EPILOGUE
Josephine
Six Months Later
Bellamy’s looked exactly the same. The soft glow of candlelight, the quiet piano drifting through the dining room, the familiar view of the river beyond the windows.
I smiled as Theo pulled out my chair. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
I sat while he walked around the table before taking his own seat. For a moment neither of us spoke. We looked at each other.
“You seem happy,” he said.
“I know.”
“What brought that on?”
“I was remembering.”
His expression softened. “Our first anniversary?”
I nodded. “The one where I ate dinner by myself.”
The memory no longer hurt the way it once had. It reminded me how far we’d come.
Theo reached across the table and took my hand. “I’m sorry.”
I squeezed his fingers gently. “I know.”
“And I’ll probably spend the rest of my life saying it.”
I smiled. “You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
The waiter appeared with two glasses of wine. After taking our order, he disappeared again, leaving us alone beneath the warm glow of the restaurant lights.
“You know what I realized this morning?” Theo asked.
“What?”
“This is the first anniversary where I didn’t spend the week worrying about work.”
“Really?”
“I booked the entire day off three months ago.”
I laughed. “I noticed.”
“You checked?”
“I checked.”
He grinned. “I hoped you would.”
The evening unfolded exactly the way I’d once dreamed anniversaries would, not because anything extraordinary happened, because nothing interrupted it.
We talked over appetizers. Laughed when Theo admitted he still couldn’t make pancakes without burning at least one.
Planned a weekend trip to Maine for the summer.
The conversation wandered naturally from one subject to another, without a single glance toward his watch or one moment where his attention drifted somewhere else.
When our entrées arrived, Theo lifted his glass. “To us.”
I touched mine against his. “To choosing each other.”
His smile widened. “I like that better.”
Halfway through dinner, his phone buzzed on the table beside him. The sound caught both our attention. The screen lit up.
Mom
For the smallest fraction of a second, the old memory flickered through me. Anniversary. Phone call. Goodbye.
Then it disappeared.
Theo looked at the screen. A gentle smile crossed his face. Without a trace of hesitation, he turned the phone over and silenced it, then reached across the table and laced his fingers through mine.
“It can wait.”
Three simple words. Months ago they would have sounded impossible. Now they sounded ordinary and natural and true.
I looked at the man sitting across from me. The husband I’d fallen in love with. The husband I’d almost lost. The husband who had fought to become someone worthy of staying beside rather than to win me back.
My eyes filled with tears.
“What?” he asked softly.
I laughed through them. “Nothing.”
He smiled. “I don’t believe you.”
I squeezed his hand. “I was just thinking.”
“About?”
“How different this feels.”
He looked around the restaurant. “The food?”
I shook my head, smiling. “No. Our marriage.”
His expression softened. “I know.”
“No.” I echoed the word he’d once said to me. “You know we’ve changed.” I looked down at our joined hands before meeting his eyes again. “You don’t know what it feels like to sit across from you and never once wonder whether someone else is about to become more important.”
Emotion brightened his eyes. “I never want you to wonder again.”
“I won’t.”
Because I didn’t. Not anymore.
His phone stayed silent on the table. Dinner continued, the conversation drifting toward vacation ideas and books we’d both promised to read. Outside, the city lights shimmered across the river.
Inside, I watched the man I’d always hoped my husband could become. Not because of one grand gesture, not because of one unforgettable speech. Because when life quietly asked him to choose, he reached for my hand instead.
And this time, his wife came first.