Epilogue
SELENE
Five months later…
The house smells like lavender and sawdust and the lasagna that my Mom brought in a ceramic dish I remember from childhood, the one with blue flowers around the rim she used only for company and holidays.
I sit on the couch with my feet propped on the oak coffee table Silas built last month, my belly round and full beneath a soft gray sweater, both babies shifting inside me like fish in a warm pond.
Stella perches on the edge of the armchair across from me, her posture still stiff, her hands folded in her lap like she is afraid to touch anything.
Richard stands by the fireplace, a glass of bourbon in his hand, his eyes tracking the room with the careful assessment of a man who built houses himself once, long ago, before he married my mother and let his hands grow soft.
They brought bags, dozens of them, spilling from the foyer into the hall in a mountain of tiny clothes in shades of blue and white and pale yellow, matching onesies with elephants and socks so small they fit inside a walnut shell.
Two of everything, always two, because the ultrasound showed two heartbeats, two spines, two small bodies tangled together in the dark of my womb.
"I didn't know which style you'd prefer," Stella says, her voice tight, her eyes flicking to my belly and away again, as if the sight of me round and glowing still startles her. "So I bought several. Richard said I went overboard."
"You did go overboard," Richard grumbles, but there is no heat in it, only a gruff affection that has grown more pronounced with each visit, each thaw, each small step toward the family we are becoming instead of the family we were.
Silas emerges from the kitchen with a tray of coffee, his frame filling the doorway, his tattoos visible beneath the rolled sleeves of his flannel shirt.
He sets the tray on the table, his hand finding my shoulder, his thumb pressing into the knot of tension that lives there now, constant, from carrying two lives instead of one.
"Thank you for coming," he says, and his voice is steady, warm, the voice of a man who has learned to be gracious to the woman who once threatened him with prison and the man who once threatened him with arrest. "The nursery needs more clothes than we thought. Two cribs means twice the mess."
Stella's face softens, just slightly, the corners of her mouth twitching toward something that might become a smile. "Twins," she whispers, almost to herself. "I still can't believe it. My daughter, having twins. With my..." She stops, swallows, rephrases. "With Silas."
Richard crosses to Silas, extends his hand.
They shake, the grip firm and prolonged, a ritual they have developed over five months of Sunday dinners and gruff conversations about construction permits and interest rates.
"The cribs look solid," Richard says, his voice rough.
"Good joinery. The boys won't shake them loose no matter how hard they kick. "
"They'll kick hard," Silas says, and there is pride in his voice, a father's pride already, even though the babies are still months from arriving. "They already do. Selene says they take turns."
I laugh, the sound bright and full, and both babies respond, a flutter on my left side, a press of a tiny foot on my right. I take Stella's hand, press it to the place where they move, and her eyes widen, filled with tears she does not try to hide.
"Oh," she breathes. "Oh, Selene. They're so strong."
"They're their father's sons," I say, and I squeeze her fingers, feeling the bones shift, feeling the last of the ice between us crack and melt and run away.
They leave at dusk, the Mercedes crunching down the gravel drive, the bags of clothes sorted and stored in the nursery with its sage green walls and two oak cribs and two rocking chairs that creak in the rhythm of our breathing.
Silas stands in the doorway, watching their taillights disappear, his hand on my waist, his body warm and solid and mine.
"They're trying," he says, his voice low.
"They are," I agree. "And so are we."
We eat leftover lasagna in the kitchen, the ceramic dish between us, the Atlantic dark beyond the windows.
He feeds me bites with his fork, his eyes never leaving my face, his hunger banked but present, always present, the constant undertow that has defined us from the first night.
I catch him staring at my breasts, heavier now, the nipples dark and visible through my sweater, and I smile, secret and knowing, because I have been waiting for him to break, waiting for the fear to give way to need.
He clears the dishes. I waddle to the couch, my center of gravity shifted, my balance uncertain, and I fall asleep there with a book open on my chest, the fire dying, the house settling around me like a promise.
I wake at 2:13 AM, thirsty, the babies pressing against my bladder with twin insistence. The house is dark, silent, Silas's breathing audible from the bedroom down the hall. I push myself up, waddle to the kitchen, the hardwood cool beneath my feet, the grain of the oak smooth and familiar.
The refrigerator light is harsh. I pull out the milk carton, whole and cold, and I drink from it directly, the way that marks this space as ours, as a place where rules are made and broken and remade. The milk is sweet. It drips down my chin, trails down my throat, disappears into my sweater.
I hear the floorboard groan.
I spin around, startled, the carton clutched to my chest. Milk spills, cold against my fingers.
Silas stands in the doorway, shirtless, his chest bare and tattooed and massive in the moonlight.
