30. Gianna
Gianna
The dining room at the Porter house was loud with celebration.
Alex’s first birthday. One year since the hospital room and the fear and the husband who wasn’t there. One year since I’d decided to blow up my entire life. One year since I’d started learning who I was without Orion Barnes, and then, slowly, who I could be with him.
Daddy was bouncing Alex on his knee, making faces that made my son shriek with laughter.
Mama was fussing over the cake, three tiers because she’d insisted, even though Alex couldn’t eat it and the rest of us would be taking leftovers home for weeks.
Daisy was arguing with Cousin Trey about baby names for her own hypothetical future children.
Aunt Cece raised her glass of sweet tea to toast the birthday boy.
The chair by the kitchen door was gone.
Nobody mentioned Demi. Nobody asked where she was. The empty space had closed up like the family was healing around a wound, and maybe that was sad and maybe it was necessary and probably it was both.
I caught Orion’s eye across the room.
He was in the kitchen with Daddy, sleeves rolled up, helping with something that involved a lot of laughter and what looked like a minor plumbing emergency. His phone was in the truck. I’d checked.
He caught me looking and grinned, the one I’d fallen in love with three years ago at a gala where I didn’t belong. Then he held up a wrench triumphantly, as if he’d just conquered Everest instead of whatever was happening under my parents’ sink.
Daddy clapped him on the shoulder. Said something I couldn’t hear and Orion laughed.
A year ago, I couldn’t have imagined this. My husband, covered in mysterious plumbing substances, bonding with my father over home repairs. My husband, happy to be here instead of somewhere more important.
But here he was. Here we were.
He looked different than he had a year ago, lighter. More present. Like he’d finally figured out where he belonged.
After dinner, I found him on the back porch. The Georgia evening was warm and soft around us, crickets singing in the grass, lightning bugs starting to blink in the gathering dusk.
“Thank you,” I said.
He turned. “For what?”
“For not giving up. For being here. For becoming someone I could trust again.”
He pulled me close and kissed my forehead. Held me against his chest in the way I’d forgotten I needed until I had it back.
“Thank you for letting me,” he said.
I looked up at him. At this man who had broken me and then spent a year putting us back together. At the love in his eyes that I’d stopped believing in and started believing in again.
It felt different now. Harder won. More real. Like we’d been through fire and come out the other side.
Later that night, in my childhood bedroom with the narrow twin bed and the posters I’d never taken down, we tried to be quiet with my parents down the hall and failed. And giggled into each other’s mouths like teenagers.
Ridiculous and perfect and exactly what we needed.
Afterward, tangled together in sheets that were too small for both of us, I traced patterns on his chest while he played with my hair.
“Florence,” he said quietly. “Spring semester.”
“Spring semester,” I confirmed. “You ready to be a single dad half the year?”
“Ready to FaceTime you every night and fly out every chance I get.” He pressed a kiss to my temple. “Ready to watch you do something you’ve dreamed about since before I knew you.”
“It’s going to be hard. Being apart that much.”
“It’ll be worth it.” He shifted so he could look at me properly. “You gave up that dream once because of money. Then you put it on hold for me, for Alex, for everything we were rebuilding. You’re not putting it on hold again.”
“What if I miss you too much?”
“Then I’ll be on the next plane.” He smiled, soft and certain. “But you won’t. You’re going to be too busy learning to save art that would otherwise be lost forever. Just like you told me you wanted to, that first night.”
“You remember that?”
“I remember everything.” His hand found mine, threaded our fingers together. “I just didn’t do anything about it for too long. That’s different now.”
I believed him. Not because he said it, he’d said a lot of things over the years, but because he’d shown me. Every day for months. Every choice that put us first. Every phone left in the truck, every meeting declined, every moment he was present instead of somewhere else.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you too.” He pulled me closer. “More than I knew how to, before. More than I thought I was capable of.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Too late.”
We lay there in the quiet, the sounds of the Georgia night drifting through the window. Lightning bugs blinked outside like tiny stars come down to visit.
“This time next year,” I said, “I’ll be in Florence. Learning to restore Renaissance paintings. Living in a tiny apartment with bad plumbing and incredible light.”
“And I’ll be in Texas, running the company and raising our son and counting down the days until you come home.”
“You’ll visit.”
“Every month. More if you’ll have me.”
“I’ll always have you.” I propped myself up on one elbow. “That’s the whole point. We figured out how to have each other without losing ourselves. That’s what this year taught us.”
He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “We’re going to be okay.”
“Yeah,” I said. “We really are.”
Some things break and stay broken.
But some things break and get rebuilt stronger. Better. With all the cracks visible, turned into something beautiful by the work it took to repair them.
A year ago, I’d been alone in a hospital room, wondering if my marriage was over.
Now I was in my childhood bedroom, in my husband’s arms, planning a future that finally felt like mine.
We’d never be perfect. But it’s real, honest. Ours.
THE END