Chapter 38
Thirty-eight
Addie
I don’t realize how tired I am until Luc closes the front door behind us after we return from dinner with my siblings. Luc slips his keys onto the hook by the door and moves deeper into the house, toeing off his shoes and taking off his watch.
He pauses in the living room. “Are you okay?” he asks.
I nod, though the truth is more layered than that. I’m okay in the way you are when something big has happened, and it finally starts to seem real. “Yeah,” I say. “Just…glad to be home. I’m ready to have this baby.”
He steps close enough that I can feel his warmth without him touching me. It’s an intentional distance, respectful, familiar now. We’ve learned each other’s rhythms the hard way, through missteps and pauses, and now, we choose not to assume.
I lean against the back of the couch, exhaling slowly. “You survived,” I say, trying for lightness.
He laughs. “I liked them. I always have.”
I arch a brow. “All of them?”
“Especially the complicated ones.”
That shouldn’t feel like a promise, but it does anyway. I appreciate the quiet assurance that he sees the rough edges and doesn’t want them smoothed away.
Luc reaches for my hand. “What do you want to do now?”
There are a dozen answers I could give. Sit.
Sleep. Pretend tonight didn’t have the significance it did.
Instead, I feel the pull of the nursery.
I’ve spent this week finalizing the mural, and I completed it before we went to dinner tonight.
It’s not a surprise meant to dazzle. Just a truth I’m ready to share.
“I want to show you something,” I tell him.
He nods, squeezes my hand, and follows me, already in step. The hallway light is low, casting shadows along the framed photos that haven’t found permanent homes yet. A life still arranging itself. I rest my hand on the doorframe of the nursery and feel the faint vibration of my pulse under my skin.
“Check this out,” I say. I step into the nursery and flip on the light.
I watch Luc from the corner of my eye as he takes it in, his gaze moving slowly, attentively.
He steps inside, his eyes never leaving the wall. “It’s different,” he says his voice filled with awe.
“It is.”
Luc moves closer.
“It used to be Goodnight Moon,” I explain. “I thought that’s what it was supposed to be.”
He turns back to me, curiosity in his expression.
“I realized I was painting calm because I thought that’s what would keep everything under control,” I continue. “Like if the room was gentle enough, the rest would follow.”
Luc’s mouth curves. “And now?”
I step closer to him, standing side by side as we look at the wall together. The mural fills the space—lush, untamed, full of movement and story. “Now I know better.”
He nods. “The trees and the monsters—I can’t place the book.”
“It’s Where the Wild Things Are.” I gesture toward the wall, my hand hovering just shy of the paint. “This felt truer,” I say. “Wilder. Less curated.”
The air between us feels charged, not with tension, but with recognition.
“He’s going to love it,” he says finally.
I take a step closer to the wall, close enough that the faint texture of the paint is visible. The colors are deeper than they look from the doorway, layered and imperfect. Luc stays beside me, his shoulder just brushing mine, the contact easy, unforced.
He hums softly, eyes still tracing the figures. “The part where he belongs to them…”
I glance at him, surprised. “Exactly.”
I rest my palm against the wall. “I stopped trying to paint safety,” I tell him. “I started painting truth. This kid isn’t coming into a quiet house with everything figured out. He’s coming into a family that’s loud and complicated and…stubborn.”
Luc’s mouth curves. “Wild.”
“Wild,” I agree. “But loved. Completely.”
I turn to face him, needing him to see that part, the one that matters most. “I want him to know that from the start. That being wild doesn’t mean being alone. It means there’s a place where you’re allowed to be all of it.”
Luc’s gaze shifts from the wall to me, steady and intent. “So this isn’t about taming anything,” he says.
“No.” My voice is quiet, but certain. “It’s about choosing where you belong.”
His hand comes to my lower back. The contact sends a small shiver through me as it confirms what I’m already feeling. He’s here. He’s not stepping back from the shape of this.
“You’re inviting me into that,” he says.
It isn’t a question.
“Yes,” I agree. “I am.”
Luc turns back to the mural. “I like the idea of a wild family,” he says. “Especially one that knows what it is.”
I lean into his side, letting my head rest against his shoulder. There’s no rush to move, no need to add more. The room holds us, quiet and expectant, as if it understands that this is a moment meant to breathe.
Luc’s hand stays at my back. It gives me the courage to say the thing that’s been pressing against my ribs since before dinner, since before I ever picked up a paintbrush in this house.
“I love you, Addison,” he says, breaking the quiet. “I have for a long time.” He doesn’t look at me right away. He keeps his eyes on the wall, on the story unfolding there.
A breath leaves me that feels like relief. “Good. Because I love you too.” I turn slightly, enough to see his profile. “There’s no plan that makes this neat. No version where it all lines up just because we want it to.”
Luc meets my gaze. “I’m not here for neat.”
“I know.” The words come out soft. “I just need to say it out loud. This—” I gesture between us, and then toward the room. “This is a choice. Every day. Not a solution.”
He nods once. “So is staying.”
I lean forward and rest my forehead against his chest, breathing him in, letting myself take comfort.
After a moment, he presses a kiss into my hair.
We turn back to the mural together, shoulder to shoulder.
The room is quiet. And I can feel the future all around us. It doesn’t feel like something rushing at me. It feels like something we’re already standing inside.