CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
DAN
ONE YEAR LATER
Morning light slips through the blinds in soft gold stripes, warm on my shoulder. I’m half-asleep, half-listening to the quiet breathing beside me. Emma’s hand rests on my chest, steady and familiar.
That flame between us, God, I used to panic that it would fade or that I’d somehow fail to keep it alive. But it hasn’t faded at all. It’s changed. Become something deeper, less frantic. The kind of warmth you lean into without fear of it burning out.
She shifts, kisses my shoulder, and carefully slides out of bed. I don’t open my eyes, but I feel the absence immediately. I always do.
By the time I make it to the kitchen, the coffee machine is already sputtering to life. I beat her to it today. Small victory. Small proof that I can carry my part of the weight.
A year ago, our mornings were chaos. Emma juggling everything, me rushing to work feeling like a ghost orbiting my own family. Now… now it feels like we move with each other instead of around each other.
I’m pouring two mugs when a shriek rattles the hallway.
“Ruby! Shoes! NOW!”
Emma’s “morning voice”, a tone I’ve come to love, cuts through the commotion.
I emerge just in time to see Ruby wrestling with a tutu, Sophie trying to jam her foot into a shoe, and Oscar giving us that deeply offended pre-teen stare.
I pull Emma close and plant a loving kiss onto her soft lips.
“Do you have to do that in front of us? Gross.”
I hand Emma her coffee. “You’ll thank us one day”
“Keep telling yourself that.” Oscar snarls.
I glance over at Emma in the way that she does, that knowing grin that I will always have her back. Her smile kills me every time.
Breakfast is pure bedlam. Ruby wears her banana like royalty. Sophie places her chair exactly where it blocks the entire hallway, “strategic,” she claims. Oscar complains that his cereal is either too cold or too warm; I’ve stopped trying to tell the difference.
But I’m calm. I chop fruit. I redirect tiny hands away from sharp objects. I talk Oscar off the cereal temperature cliff. I dodge Ruby’s airborne banana crown. And every now and then, I catch Emma watching me with this look of gratitude but also partnership. We earned this, both of us.
A year ago, mornings made us resentful. She felt alone. I felt inadequate. Now we talk, we regroup, we adapt. We’re messy, but we’re in it together.
Sophie snatches a pencil and starts drafting “the optimal breakfast seating plan.” Oscar tries to act too cool for all of this but smirks when Ruby makes her fruit juggling debut.
“I love that chaos is ours” I whisper to Emma.
She squeezes my hand. That tiny touch grounds me more than anything.
Eventually, everyone is herded to the car.
Ruby insists her tutu is non-negotiable.
Sophie debates the colour coordination of her shoes.
Oscar sighs like the universe personally wronged him by inventing school uniforms. I drive them to school steady and grateful, stealing glances at Emma because sometimes I still can’t believe we found our way back to this.
After the kids are dropped off to school, Emma heads off to work and I head home to work from home.
My phone pings:
Emma: Missing you already!
These small, constant threads… they keep us close even when we’re apart.
The house is quiet when I get home. Too quiet. A year ago, I would’ve avoided the silence. Now I welcome it. Emma’s returned to journalism with this fire I haven’t seen in years, and it’s made her more… her.
Shortly after re-discovering our relationship, it became clear that a huge part of Emma’s resentment towards me was her lack of purpose.
Yes she was a mum but she had nothing else to call her own.
She had no hobbies, no passion and nothing other than the chaos of caring for kids and running a household.
I persuaded her (and it took a lot of persuasion) to apply for a job in journalism.
Thankfully one came up at a small Fashion magazine in the next town over.
She was insistent that she would not get the job because of the length of time that she had been out of work, but I knew she would get it.
She has a smile that lights up any room and get her on the topic of journalism, and she lights up like a Christmas Tree.
Needless to say, she absolutely smashed her interview and got called back to start the job the following week.
I couldn’t be prouder. She’s getting some major stories and she’s even been interviewing major celebrities in the fashion industry. She’s got her own source of income but more than that, she’s got herself back again and I can see that she was missing that all along.
And me? I’m here. Present. Actually part of my own life instead of racing past it.
By the afternoon, the house erupts again. Ruby recruits me into building a Lego castle that is structurally unsound and artistically questionable. Sophie supervises and Oscar lurks nearby pretending to do homework but obviously listening in.
“Dad, it’s going to fall!” Ruby squeals.
“I’m aware,” I say calmly, catching a wobbling wall. “Strategic collapse. Very educational.”
Sophie groans. “DAAAADDDDD.”
Oscar mutters, “Seriously guys?”
I look at them, my family, and that warm swell hits me again. This is what we fought for.
Dinner is what I optimistically label “experimental pasta.” Ruby spills sauce. Sophie debates utensil selection. Oscar critiques portion fairness. Emma and I share small touches across the table, little smiles no one notices. Tiny sparks that keep us tethered.
“Team us,” I murmur, brushing her fingertips.
“Team us,” she says softly.
God, I love her.
Bath time is its own battlefield. Emma and I tag-team, stealing kisses
behind towel forts and bubbles. Intimacy threaded right into the madness.
And then, finally, the peace.
Kids asleep. House quiet. We collapse onto the sofa, bodies touching instinctively. The fire between us still burns, hot, alive, but no longer desperate. It feels earned. Safe. Real.
“You know,” she whispers, tracing circles on my hand, “I love that we don’t have to prove anything anymore.”
I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Exactly. We’re just us.”
She grins. “And the sex?”
I can’t help the smirk. “Still incredible. Because we want it. Not because we have to or because I’ve done a particularly good job at stacking the dishwasher.”
Her laugh is soft and warm against my chest. We sink into the quiet, into each other, into this life we rebuilt from the ashes.
A year ago, I couldn’t imagine days like this.
Now, I can’t imagine anything else.
We’ve come full circle. We are steady, passionate, imperfect and united.
Exactly where we’re meant to be.