”
I hand it to her. She opens it before either of us can stop her and reads the large script on the front with exaggerated care.
“Maya and Stefano,” she says. “That is you.”
“Yes,” I tell her.
She looks between us. “Are we invited?”
The room goes quiet.
Heath has come out of his bedroom. Victor and Alex stand near the kitchen doorway. Stefano’s eyes stay on me, leaving the answer where it belongs.
With me.
I crouch beside Erin and pull Heath close enough that he has to decide whether he wants to resist.
He does not.
“You aren’t invited,” I say.
Erin’s face falls.
Heath looks away.
Then I smile.
“You are required.”
Erin squeals so loudly that Alex winces.
Heath’s eyes lift back to mine.
“Required?” he asks.
“Yes,” I tuck a loose strand of hair behind Erin’s ear. “Because family is not the people who get invited after everything is planned. Family is who you plan around, and who stays part of the plan when everything changes.”
For a second, neither of them speaks.
Then Erin throws her arms around my neck.
Heath joins us a moment later, more carefully, his shoulder pressing against mine.
Over their heads, I look at Stefano.
His face has gone still in that way I know now means he is feeling too much to trust his voice.
For once, I understand exactly what he means. We aren’t saying goodbye. We are building something that can survive it. I am still afraid, but I am no longer only afraid. I can want this and grieve it at the same time.