Epilogue #2
Birdie
***Two Years Later***
“Stefano Dante Conti, if you run into traffic, your father is going to have a nervous breakdown.”
Our son looks over his shoulder at me, dark curls bouncing, and grins with all the wicked delight of a little boy who knows exactly how much power he has over both his parents.
Then he laughs and darts three more steps down the sidewalk.
Lorenzo catches him by the back of his little jacket before he can make good on his escape, hauling him up with one smooth motion and settling him against his hip.
Stefano squeals in outrage.
“There,” Lorenzo says in a tone of deep satisfaction. “Problem solved.”
“You’re impossible,” I tell him, shifting Sienna Rose a little higher against my shoulder.
She’s half-asleep, warm and heavy in that perfect baby way, her cheek pressed against my chest, one tiny fist curled into the front of my sweater.
At four months old, she already has Lorenzo’s dark hair and my stubborn refusal to be put down when she doesn’t feel like it.
Her father is absurdly proud of both traits.
And when she smiles she reminds me of the sister she’ll never know, who had the same smile.
Lorenzo glances at me over Stefano’s head. “He gets it from you.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
Stefano chooses that exact moment to twist dramatically in Lorenzo’s arms and announce, at top volume, “Down!”
Lorenzo closes his eyes like a man enduring deep spiritual trial.
I laugh. This is what our Saturdays look like now: too much sunlight, one overexcited toddler, one sleepy baby, and Lorenzo pretending he is in full command of a family that routinely ignores him unless he raises one dark eyebrow and uses his dangerous voice. Even then, results vary.
We’re standing outside a café in Chicago waiting for our drinks, the stroller parked beside us, the early fall air cool enough for light coats but bright with sun. The sidewalk is crowded, the whole street busy with people carrying shopping bags and paper cups and tiny, ordinary lives.
For a long time, ordinary was all I wanted.
Now that I have it, I understand how precious it is.
Sienna Rose stirs against me, making a soft little sound, and Lorenzo’s attention shifts instantly.
His hand comes to the back of her blanket, checking her without even thinking about it.
That tiny, instinctive gesture still gets me.
So does the way his whole face changes when he looks at our daughter. Softer. Warmer. Entirely unguarded.
He catches me watching him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
I smile and lean in just enough to kiss the corner of his mouth. “You’re just very handsome, my love.”
He almost smiles but his gaze shifts over my shoulder and goes still. I turn to see what he’s looking at. And there, just across the street, stepping out of a boutique with a stroller in one hand and a shopping bag in the other, is Francesca.
For one strange second, I barely recognize her. Not because she looks so different. Because she looks… lighter. Her dark hair is down, loose over a camel-colored coat. Her face is bare. Her expression is calm in a way I never once saw when she belonged to Lorenzo’s old life.
She sees me at the same moment. Then her gaze goes to Lorenzo.
Then to Stefano, who is still squirming on his father’s hip and trying to convince him that being placed back on the ground would, in fact, be in the best interests of democracy.
And finally, to Sienna Rose sleeping against my shoulder.
Something shifts in Francesca’s face that looks like she’s happy for me.
I look down at her stroller. A little girl is sitting inside, around the same age as Stefano, with dark hair and huge solemn eyes. She’s holding a stuffed rabbit by one ear and looking up at the world with the grave suspicion of a child who has already decided adults are mostly ridiculous.
My heart squeezes.
Francesca looks at Sienna again. Then, slowly, she smiles.
It’s small but real and changes her whole face.
I smile back. No words pass between us. None need to.
There are things women know without speaking.
Things about men and survival and babies and the versions of ourselves we had to become in order to protect them.
Things about choosing peace when revenge would be easier.
Things about looking at another woman and understanding that even if she once stood on the opposite side of your pain, she is still carrying her own.
Then Francesca dips her chin once, a gesture so small anyone else might miss it. I return it and she keeps walking. Her little girl glances back once from the stroller, still holding the rabbit, then disappears with her mother into the crowd.
I keep watching until she’s gone.
Lorenzo looks down at me. “You’re crying.”
I touch my cheek. Damn it.
“I’m not crying,” I say, though my voice is suspiciously fragile.
He shifts Stefano to his other hip and uses his free hand to wipe away the tear with his thumb.
“You are.”
“Fine,” I mutter. “Maybe a little.”
Stefano, apparently offended by the emotional tone of the moment, points at the café door and declares, “Cookie.”
Lorenzo nods solemnly. “A fair point.”
That makes me laugh through the tears.
He studies my face for another beat. “Are you all right?”
I look down the street where Francesca vanished, then at Sienna Rose sleeping warm and heavy against me, then at Stefano demanding sugar with the full confidence of a tiny tyrant.
And finally at Lorenzo. At the man who once tried to cage me and learned, painfully, how to love me instead.
At the father who lets our son climb all over him and looks at our daughter like she hung the moon.
At the husband who now asks instead of assumes, listens instead of conquers, and still, somehow, loves me with that same dangerous depth—only gentler.
“Yes,” I say softly. “I think I am.”
His expression eases. His hand slides to the small of my back, warm and familiar.
“Good.”
We step into the café together a moment later, Lorenzo carrying Stefano, me carrying Sienna Rose, all four of us taking up too much space and none of us caring.
Later, when we’re back out on the sidewalk with coffees and a hot chocolate Lorenzo absolutely should not have bought for Stefano, our son chatters nonsense, Sienna Rose wakes and blinks sleepily up at the sky, and I find myself reaching for Lorenzo’s hand without thinking.
He threads his fingers through mine immediately.
As we walk toward the car, the city golden around us and our children safe between us, I think about Francesca’s smile.
About the little girl in the stroller. About how strange and beautiful it is that some women survive each other and become, if not friends, then something quieter.
Witnesses, maybe. Proof that we made it out.
Sienna Rose makes a soft sound, and Lorenzo immediately leans in to check her again.
I laugh. “You’re hovering.”
“She’s breathing strangely.”
“She sighed.”
He considers that. “Still suspicious.”
I shake my head, smiling, and lean into him as we walk. This is not the life I thought I’d have. It’s better. Messier. Hard-won. Full of scars and softness in equal measure.
But better.
And when Lorenzo bends to kiss my temple while Stefano chants “cookie, cookie, cookie” from his arms and Sienna Rose blinks solemnly at the sunlight, I know with absolute certainty that I would choose it all again.
Every terrible, beautiful piece of it.
Because in the end, we didn’t just survive.
We built something worth protecting.