Chapter 59
HAPPILY EVER AFTER
Will
Bancroft turns to me, and for a moment, she's five years old again, all wild curls, untied shoelaces and unfinished stories. Time folds in on itself here in this museum, I can see her at every age, spinning through these halls like a living exhibit of joy. She was so fearless when she was little, so unafraid of taking a leap off anything, diving from her bed into the pillow fort, or from my shoulders into the deep end of a pool. But the woman before me now came home with fear, weighted by guilt she has no responsibility to bear, her shoulders carrying a burden I never meant for her to hold.
She carries herself with Arden's grace, that same quiet determination in her eyes. I see her mother in every careful movement, every thoughtful pause.
"Sterling, I," she starts to speak, then stops, dropping her knees from where they had been pulled up to her chest, and lands them back on the floor.
I can see the worry. For me.
"You've been afraid to tell me," I finish for her, my voice soft with understanding, “Because you think I can't handle being alone.” She turns, and I see Arden in every line of her face, in the way she holds herself brave even when she's breaking inside. My brilliant, beautiful daughter, who has spent too many years trying to fill the space her mother left behind.
“I’ll be alright, you know.” I don’t think I’m convincing, and it breaks a part of my heart I didn’t know I had left.
"But you'll be all alone."
I laugh softly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
"I have colleagues who won't leave me alone even when I want them to, I have my students, I have my family, I have this museum, I have your uncle Ethan, your aunt Rosalie, and I have your mother. Yes, she’s not here , but there’s not a breath I take that I don't have your mother. She exists in everything I do.”
Looking at my daughter on the precipice of the rest of her life is something I didn’t think I would be doing alone. But even worse is the idea that I could be the thing that prevents her from living it.
"But it's different," she insists. “I know I haven’t come home a lot, and I’m sorry I’ve avoided it, but it was easier for me not to deal with it if I stayed away. But now, this move, this job, it feels more permanent. As long as I was in the same city, it felt like I wasn’t abandoning you, or her …”
Her eyes are welled with tears that drip with guilt, as she bites down on her lip, and it’s like a flashback to all the reasons she carries this burden.
“The only thing worse than living in the present without her, is being trapped in the past. I wouldn’t wish that for anyone, least of all you. You have a life, and so much more of it ahead of you. I would be on the first plane out if I thought it’s what you needed. But sweetheart, it’s time for you to live the life you want. Not the one you think you owe her, and definitely not the one you think you owe me.”
I run my finger across the small gold plate that we had affixed to the bench not long after Arden passed.
Take seats together as strangers and stay long enough to fall in love like we did.
In loving memory of Arden Bancroft Sterling
The engraving of it was inspired by an elderly couple we used to see here. They’d come once a week, and take their respective seats and talk about their lives as if they hadn’t lived them together for the last sixty years.
They once told me that sometimes, they would sit together feeling like strangers and fall in love all over again.
That’s what Arden and I did. We took seats as strangers, and in each seat we took, every bed we claimed, every moment we stole, and every place we ran, we fell deeper and deeper in love. And even still, I come sit here with her.
She is in every minute that exists, and all the ones that don’t.
Bancroft and I have shared this space long enough now that I think she understands, that I think she’s accepting the love for herself. That she sees for all the reasons to do something in her life, and all the reasons not to, it should never be me.
“Ms. Bancroft,” Mack’s voice is also slower now, as is his pace around the museum, but she looks up all the same. “Some folks are here for you.”
And with that, little feet come running into the hall.
“Mama!” he screams as he runs towards her and jumps right into her arms.
Ollie strolls in just a few paces behind his son, able to cut across the room to his little family, and plants himself right next to his wife.
“What are you doing here?” she asks him.
“Your dad called me.” I did. The second she told me.
The way he looks at our daughter settles something in my chest I didn't know was still unsettled. In his eyes, I see all the proof I need that she'll be okay, that she'll be loved the way she deserves to be loved, completely, steadily, without reservation.
And just like that their whole life can begin again because they’ve made the choice. Right where ours began, right where we did. I leave the two of them. Not strangers needing to fall in love with each other, but two people choosing their next happily ever after.
As I walk back through the hall, a place filled with parts of our lives, I hear my grandson's giggles follow me down the corridor. It mingles with memories of Bancroft's own childhood laughter, of Arden's. The sounds layer over each other like strokes painting a picture of time that doesn't move in straight lines but circles back on itself, creating patterns we can only see when we step far enough away.
"Dad!" Bancroft's voice catches me before I reach the end of the hall. Not just her voice, but the fact that in her life, I’ve so rarely been ‘dad’ when she called for me. I turn to find her standing there, appearing lighter than I’ve seen her in as long as I can remember. While grief may never fully dissipate, she carries it differently now. A warm scarf rather than a noose. She leaps into me for a hug, and I catch her, as I always will, though she hasn’t needed me to for some time. "Thank you."
The drive home is quiet, but it's a different kind of quiet than it's been lately. It's not the hollow silence of absence, but acceptance.
I reach our house, and it is still ours, it will always be ours. No matter how far Banks runs, and she should, it will be hers, too. The front gate cries as I push it open, watching the shadows of a lifetime lengthen across our front steps.
In our bedroom, I sit on the edge of the bed and let out a long breath. On the nightstand, there's a photo of us from a different chapter of our youth. Both of us laughing at something long forgotten, our faces turned toward each because there would be nowhere else worth looking.
"You would be so proud of her," I say to the empty room, knowing that it's not really empty at all. "She's so much like you, darling. So brave and beautiful and finally, about to live her life on her own terms."
Sadness and gratitude are sisters, I've learned. They walk hand in hand through our lives, each making the other more profound, more meaningful. The ache of missing Arden will never fully fade, but it lives alongside the joy of having loved her, of loving her still.
That's the real happily ever after, isn't it? Not the absence of pain or the promise of forever, but the courage to love completely, knowing it will change you irrevocably.
Here in this house filled with memories, I'll continue adding chapters to ours. And somewhere, in every moment of joy and grace and love, Arden's story goes on.
We keep waiting for endings, for neat conclusions, for some grand moment when everything falls into place and stays there. But life doesn't work that way, it's not about finding closure or reaching a final chapter. Our happily ever after isn't waiting at the end of the story, it's in all the scattered moments we collect.
It's in the memories we keep making, even without those we thought would possess them all. Because in all the versions of love that exist, it isn't about endings at all. It's about beginnings, the endless beginnings that we choose.
The End