Epilogue
SABINE
Everyone kept saying things were back to normal.
But I knew normal was different now.
Before, normal was Maman coming and going with her suitcase, kissing the top of my head and promising she would be back soon. Before, normal was Papa making pancakes on Sundays and pretending not to notice when I colored on the kitchen table.
Before, there was no Tante Ella.
And there was definitely no Kane.
Now, when I thought about normal, it was bigger. Louder. Full of people talking in two languages at once and laughing too much and hugging all the time like they were afraid someone might disappear again if they didn’t hold on tight.
The grown-ups said it had only been a few weeks since everything happened.
For me, it felt like a whole lifetime.
I remembered pieces of the bad day like flashes. Rain. A man who smelled wrong and talked too loud. Tante Ella’s face going white. The loud cracks that made my ears hurt. Then being carried, pressed into someone warm and safe.
After, everything got softer.
Papa came for me, his face wet with tears even though he was smiling, hugging me so tight I couldn’t breathe. Tante Ella cried, too, and I didn’t like seeing her cry, so I hugged her and told her I was okay even though my tummy still felt funny.
Kane stood a little behind them, watching everything, like he always did. Like he was making sure nothing bad could come close again.
That night, when Papa took me home, I heard them talking in the hallway. Grown-up voices, quiet and serious. But Kane knelt in front of me before he left.
He looked different then. Tired. Like he’d run very far and only just stopped.
“You scared?” he asked gently.
I nodded.
He nodded, too, like that made sense.
“Me, too,” he said.
And somehow that made it better.
I threw my arms around his neck, surprising both of us, and he hugged me back carefully, like I was something breakable and precious.
“I love you,” I told him.
I didn’t know why I said it. The words just came out.
He froze for half a second, then squeezed me tighter.
“I love you, too, kid,” he said softly.
Later, Tante Ella told me they’d said the same thing to each other in the rain outside, after Papa took me home. That they’d known even though they’d only met days before.
Some things didn’t need time, she said. Just truth.
After that, everything changed again.
Tante Ella stayed in Paris.
At first, she thought she would live in Maman’s apartment. But everyone decided it was better if she stayed somewhere safer, somewhere people could help if trouble came back.
So, she moved in with Kane.
Papa said it was good because we could see her all the time now.
She and Papa talked a lot after the bad day. Quiet conversations in kitchens when they thought I wasn’t listening. About Maman. About secrets. About fear.
One night, Papa told her he thought Maman had been scared toward the end. That someone might have been following her.
Tante Ella cried when he said that.
She never told me exactly why.
But sometimes, when she thought I wasn’t looking, she stared out windows like she was thinking about roads and rain and things she wished she could change.
She promised herself she would ask more questions later.
She promised Maman she would understand.
But she also promised to be happy now.
And she tried very hard to keep that promise.
Everything felt different again the day my grandparents arrived from America.
They were nervous. I could tell even though they smiled a lot. Grand-mère Susan hugged me so tight I almost disappeared in her coat, and Grand-père Charles stood still for a second like he didn’t know what to do.
Then he knelt in front of me.
“You look just like her,” he said softly.
I didn’t know who he meant at first.
Then I saw his eyes get shiny.
Maman.
I hugged him, too.
He smelled like airplane and aftershave.
Later, he walked around the neighborhood slowly, telling Tante Ella stories about when he was a boy in Paris. About cousins and streets and things he hadn’t talked about in a long time.
He looked old there, but also light. Like something heavy had been set down.
Not everything was easy, though.
Grand-mère and Grand-père didn’t know what to think about Kane at first.
He was big. Quiet. He didn’t smile much unless he was with Tante Ella or me. And there was something about him that made adults careful around him.
But Tante Ella didn’t care.
I heard her tell them one night in the big living room at The Sanctuary:
“Rose spent her whole life trying to keep everyone comfortable. Look where that got her. Life is short. I’m choosing happiness.”
Grand-mère Susan cried.
Grand-père Charles looked at Kane for a long time, then nodded once.
Things got easier after that.
Tante Ella started working again, too, even though she stayed in Paris. Her boss Michelle let her write from here. Sometimes Tante Ella worked at the table while I colored, and sometimes we went for walks along the river when she needed a break.
Mila came over a lot with her camera. She took pictures of everything—me and Papa making dinner, Tante Ella laughing, Kane pretending he didn’t like being photographed even though he secretly did.
The grown-ups all became friends.
Everything felt … full.
Safe.
One evening, Kane took Tante Ella to the courtyard garden at The Sanctuary while Mila watched me upstairs. Papa was cooking dinner and pretending not to watch through the window.
Later, Tante Ella told me what happened.
Kane got down on one knee.
He didn’t make a big speech. That wasn’t his way.
He just took her hand and said, “You’re mine. Stay.”
She laughed and cried and said yes, anyway.
When they came upstairs, her eyes were red and happy. Kane looked proud and relieved at the same time.
Papa opened champagne.
I got sparkling juice.
Everyone hugged.
And later that night, after the party ended, Tante Ella and Kane went upstairs to their suite.
The next morning, when Tante Ella came to breakfast, her hair messy and Kane’s hand on her back like he couldn’t stop touching her, she looked so happy.
Sometimes, I caught them standing in hallways, pressed close, whispering and smiling like they were the only two people in the world.
They were always touching.
Hands. Shoulders. Backs.
Like letting go might make the other disappear.
I understood that now.
One afternoon, sitting on the sofa at The Sanctuary, I watched them kiss in the kitchen doorway.
I tilted my head.
“Oncle Kane?” I asked carefully.
He looked surprised.
Tante Ella laughed.
“Not yet,” she told me.
Kane crouched in front of me.
“Soon,” he promised.
And I liked that answer.
Because families, I’d learned, could grow in strange ways.
Sometimes you didn’t know someone yesterday.
And today they were yours.
The grown-ups still talked sometimes about danger and people with long memories and promises made before I was born.
But those conversations happened behind closed doors now.
In front of me, there were dinners and laughter and hands reaching across tables.
There was Papa smiling again.
There was Tante Ella, who stayed.
There was Kane, who watched doors and windows but also carried me on his shoulders and taught me how to punch properly.
There were new grandparents.
New friends.
New beginnings.
Maman was still gone.
That part hurt.
But everything else felt bigger now.
Like love had filled the space she left behind.
And when I went to sleep, I didn’t worry about who would still be there in the morning.
Because now, everyone stayed.
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Love, Jack & Lainey