MIRA
Fifteen years later.
The old trailer creaks beneath us, swaying gently as the tractor crawls through the west pasture. Late summer light paints everything gold—the hay bales stacked high behind us, the tall grass rippling on both sides, the kids racing ahead like wild things let loose.
Matt's arm curves around my waist, his palm settling warm and sure on my hip. After all these years, he still touches me like he did that first week—constant, claiming, like he can't quite believe I'm real.
"Bailey, don't go past the fence line!" I call out, watching our youngest sprint after Jessie and Joyce. She doesn't slow down, of course. None of them listen the first time.
"She's fine." Matt's voice rumbles against my shoulder. "Erwin's got eyes on her."
Sure enough, our twelve-year-old doubles back, herding his little sister toward safer ground. He's so much like Matt it makes my chest ache sometimes—same quiet responsibility, same way of moving through the world like he owns it.
Sophia sprawls across a hay bale with Liam, both of them on their phones but leaning into each other the way they always have.
Mara sits apart, sketch pad balanced on her knees, trying to catch the light before it disappears.
Trina's teaching Erwin some elaborate hand-slap game that keeps dissolving into giggles.
"Remember when it was just Mara in that carrier strapped to your chest?" Matt murmurs, his thumb tracing slow circles on my hip bone. "You were so damn scared you'd drop her."
"I was terrified of everything back then." I tilt my head back to look at him. His beard's fuller now, more silver than brown at the edges, and those lines around his eyes have deepened from decades of sun and smiling. "I didn't know how to be anyone's mother."
"You knew." His free hand comes up, rough knuckles brushing my cheek. "You just needed to stop running long enough to figure it out."
The tractor hits a bump and we all sway together. Someone shrieks with laughter—probably Bailey, who treats every minor disaster like high adventure.
I should be thinking about the clinic schedule tomorrow, or the feed order I need to place, or whether Joyce finished her summer reading. But right now, with the sun bleeding red and orange across the horizon and Matt's heartbeat steady beneath my palm, none of that pushes in.
"You ever miss it?" I ask. "Before? When the house was quiet and you could actually finish a thought without someone needing something?"
Matt's laugh is low, familiar as my own breath. "Hell no."
"Liar."
"Maybe the quiet." His arm tightens around me. "But not the empty. Never that."
The tractor rounds the far corner, heading back toward the barn. Our shadows stretch long and strange across the fields—two bodies pressed so close they might as well be one, surrounded by the wild, beautiful chaos we built together.
"I love you," I say, because after all this time, I still need him to hear it. "I love this. All of it."
Matt turns my face up to his, those dark eyes holding mine like they did the first time.
"I know, baby."
Then he kisses me while the sun sets and our children frolic through the gold-washed grass.
Thanks for reading!