Chapter 57
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
MAYA
The suitcase is gone.
Not in the back of the wardrobe. Not under the bed. Not zipped up by the door, waiting for the next time I need to run. It’s in the attic, next to a box labelled “Christmas” and a crate of Owen’s old hockey gear that even he admits he’ll never use again.
I don’t think I’ll need it anymore.
The thought is strange and beautiful and terrifying in the same breath. Like stepping out into sunlight after a storm. Like discovering the world is still here, waiting for you, even after all the running.
Lila’s already at school. Owen dropped her off this morning while I finished loading the last box of books onto the shelf in what is now our living room. He came back with two flat whites and a chocolate croissant that he claimed was for Lila but somehow ended up in my hand.
Now, the house is quiet.
Sunlight pools through the living room windows, warm on the floorboards. There are no boxes left. No loose ends. Just framed photos on the walls, a vase of wilting tulips from the market, Lila’s swimming bag hanging on a hook with her name written in glittery pink letters.
I sit cross-legged on the couch, journal open in my lap. A pen tucked behind my ear. The mug Owen brought me rests on the windowsill, half-finished. Still warm.
And I write.
Not because I need to vent. Not because I’m spiralling. But because there’s space in my head now. Quiet where the panic used to live. And into that quiet, I write:
Today, I unpacked the last box.
Today, I didn’t double-check the locks more than once.
Today, I didn’t jump when the doorbell rang.
Today, I felt safe.
The words sit there, stark and simple. The truth of them makes my throat tighten. I breathe through it. Let it come.
I think about all the days I never thought I’d get here.
The nights I stayed awake, heart pounding, trying to convince myself the sound outside was just a fox or the wind, not Jamie.
The times I didn’t have enough money for rent or food, when all I could give Lila was a smile and a lie about how it would be okay.
But now?
Now I live in a house where the radiators work. Where the neighbours wave good morning. Where Owen leaves his socks in weird places and Lila has a loft bed with a slide and a nameplate on the door that reads “Jellybean.”
This house is warm. Not just from heating, but from love.
From laughter in the kitchen. From pancake Saturdays and shared toothbrush cups.
From the photo I’ve just finished hanging on the wall above the bookcase, me and Lila in our matching aprons, flour on our noses, both of us grinning so hard our eyes are nearly closed.
Owen took it. I remember the way he looked at us after. Like he was seeing the sun.
I hear the key in the front door and a second later, Owen’s voice floats through the hallway. “Baby? I come bearing another flat white. Also, someone forgot their lunchbox, so I got called Mr Bear by half the nursery school.”
I laugh, already on my feet. “How many times do I have to say sorry about that?”
“Never stop,” he says, stepping into the living room and handing me the coffee. “It’s my Roman Empire. I will think about it daily.”
He leans down and kisses my cheek. His hand grazes the small of my back as he notices the photo on the wall. “You hung it,” he says softly.
“Mmhmm.” I sip the coffee. “It felt right. Today felt right.”
Owen glances around the room. “It looks like home now.”
“It is home.”
He studies me for a beat, like he’s trying to commit the moment to memory. Then he says, voice low, “Do you want to go for a walk before pickup? It’s nice out.”
We end up in the little park near the school. The air smells like cut grass and summer sun. We sit on a bench beneath the big oak tree, sharing the last of the croissant and talking about nothing and everything.
Owen tells me about practice. About Murphy’s baby, who apparently hates silence and sleeps better when the Raptors’ goal horn plays on loop. About Ollie trying to bake protein muffins and accidentally making something closer to drywall.
“Did he use actual cement?” I ask with a smirk.
“Pretty sure,” Owen says. “The texture was... aggressive.”
I tell him about the stew I want to make for dinner.
About how I might sign up for a local craft fair, sell cupcakes and jam tarts and hope.
I love working at the community bakery programme, it gave me this life after all, but the dream would be to open my own bakery someday. Call it a pipedream, but I can hope.
“I could make signs, Ollie would help. He loves a sign.” Owen offers. “We could call it Cupcakes & Chaos.”
“Sounds like our life,” I say, smiling.
He bumps his shoulder against mine. “Exactly.”
After a while, Owen grins like he’s got a secret. “We’ve got time after pickup before Lila needs to eat. Want to stop by the rink?”
“The rink?” I raise an eyebrow.
“Lila’s penguin buddy misses her.”
We pick Lila up from school together. She comes barrelling out of the gates in her rainbow trainers, arms wide, face alight.
“Mummy! Bear! We did painting today! And I didn’t even get any in my hair this time!”
Owen lifts her like she weighs nothing. “A true professional,” he says.
She beams. “I gave my apple to Max because he was sad. But I kept the cookie.”
“That’s fair,” I say, ruffling her hair.
Owen nudges her nose with his. “You’re a good egg, Jellybean.”
Lila laughs loudly then says, “Silly Bear, I’m not an egg!”
Twenty minutes later, I’m standing in an empty rink staring at two skating penguins, one labelled GERALD and the other wearing a traffic vest that says TREVOR.
“Oh my God,” I mutter.
“Gerald’s a pro,” Owen says solemnly. “Takes his job very seriously.”
He produces a wrapped box from the back of the truck and hands it to me. “This is for Lila.”
Lila rips the box open and shrieks. “Skates! PINK skates! With rainbow laces! I love them so much, thank you Bear!”
Inside the rink, she charges onto the ice gripping Gerald like a lifeline, wobbling with joy. Owen glides beside her, patient and steady.
“She’s fearless,” I say.
“She gets it from her mum.”
Then he skates back to the boards and hands me a pair of pristine white skates.
“Oh no,” I say immediately.
“Oh yes.”
“I like having knees. And dignity.”
He winks. “Trevor’s got your back.”
Minutes later, I’m clutching Trevor’s flippers like a nervous toddler while Owen skates backwards in front of me.
“You’re doing great!” he calls.
“I’ve moved one metre!”
“Which is one more than zero. Math checks out.”
Lila zips past, triumphant. “Go, Mummy! You can do it!”
We make it around the rink exactly once. I don’t fall. I also don’t stop screaming internally. But Owen helps me off the ice like I’ve just conquered Everest.
“That was brave,” he says.
“That was undignified,” I correct.
“Same thing,” he says, and kisses me.
We sit in the stands afterward, all three of us, drinking lukewarm hot chocolate from the vending machine and laughing until our cheeks hurt.
Then we return to the park so Lila can run off some of energy, and sit on the bench beneath the big oak tree, legs stretched out, sun warming our arms. Then he glances at me.
“I saw the suitcase was gone.”
I nod, heart fluttering. “I put it in the attic.”
He doesn’t ask why. He just takes my hand, threads his fingers through mine.
“That’s good,” he says.
I rest my head on his shoulder. “It feels like breathing again. Like I’ve been holding my breath for years.”
He kisses the top of my head. “You don’t have to anymore.”
Tears prick at the corners of my eyes. But they’re not from fear. Not this time. They’re from the weight that’s lifted. The peace I never thought I’d get.
“I didn’t think I’d get to have this,” I whisper. “A real home. Someone who stays. Who makes me coffee and shares croissants and builds a bed with a slide.”
Owen turns to face me fully. “You deserve all of it, Maya. Every last bit. And if it takes a thousand more croissants to convince you, I’ll do it.”
I smile through the sting in my eyes. “You’re ridiculously good at this.”
He grins. “I’ve been practicing. Every day since I met you.”
We walk home hand in hand. Lila chatters about her day and Owen listens like it’s the most important thing in the world. I walk beside them, heart full to bursting, thinking, this is the life I never thought I could have.
This is the soft landing.
This is love.