24. Elise
— ? —
Elise
Three Months Later
The divorce is final on a Thursday.
I sign the papers in Vivian’s office while winter sunlight streams through the window and the sounds of the city drift up from the street below. My hand is steady. My heart is calm. There’s no trembling, no tears, no sense of momentousness. Just the scratch of pen on paper and then, it’s done.
“Congratulations,” Vivian says, gathering the documents into a neat pile. “You’re officially a free woman.”
“Thank you.” I stand and shake her hand. “For everything. Not just the legal work. The advice. The reassurance. All of it.”
“Just doing my job.” But she smiles warmly. “Though I have to say, you handled all of it with remarkable grace.”
“I wanted it done. Clean and quick and final.” I pick up my bag. “Dragging it out would have meant staying connected to him longer. I wanted the connection severed.”
“And now it is.” She walks me to the door. “Go celebrate. You’ve earned it.”
Rowan is waiting outside the building, leaning against his car with a bouquet of tulips in his hand.
It’s cold, proper winter cold that bites at exposed skin and turns breath to fog, but he’s not wearing gloves, and his cheeks are pink from the chill. He looks slightly anxious, like he’s not sure what mood I’ll be in when I emerge.
“You remembered,” I say, taking the tulips. They’re yellow, my favorite color, bright as captured sunshine.
“Always.” He opens the car door for me. “How do you feel?”
I consider the question seriously as I slide into the passenger seat. “Free. Finally, completely free.” I look at the tulips in my lap. “Is that strange? I thought I’d feel sad, or angry, or at least nostalgic. But mostly I just feel… relieved.”
“That’s not strange at all.” He starts the engine. “You’ve been working toward this for months. It makes sense that the ending would feel like relief.”
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
The surprise is the cabin.
I recognize the turnoff, the winding road through winter-bare trees, the glimpse of frozen lake through the branches. Three months ago, my stomach would have clenched at this sight. Three months ago, this place meant floods and confrontations and the worst moments of my life.
Now it means something else.
We pull up, and I gasp.
The cabin has been completely transformed. New windows gleam in the winter sunlight. New siding, painted a warm cream that glows against the snow. The flood damage has been erased so thoroughly it’s like it never happened.
“Rowan.” I step out of the car, taking it in. “It’s beautiful.”
“Wait until you see inside.”
He leads me up new porch steps, sturdy and wide, nothing like the weathered boards that groaned under our feet during the storm, past a swing that wasn’t there before, through a front door that opens onto a space I barely recognize.
Light pours through new skylights, filling the rooms with winter brightness. The cramped, dark spaces I remember have been opened up into something airy and modern. Soft colors. Clean lines. A kitchen that gleams with new appliances and granite counters.
“You did all this?” I turn in a slow circle, trying to reconcile my memories with this new reality.
“I wanted to give you something.” He takes my hands. “A place that’s ours. Not haunted by what happened before. Not shadowed by old pain.”
“It must have cost a fortune. I thought this place was being sold.”
“I bought out Simon’s and Thatcher’s shares before it ever hit the market.
It was worth it.” He pulls me closer. “We don’t have to use it if you don’t want to.
If it’s still too loaded with bad memories.
But I thought, maybe we could come here on weekends.
Build new associations. Replace the trauma with something better. ”
I think about everything this place has witnessed. The flood. The confrontations. The night Rowan told me he loved me while the waters rose around us. The morning I walked away from Simon for the final time.
Some of those memories are worth keeping.
“Show me the rest,” I say.
The tour ends in the master bedroom.
New hardwood floors. Fresh paint in a soft sage green. A king-sized bed with a white duvet that looks like a cloud. And above it, a skylight that frames a perfect rectangle of winter sky.
“I wanted you to be able to see the stars,” Rowan says. “That night during the flood, you kept looking up, like you were searching for them through the clouds. I remembered that.”
My throat tightens. “You remembered that?”
“I did.” He stands behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re incredible. I think this is incredible.” I lean back against his chest. “I think I don’t deserve any of it.”
“You deserve all of it. You deserve more than this.” He turns me to face him. “I’ve been wanting to say something. Wanting to ask something. I wasn’t sure if today was the right time, but…”
“But?”
“I love you.” He says it simply, directly. “I’ve loved you for years, but it’s different now. It’s not just longing or wanting or hoping anymore. It’s choosing. Every day, I wake up and I choose you. I choose this life we’re building.”
“I love you too.”
“Let me finish.” He takes a breath. “I know it’s only been three months since we really started this. I know we’re still figuring things out. But I don’t have any doubts, Elise. Not about you. Not about us. And I want…” He pulls a small box from his pocket.
My heart stops.
“I’m not asking you to marry me right now,” he says quickly.
“I know you need more time. I know you just got divorced, and the last thing you need is pressure to jump into another commitment.” He opens the box.
Inside is a ring, not a diamond, but a deep blue sapphire surrounded by tiny pearls.
“This was my grandmother’s. She and my grandfather were married for fifty-three years.
She told me once that the secret to their marriage was simple: they chose each other every single day.
Even when it was hard. Even when they were angry.
They woke up every morning and made the choice all over again. ”
“Rowan…”
“This isn’t a proposal. It’s a promise.” He takes the ring from the box.
“A promise that I will keep choosing you. For as long as you’ll let me.
Until you’re ready for more, and then, when you’re ready, I’ll ask properly.
With whatever ring you want, whatever ceremony you want, whatever future you want.
” He meets my eyes. “Is that okay? Can you accept a promise, even if you’re not ready for a proposal? ”
I look at the ring, glittering in the winter light. At his face, so open and vulnerable and hopeful.
“Yes,” I say. “I can accept that.”
He slides the ring onto my finger. It fits perfectly.
“I love you,” I say again, because I can, because I want to, because after so many years of feeling invisible and unworthy, I’ve found someone who sees me completely and loves what he sees.
“I love you too.” He kisses me, soft and deep. “Now, what do you say we christen this new bedroom?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Later, much later, we lie beneath the skylight watching stars emerge in the darkening sky.
My body is pleasantly sore, my skin still flushed from everything we did. The sapphire catches the starlight, sending tiny blue sparks dancing across the ceiling.
“I want to ask you something,” Rowan says.
“Another question? You’re full of them today.”
He laughs, and the sound vibrates through his chest beneath my cheek. “This one’s more practical. Move in with me. Officially.”
“I thought I already had.”
“You’ve been staying with me. Keeping your apartment as a backup. A safety net.” He strokes my hair. “I want you to give up the safety net. I want us to have one home, not two half-homes. One life, fully shared.”
I think about my little apartment. The independence I fought so hard for. The space I built from nothing when I didn’t know who I was anymore.
I know who I am now. And I know that I don’t need a safety net with Rowan.
Not because he’ll never hurt me, everyone hurts everyone eventually, but because I know now that I can survive hurt.
I can rebuild myself from rubble. I don’t need an escape route, because I know how to create one if I ever need to.
“Yes,” I say. “Let’s have one home.”
He pulls me on top of him, and we stop talking.