Epilogue
Audrey
The cliff hasn’t changed.
It’s been eighteen months since the fire, twelve since we moved back into the cottage, six since I finally stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop.
And still, Miller’s Point looks exactly as it did when I was seventeen - when a boy with a crooked smile kissed me for the first time and changed my whole life.
“Mommy, watch!”
Lily’s at the water’s edge, skipping stones. She’s gotten better at it - eight skips now, sometimes nine - and she insists on announcing every successful throw like she’s won an Olympic medal.
“I see you, baby! That was amazing!”
“That was only seven,” Rowan says beside me. “She’s lying.”
“Don’t you dare tell her that.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
***
Rowan
I watch my daughter throw another stone - nine skips, actually, though I’ll let her believe my count was off - and feel something settle in my chest that might be peace.
It’s a strange feeling. For most of my life, peace was something that happened to other people. I was always waiting for the next disaster, the next failure, the next proof that I wasn’t good enough.
Now, sitting on this cliff with my wife beside me and my daughter skipping stones in the afternoon light, I realize I’ve stopped waiting.
Not because I think I’m finally good enough. But because I’ve accepted that I might never be - and that’s okay. I don’t have to be perfect. I just have to keep showing up.
“What are you thinking about?” Audrey asks.
“Everything. Nothing.” I take her hand. “How lucky I am.”
“Lucky?”
“To still be here. After everything I did-” I shake my head. “I should have lost you. I almost did.”
“But you didn’t.”
“But I almost did.” I turn to face her. “Do you know what I think about when I look at my hands?”
She glances down at the scars - faded now, silvery against my palms, permanent reminders of the night I ran into fire.
“Mr. Buttons?”
“You.” I lift her hand to my lips. “I think about how I burned these hands for a stuffed rabbit because my daughter asked me to. And I think: imagine what I’d do for you.”
Her eyes go bright with tears.
“Rowan...”
“Anything,” I tell her. “I would do anything, Audrey. Walk through fire. Tear up divorce papers. Stand in front of the whole town and take whatever they throw at me. Whatever it takes to keep you, I’ll do it.”
“I know.” She squeezes my hand. “You already have.”
***
Audrey
Lily comes running up the hill, breathless and triumphant.
“Ten skips!” she announces. “I got ten! Did you see?”
“We saw,” I lie.
“We’re so proud of you,” Rowan lies.
She beams at us both, completely unaware of our parental conspiracy, and throws herself onto the blanket between us.
“Can we come here every year?” she asks. “For forever?”
“Every year for forever,” Rowan agrees. “It’s a deal.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
She settles against me, sandy and sweaty and perfect, and I wrap my arm around her while Rowan wraps his arm around us both.
Three people on a cliff, watching the sun sink toward the water.
This is what we fought for. This is what we almost lost and somehow, impossibly, managed to keep.
***
Rowan
The sun dips below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink and gold. Lily’s fallen asleep against Audrey’s shoulder, exhausted from stone-skipping and ocean air.
I look at my wife. She looks at me.
“What are you thinking?” she asks softly.
“That I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I lean over our sleeping daughter, press a kiss to Audrey’s forehead. “Right here. With both of you. For the rest of my life.”
She smiles - that real smile, the one that lights up her whole face.
“Home,” she says.
“Home,” I agree.
The waves crash against the rocks below. The stars begin to emerge, one by one, in the darkening sky.
And on the cliff at Miller’s Point, we sit wrapped around each other, whole and healed and finally, finally at peace.
Home.
THE END