His hair is wild from sleep, his eyes black and burning with a hunger I have not seen in three weeks, a hunger that has been buried under fear and doubled by the knowledge of two lives growing inside me.
He looks at me. His gaze travels from my face to my throat, following the trail of milk, down to the swell of my breasts, the roundness of my belly, the stretch marks that silver my hips. His jaw tightens. His cock stirs in his sweatpants, thick and long and already hard.
Something in him snaps.
He crosses the kitchen, takes the carton, sets it on the counter.
His eyes never leave mine. Then he kisses me, his mouth crashing against mine, his tongue sweeping through, his teeth grazing my lip hard enough to sting.
He tastes like sleep and desire and the bourbon he drank after my parents left, sitting in the nursery doorway, watching two mobiles turn in the breeze.
I moan into his mouth, my arms around his neck, my belly pressed against him. His hands find my waist, span it, thumbs pressing into the softness that has grown there.
"Selene," he growls against my throat, licking the milk from my skin, his tongue hot and rough. "I can't stay away anymore. I need you. Tell me it's okay. Tell me I won't hurt them. Tell me?—"
"It's okay," I breathe, my fingers in his hair. "You won't hurt us. Any of us. We need you too, Daddy. Please."
He lifts me, easy even now, and carries me down the hall, past the nursery with its two cribs and two chairs and the bags of clothes my mother brought, into the bedroom with the oak bed and the linen sheets.
He lays me back, his hands trembling as they spread over my belly, feeling for the twins, searching for their movement beneath my skin.
"Where are they?" he whispers, raw, broken. "Where are my boys?"
I guide his hand. We wait. Then a flutter on the left, a press of a tiny foot. The other shifts in response, a smaller movement on the right, like they are already reaching for each other, already connected, already his.
Silas gasps, his eyes wet and wide. "They moved. Selene, they moved."
"They know their daddy," I say, my voice breaking. "They've been listening to you for five months. They know everything."
He presses his forehead to my belly, his hands trembling where they span my width. "I love you," he says, muffled against my skin. "All three of you. I love you so much I can't breathe."
I pull him up, guide his mouth to mine, kiss him with a hunger that matches his own. My hands find his waistband, shove it down, free his cock. It springs free, thick and curved and pulsing, ten inches of need that has waited too long.
I wrap my legs around his waist, guide him to my entrance, slick and swollen and ready. I pull him inside.
The stretch is immediate, familiar, perfect. He enters slowly, carefully, shallow strokes that do not press too deep. My body has grown accustomed to him, molded to his shape, takes him now with ease that makes us both groan.
"Ohh," I gasp, my nails digging into his shoulders. "Daddy, yes, please?—"
"Shh," he whispers, his hips moving in a rhythm slow and deep and devastatingly controlled. "I have you. I'll always have you."
His thrusts gain speed despite his care. I feel him everywhere, the thickness dragging through my swollen walls, the ridge of his crown catching on sensitive places. He is careful, so careful, but also desperate, starving, a man who has denied himself too long.
"Don't hold back," I beg, tears streaming. "Please, Daddy. I can take it. I want to feel you come apart."
He groans, primal and absolute, and his hips snap forward, driving deeper, harder, still mindful of the belly between us, but no longer restrained. The bed creaks, the oak groans, the sound of our bodies filling the house.
I come apart beneath him, my orgasm rolling through me like a warm wave, gentle and overwhelming. My walls flutter around his cock, milking him, and he follows with a groan like surrender, like homecoming, his face buried in my neck, my name breaking on his tongue.
"Selene," he gasps, his hips stuttering, his cock pulsing, his seed filling me with warmth. "My wife. My love. My everything."
He collapses beside me, careful of the belly, his hand finding my heart. We lie panting, trembling, the Atlantic crashing beyond our windows.
After, he rises, fetches a warm washcloth, cleans me with tender hands.
He finds the lotion, rubs it into my swollen ankles, my arches, the places that ache from carrying two lives.
He kisses every stretch mark, the silver threads at my hips, the new lines beneath my breasts, whispering praise into each one.
"You've made me the happiest man alive," he says, his mouth pressed to the swell where our sons sleep and dream. "And I'm going to love you and these babies forever."
I am crying, laughing, so full of joy I can barely breathe. He climbs back into bed, pulls me against his chest, his hand spreading over my ribs. One of the babies moves, a flutter, a kick. The other shifts in response, reaching for his brother even in sleep.
I reach back, find his hand on my hip, interlace my fingers with his. The emerald ring gleams in the moonlight.
We have everything: the house, the bed, the two children growing inside me, the family healing around us, and the man who built it all with his hands and his heart and his absolute refusal to let me go.
And it is only the beginning.