12. Audrey
— ? —
Audrey
I’m on my feet before I’m fully conscious, muscle memory propelling me down the hall to her room, heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat. But when I get there, Rowan’s already inside.
He’s sitting on the edge of her bed, Lily wrapped in his arms, her face buried against his chest. His scarred hands are gentle on her back, stroking in slow circles as he murmurs against her hair.
“I’ve got you. I’m right here. You’re safe, baby girl. You’re safe.”
I freeze in the doorway.
She’s sobbing - deep, wrenching sobs that shake her entire body - and the sound breaks something inside me. My daughter, my baby, drowning in fear.
“What happened?” I cross to the bed, my hand finding Lily’s shoulder. “Lily, sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
“The fire,” she gasps between sobs. “The fire was eating our house and - and - Daddy wasn’t there - and you couldn’t find me - and everything was burning-”
“Oh, baby.”
“It felt so real.” Her voice breaks. “It felt so real, Mommy.”
Rowan meets my eyes over her head. I can see the anguish in his face, the helpless rage at something he can’t fight.
“Move over,” I say quietly.
He shifts, making room, and I slide onto the bed beside them. Lily immediately reaches for me, pulling me into their tangle of limbs until the three of us are pressed together - Lily between us, held from both sides.
“I’m here,” I whisper against her hair. “Daddy’s here. We’re all here, and we’re all safe.”
“But what if the fire comes back?”
“It won’t.”
“You don’t know that.” Her voice is accusatory, frightened. “You didn’t know it was coming the first time.”
She’s right. The truth of it stings.
“No,” I admit. “We didn’t. Sometimes scary things happen that we can’t predict.”
“Then how do I know we’re safe?”
I don’t have an answer. I look at Rowan, desperate, and he clears his throat.
“Lily, look at me.” His voice is gentle but steady. “You see my hands?”
She sniffles, pulls back slightly, looks at the scars visible even in the dim light of her nightlight.
“You know how I got these?”
“The fire. You went back in to get Mr. Buttons.”
“That’s right. And do you know why I did that?”
“Because I asked you to?”
“Because you’re my daughter.” He cups her face in his damaged hands, tender and fierce. “And there is nothing - nothing in this world - that I wouldn’t walk through fire for. I will always come for you. I will always find you. No matter what.”
Lily’s lip trembles. “Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
“What if you can’t? What if something happens and you can’t get to me?”
“Then Mommy will. Or Grandma. Or one of the hundred people in this town who love you.” He glances at me. “You’re not alone, Lily. You’ve never been alone. And you never will be.”
She considers this with the grave seriousness only children can muster.
“What about you and Mommy?” she asks quietly. “Are you alone?”
The question lands like a blow.
“No, baby,” I hear myself say. “We’re not alone either.”
“Even though you’re fighting?”
Kids see everything.
“Even then,” Rowan says. “Fighting doesn’t mean we stopped loving each other. It just means we’re working through something hard.”
“Like when Emma and I had a fight about whose turn it was on the swings and then we were best friends again the next day?”
“Kind of like that.” He smiles softly. “Except grown-up fights take longer to fix.”
“Oh.” She yawns suddenly, the terror fading as exhaustion takes over. “Will you stay? Both of you?”
I look at Rowan. He looks at me.
“We’ll stay,” I say.
We rearrange ourselves in the narrow bed - Lily in the middle, her head on my shoulder, her feet tangled with Rowan’s. The three of us barely fit, but none of us complains.
“Tell me a story,” Lily mumbles. “The one about the lighthouse.”
“The lighthouse?” Rowan shifts, settling deeper into the pillows. “I haven’t told that one in years.”
“Please, Daddy.”
He glances at me. I nod.
“Okay.” His voice drops into the rhythm of storytelling, soft and hypnotic. “Once upon a time, there was a lighthouse on a cliff in Maine. It was the oldest lighthouse on the whole coast, and it had kept ships safe for a hundred years.”
“Did it have a name?” Lily’s eyes are already drooping.
“It was called Miller’s Point.”
My heart stutters.
“The lighthouse keeper was a man who’d made a lot of mistakes,” Rowan continues, and I can hear something shifting in his voice, something real bleeding through the fairy tale.
“He’d hurt people he loved. He’d gotten lost in the dark.
But every night, no matter what, he climbed the stairs and lit the lamp. ”
“Why?”
“Because that was his job. To be a light for people who were lost. To guide them home.”
“Did he ever get tired?”
“Every day. But he kept climbing anyway. Because he knew that somewhere out there, someone needed him to keep going.”
Lily’s breathing has slowed, her body going heavy with sleep.
“Did he ever find his way home?” she whispers.
Rowan’s hand finds mine across her sleeping body. His scarred fingers intertwine with mine.
“He’s still working on it,” he says quietly. “But he’s trying. Every single day, he’s trying.”
Lily doesn’t answer. She’s asleep, Mr. Buttons clutched in one arm, anchored between her parents.
We lie in silence for a long moment.
“Miller’s Point,” I say finally. “That’s the cliff where-”
“I know.” His thumb traces circles on my palm. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. How we used to go up there when we were teenagers. How I proposed there.”
“How I said yes before you finished the question.”
“You were always impatient.”
“You were always too slow.”
He laughs softly, careful not to wake Lily. “I used to think that place was magic. Like as long as we had it, we could survive anything.”
“And now?”
“Now I know the magic was never the place. It was us.” His grip tightens on my hand. “It was always us.”
I don’t know what to say. My throat is tight, my eyes burning.
“I’m scared,” I admit into the darkness. “I’m scared to trust you again. I’m scared of what happens if I do and you break me again.”
“I know.”
“I’m scared of what happens if I don’t. If I let this fear control every decision and we drift apart for good.”
“I know that too.”
“So what do we do?”
He’s quiet for a moment. Lily shifts between us, murmuring something unintelligible.
“We take it one night at a time,” he says finally. “One conversation. One small step. We don’t try to fix everything at once - we just try to keep showing up.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.” He turns his head, and even in the darkness I can feel him looking at me. “But you’re worth being exhausted for. This family is worth being exhausted for.”
I close my eyes. Let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Okay?”
“One night at a time. One step.” I squeeze his hand. “But if you hurt me again-”
“I won’t.”
“Rowan-”
“I know I can’t promise that. I know words don’t mean anything right now.” His voice is raw. “So I’ll show you instead. Every day, for as long as it takes.”
Lily mumbles in her sleep, burrowing deeper between us.
“She’s going to be okay,” I say quietly. “The nightmares will fade.”
“Will they?” He sounds like he’s asking about more than just our daughter.
“Eventually.” I shift closer, until I can feel the warmth of him through Lily’s small body. “Everything fades eventually.”
“Even the bad stuff?”
“Especially the bad stuff. If you let it.”
We fall silent. The rental creaks around us - thin walls, old bones - but inside this small room, wrapped around our sleeping daughter, something fragile and tentative begins to settle.
Not forgiveness. Not yet.
But the beginning of something.
One step at a time.