Epilogue – Nicola
Four Years Later
The flatbread dough is sticky under my palms, clinging to my fingers as I press it flat against the floured counter. I fold it over itself, push down with the heel of my hand, turn it a quarter rotation.
The rhythm is meditative, grounding—something I never knew I needed until Jason taught me how to do this last winter when the roads were snowed in for two weeks straight and we ran out of store-bought bread.
Now I make it without thinking. Flour, water, salt, oil. Knead until it stops fighting back. Let it rest while I prep everything else.
The cabin smells like woodsmoke and roasting vegetables. Sausages sizzle in the pan beside them, fat rendering out and pooling golden. The sound is rhythmic, comforting, underscored by the occasional pop and hiss when juice hits the hot metal.
Small footsteps patter across the floor behind me. I glance over my shoulder and see sticky hands reaching up toward the counter, dark curls wild around a face smudged with something that might be jam or dirt or both. There's a smear of something orange on one cheek.
"Not yet," I say, turning back to the dough. "Almost dinner."
A dissatisfied sound. The kind that teeters on the edge of protest but hasn't quite committed yet. More pattering, this time toward the main room where Jason's been splitting kindling for the evening fire.
I divide the dough into six pieces, rolling each into a ball before flattening them one by one with the rolling pin Jason made from a piece of birch last spring.
The wood is smooth under my hands, worn already from use.
The flatbreads aren't perfectly round, but they'll taste good, and that's what matters.
The peppers have taken on that perfect char I'm looking for.
I turn them with the wooden spatula, the one with the handle slightly scorched from the time I left it too close to the flame.
The onions are translucent and sweet-smelling, beginning to caramelize at the edges.
I add a pinch of salt, a crack of black pepper, and give everything a stir.
The door opens, letting in a gust of cold air that makes the fire flicker and sends a draft across my ankles.
Jason steps inside, arms full of split wood, snow dusting his shoulders and hair.
His breath mists in the sudden warmth of the cabin.
He kicks the door shut behind him with his boot—a move I've watched him make a thousand times now, efficient and automatic—and carries the wood to the stone hearth, stacking it neatly beside the fire.
"Cold out there," he says, brushing snow from his sleeves. His cheeks are ruddy from the wind, his beard flecked with ice crystals that are already starting to melt.
"It's February."
"Smart ass." But there's warmth in his voice, that dry amusement I know as well as my own heartbeat now. He shrugs out of his heavy coat, hanging it on the hook by the door, and I catch the familiar scent of pine and cold air and him.
He crosses to the sink to wash his hands, and I feel him pass behind me, close enough that his chest brushes my shoulder, deliberate in that way he still is. Always touching. Always aware of where I am in a room.
The water runs, steam rising as he scrubs wood dust and bark from his palms. I hear the rough rasp of his hands working together, thorough and methodical.
Small feet scamper toward him. He glances down, water still dripping from his hands, and without missing a beat, he scoops up Gianna with one damp hand, settling the small weight easily on his hip while he dries his other hand on a towel.
"Hungry?" he asks, tilting his head to look down into that small, upturned face.
A solemn nod. Sticky fingers reach for his beard, tangling in the dark hair.
"Yeah, me too." He presses a kiss to the top of that wild-haired head, then looks at me over it. His eyes are soft in the way they only get when he's looking at the two of us. "What can I do?"
"Flatbreads need to go on." I nod toward the cast iron griddle heating on the back burner. "And the sausages are almost done."
He sets our daughter down gently—"Go play, baby"—and the small body toddles off toward the basket of wooden blocks Jason carved over the course of last winter.
Each one is different: a bear, a tree, a fish, a star.
I watch for a moment as small hands pull out the bear, turning it over with intense concentration.
Jason moves to the stove, and we work in tandem now, the way we've learned to over years of shared space and shared meals and shared everything. He flips the sausages with easy competence, the motion so familiar I could map it with my eyes closed.
I slide the first flatbread on, watching it settle against the black iron.
It puffs almost immediately, air pockets forming and rising, and the smell shifts—raw dough giving way to something toasted and warm and alive.
I press down gently with the spatula, feeling the resistance, and watch bubbles form and brown.
"You put garlic in this batch?" Jason asks, leaning over to inspect the vegetables. His shoulder presses against mine, solid and warm.
"Obviously."
"Good." He stirs them, scraping up the browned bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. The spatula makes a satisfying scraping sound against cast iron. "These are perfect."
"I know."
He snorts. Hooks an arm around my waist as I reach past him for the spatula, pulling me against his side for just a moment. His lips brush my temple and I feel the scratch of his beard, the warmth of his breath.
"Show off," he murmurs against my hair.
"Learned from the best."
I feel his smile rather than see it, the way his mouth curves against my skin.
Then he releases me and goes back to the sausages, and I flip the flatbread, watching it brown and blister on the other side.
The underside is perfect—golden with dark spots where the dough made direct contact with the iron.
Behind us, small footsteps again. Then a frustrated sound, the precursor to a meltdown, the particular pitch that means tired or hungry or both. The wooden bear hits the floor with a clatter, followed by a small, outraged cry.
Jason glances at me. I nod toward the stove.
"I've got this. You've got that."
He's already moving, wiping his hands on the towel tucked into his belt and crossing the small space to crouch down.
