Epilogue
Theo
THREE YEARS.
That’s how long it’s taken for this moment to crystallise into reality.
I’m standing in the shadow of a light rig at Obibini Studios, shoulder to shoulder with my cousin, while the soundstage hums with the ordered chaos of a film set.
It’s the final day of shooting on a documentary that has already been whispered about from Cape Town to Cannes—a groundbreaking project focused on educating and empowering young girls in rural West Africa, created wholly by the two women currently sitting in the director’s and cultural director’s chairs.
Their names stamped in bold white lettering across the back—Cilla Rockson-Biney and Tessa Rockson-Biney.
I shouldn’t still feel my heart skip at the sight of her name next to mine. But God, I do.
Beside me, Ashon folds his arms, his gaze fixed on the two women issuing instructions with the kind of calm authority I once arrogantly assumed only I could wield. Now I know better. I’m an amateur when it comes the woman I live for.
‘They’re not even pretending we’re needed any more,’ he murmurs, mouth twitching with amusement. ‘I think at this point we’re just eye candy.’
‘They never pretended,’ I retort dryly. ‘We were delusional enough to think otherwise.’
Ashon chuckles. ‘What do you think, cousin? Are we being put out to pasture? Retired before our time?’
‘Speak for yourself. I’ll be dragged out of here with my boots on,’ I reply, though my eyes never leave the woman in the chair. My wife. My queen.
Tessa lifts her hand to point something out to the cameraman, her bracelets and diamond wedding ring flashing under the lights.
Her profile tilts just enough that I catch the line of concentration on her brow, the one that makes me want to stride in and kiss it away.
But she doesn’t need me to save her. She never did.
Every line of my body hums with pride so sharp it’s almost painful.
It takes me a beat too long to realise Ashon is staring, not at his wife, but at me.
‘What?’ I snap, though my lips twitch at the edges.
He laughs knowingly. ‘You remember? Dinner. Years ago. When I said I’d seen that look before. A man in freefall.’
I roll my eyes, but there’s no heat in it. ‘You’ll never let me forget it, will you?’
‘Not when you’re standing here, practically drooling on the sound equipment.’
I don’t bother denying it. I glance back towards my wife and the words come out of me soft, unguarded. ‘If you’d told me then that this—she—would be the best thing I ever did with my life, I would’ve laughed in your face.’
‘And now?’
‘Now I laugh at myself. At my own insufferable blindness.’
Ashon’s grin widens, but before he can answer, two voices ring out across the soundstage.
‘Cut!’
The word cracks like a gunshot. And just like that, the room exhales.
Crew members applaud, cameras shut down and both directors rise from their chairs.
Cilla is radiant, her belly round with their third child. Tessa is equally luminous, carrying our second. The sight of her—heavy with our future yet again—nearly buckles my knees.
Then chaos floods the space.
Two nannies appear with the brood—Ashon and Cilla’s five- and three-year-olds racing ahead like wild foals and my son, Theo Jr, toddling determinedly towards his mother, shouting for her as though she hasn’t been ten feet away all along.
Tessa laughs, bending carefully to scoop him up, and the sound goes through me like a benediction.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of the old man.
Nana is hovering near a cluster of producers, his cane tapping lightly as he leans in to mutter in some unsuspecting fool’s ear. The word legacy drifts across the space, weighted and inevitable.
My jaw tightens. Because for once, I don’t need his approval. I don’t need his vision of legacy.
Mine is right here, walking on unsteady toddler legs, growing beneath the curve of my wife’s belly and shining like a crown in her eyes when she turns to meet my gaze.
That is the only legacy I will ever need.
Tessa
Three years since Cape Town.
Since making choices that nearly broke me, nearly broke us. Since the night the truth finally detonated and the man I loved fell to his knees, baring wounds I didn’t know he carried.
And now, here we are.
I sit in a cultural director’s chair, my name bold across the back, as if daring me to believe that this is mine. That I did this. That I deserve this.
Around me, the soundstage hums with the relief and joy of a final wrap. Cameras are being dismantled, lights powered down, voices raised in cheerful chatter. Across the chaos, I catch a glimpse of Theo.
My husband, my impossible man.
Standing with Ashon. They’re pretending to talk shop, but I know my husband’s gaze even when he tries to disguise it. Every time he looks at me, it’s the same: like I’m the horizon and he’d walk through fire to reach me.
It still undoes me. Every. Single. Time.
‘Cut!’ my cousin and I yell together, then grin like Cheshire cats.
The word resounds in the air and I rise slowly, careful of the weight I carry. The child we made. The child we chose. Our second miracle.
A cheer goes up and crew members slap backs, laugh, uncork champagne. I don’t care for any of that, nice as they are. Instead, I’m searching the crowd for my beacons, the two souls that make my heart beat.
My beloved son finds me first.
I don’t care who’s watching when I bend and scoop up Theo Jr, his little arms flung around my neck as he burrows in like he’s been deprived of me for hours instead of minutes.
My heart cracks open, same as it always does when I hold him. Same as it always will.
I glance sideways and see Cilla, glowing, her hands on her belly, her daughters clutching her skirts. We exchange a look—soft, knowing, the kind only women who’ve carried both devastation and deliverance in their bodies can share.
We survived. We thrived.
I never thought I’d say that.
Theo, the man of my heart and soul, is crossing towards me now, his long stride eating the distance, his smile that blend of feral and tender that belongs only to me. My son wriggles in delight at the sight of his father.
Even after years of nights spent in the safety of his arms, after countless mornings of waking to his hand spread wide over my belly, I’m still stunned by the intensity of him.
By the miracle that this man—this hard, complicated, once unreachable man—has given me a family, and a life, I barely dared to dream of.
Ashon laughs at something and I hear Theo’s low response, but the words blur, lost in the tide of noise and love and life swirling around me.
It’s chaos, yes. But it’s our chaos.
And I will never forget the taste of absence, of emptiness, of sitting in sterile rooms believing I’d have to do this all alone. That memory only makes this sweeter.
Theo reaches me. Bends to press a kiss first to his son’s head, then to my lips. Possessive, tender, eternal.
‘Happy, my queen?’ he murmurs.
I nod, throat tight, eyes burning. Because yes, I’m happy.
God, I’m happy.
I’ve been through hell and back. I’ve been torn apart and remade. And if the scars still ache sometimes, they only remind me of the truth I carry now.
That love isn’t about ownership. It’s about choosing, every day, to stay.
And every day, I will choose him.
Always him.