Three Years Later #2
My mother told me stories about destiny and purpose, about how the universe had a plan for each of us if we were brave enough to follow it. She said that some people spent their whole lives fighting against their path, trying to control and manipulate and force things to go their way.
But the wise ones, she said, learned to surrender.
Not surrender in the sense of giving up, but surrender in the sense of trusting. Of believing that even when things didn’t make sense, even when the path was unclear, even when everything felt like chaos—there was a reason. A purpose. A plan.
I believed her.
I’d always believed her.
And the universe rewarded that belief with the journey of a lifetime.
It gave me adventures and challenges and moments of pure magic. It gave me a mother who taught me to trust my intuition, friends who supported my unconventional path, and experiences that shaped me into who I was meant to be.
And then, when I was ready—when I learned everything I needed to learn, when I’d grown into the person I was meant to become—it gave me Julien.
Rigid, controlled, absolutely terrified Julien.
Who needed chaos and spontaneity and someone to show him that life was so much bigger and more beautiful than any spreadsheet could capture.
Who needed to learn that love wasn’t something he could plan or schedule or control.
Who needed to understand that sometimes, the best things in life were the ones that surprised you.
The universe had known exactly what it was doing.
It always did.
“Athena?” Julien said, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Hmm?”
“Thank you.”
I looked at him, confused. “For what?”
“For this. For them.” He gestured to the backyard, where Luna was now conducting a very serious medical consultation with a stuffed bear, Stella was singing to the tree, and Atlas was showing his dirt diagram to an imaginary audience. “For not giving up on me when I was being impossible.”
“You weren’t impossible.”
“I was absolutely impossible. I tried to annul our marriage.”
“You were scared.”
“I was terrified.”
“And now?”
He looked at me, and his eyes were soft with emotion. “Now I’m grateful. For every single chaotic, unplanned, cosmic moment that led us here.”
My eyes filled with tears. “Julien Darcy, are you having another spiritual awakening?”
“I’m having a moment of clarity.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“It’s really not.”
“It really is.”
He kissed me, soft and sweet and full of love. “I love you, Athena Darcy.”
“I love you too.”
“Even though I still make spreadsheets?”
“Especially because you still make spreadsheets.” I smiled. “But only for the important things now.”
“Only for the important things,” he agreed.
“Like birthdays.”
“And anniversaries.”
“And the day we met.”
“The day everything changed,” he corrected.
“Same thing.”
“Not quite. The day we met was just the beginning. Everything changed over time. Gradually. Through every argument and compromise and moment of understanding.”
I rested my head on his shoulder. “You’re getting very philosophical in your old age.”
“I’m thirty-seven.”
“Ancient.”
“You’re thirty-three.”
“Practically a baby.”
He laughed and pulled me closer. “What are you thinking about?”
“The universe.”
“Of course you are.”
“I’m thinking about how it brought us together. How it knew, even when we didn’t, that we were meant for this.”
“For chaos?”
“For love. For family. For this beautiful, messy, perfect life.”
He was quiet for a moment, and I could feel him processing, the way he always did when I said something particularly spiritual. He didn’t dismiss it anymore, the way he used to. He didn’t roll his eyes or make sarcastic comments about cosmic forces.
He just listened.
And sometimes—more often than he’d probably admit—he believed.
“Do you ever worry?” he asked finally.
“About what?”
“About them. About us. About the future.”
I considered this. “No.”
“No?”
“No.” I sat up so I could look at him properly. “I used to worry about you, you know. In the beginning. I worried that you’d never let go of control. That you’d never trust the universe. That you’d spend your whole life fighting against the flow instead of moving with it.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t worry at all.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve watched you change. I’ve watched you learn to surrender—not give up, but surrender. To trust that even when things don’t go according to plan, they’re still going exactly as they should.”
He remained quiet, absorbing my words.
“And because,” I continued, “I know the universe has a plan. For you, for me, for them.” I nodded toward our children. “And that plan is always, always better than anything we could create ourselves.”
“Even better than my spreadsheets?”
“Especially better than your spreadsheets.”
He smiled, and it was that soft, genuine smile that he reserved for moments like this. Moments when it was just us, when the walls were down, when he was not Dr. Darcy the neurosurgeon but just Julien, my husband, my partner, my soulmate.
“I never thought I’d say this,” he said, “but I think you might be right.”
“About the universe?”
“About everything.”
I kissed him again, longer this time, pouring all my love and gratitude and cosmic certainty into it.
When we pulled apart, Luna was standing at the bottom of the porch steps, hands on her hips, looking exactly like her father when he was about to deliver a lecture.
“Mama, Daddy, you’re supposed to be playing with us, not kissing.”
“We can do both,” Julien said.
“That’s not in the schedule.”
“What schedule?”