I don't turn around, but I hear the low rumble of his voice.
Steady, certain, the same tone he uses with me when I'm spiraling.
"Hey. Hey, it's okay. Look, the bear's fine. See? Not broken."
I hear the small hiccupping breath that means tears were close but didn't quite arrive.
Then the sound of him lifting, settling Gianna against his chest with the ease of long practice, one large hand cupping the back of the dark-haired head.
I glance over my shoulder and see her face pressed into Jason's shoulder, small arms wrapped around his neck.
"Almost time to eat," he says, returning to the kitchen. His hand moves in slow circles on the small back, soothing. "Can you wait five more minutes?"
A pause. Then a small, grudging sound of agreement, muffled against his shirt.
"That's my baby." He shifts the weight on his hip, and reaches past me to grab a piece of flatbread that's cooling on the cutting board. Tears off a corner and offers it, blowing on it first even though it's not that hot. "Here. Tide you over."
Small hands take it, and I watch fingers close around the bread with the kind of focus only toddlers possess. Chewing sounds. Crisis averted.
I shake my head, smiling, and slide another flatbread onto the griddle.
Jason stays close, his free hand resting on the small of my back while he watches me work.
It's unnecessary—I don't need steadying, don't need supervision—but I lean into it anyway because that's what we do now.
Touch without purpose. Exist in each other's space without reason.
The second flatbread puffs and browns. I flip it, press it flat, watch the steam rise. The third one goes on as soon as I pull the second off. We've fallen into a rhythm—me cooking, him close, our baby content on his hip with a piece of bread clutched in her sticky fingers.
"You talk to your mom this week?" he asks, voice low and easy.
"Tuesday. She wants to visit in the spring." I glance at him. "When the roads are better."
"Is that okay with you?"
It's a careful question. He knows my relationship with my family has been complicated, knows they didn't understand why I ran, why I stayed gone, why I chose a mountain and a man they'd never met over the life they expected me to live.
But time has a way of softening edges, and my mother's last call was warm in ways it hasn't been in years.
"Yeah," I say. "It's okay. It's... good, actually."
He nods, satisfied, and presses another kiss to my hair. Our child watches this exchange with solemn eyes, still chewing on the flatbread, a smear of flour now decorating her cheek.
I finish the last flatbread, stacking them on the wooden board Jason made from reclaimed barn wood. Each one is slightly different in size and shape—imperfect, handmade, ours.
He plates the sausages and vegetables while I wipe down the counter, both of us moving around each other with the ease of practice, the dance of bodies that know each other's space and rhythm.
The table near the window is already set, mismatched plates and cups that Jason collected over the years, each one with its own story I've slowly learned.
The blue ceramic bowl came from a craft fair in town.
The wooden plates he made himself. The cups—thick glass, slightly green-tinted—were his grandmother's.
We use them every day, not saving them for special occasions because every meal together is a special occasion, even when it's just flatbread and sausages on a cold February evening.
I carry the board to the table. He follows with the rest, Gianna still balanced on his hip, now reaching for the food with renewed interest and making small demanding sounds.
We settle into our usual spots—me facing the window so I can watch the mountain, him across from me where he can watch both of us, the baby girl between us in the high chair Jason built last summer from reclaimed pine.
The high chair is already scattered with crumbs from earlier snacks. I brush them away absently while Jason settles her into it, buckling the strap with practiced efficiency. Small hands immediately reach for the table, fingers drumming with impatience.
"Hold on," Jason says, amused. "Give us a second."
He tears a sausage into small pieces, arranges them on the small plate with chunks of soft pepper and a piece of flatbread. I add a few spoonfuls of the caramelized onions, and we both step back, watching as small hands immediately grab for the food.
The light is almost gone now, just a thin band of gold on the horizon where the sun has slipped behind the western ridge. Stars are beginning to appear in the deepening blue above, sharp and cold and impossibly distant.
But it doesn't feel isolating anymore. Doesn't feel like hiding. The mountain that once represented escape now just feels like home, solid and permanent and exactly where I'm supposed to be.
Jason catches my hand across the table before we start eating. His thumb traces over my knuckles, the same ones he bandaged that first night, when I showed up half-frozen and terrified on his doorstep.
His touch is warm, callused, familiar.
"You good?" he asks. Simple question. Layered meaning.
I look at him—this man who pulled me out of a blizzard and gave me a life I didn't know I could have—and then at the child between us, sticky-fingered and wild-haired and absolutely ours.
At the food we made together. At the cabin that stopped being his and became ours somewhere along the way.
At the life we built from nothing but a storm and desperation and the decision to stay.
"Yeah," I say, and mean it with every part of me. "I'm kept."
The corner of his mouth lifts, that almost-smile I've learned to read like a language. He brings my hand to his lips, kisses my knuckles once then releases me and reaches for the flatbread.
"Good," he says, voice rough with something that might be emotion or satisfaction or both. "That's the idea."
Gianna makes a demanding sound, small hands reaching for food, for us, for everything at once. We both move instinctively, coordinated without discussion, the choreography of parents who've learned to anticipate each other's actions.
And we eat, the three of us, while snow begins to fall again outside the window—soft and steady and constant, blanketing the world in white.
Thank you for reading!