Epilogue
Jade
Two Years Later
I wake to the sensation of a small body launching itself onto the bed with the force of a tiny missile.
“IT’S MY BIRTHDAY! MOMMY, WAKE UP! I’M SEVEN!”
Nova is bouncing on the mattress, her hair wild, her grin so wide it looks like it might split her face in two. She’s wearing her favorite pajamas - the ones with the purple butterflies - and clutching a stuffed rabbit that’s seen better days but remains her most treasured possession.
Beside me, Damian groans and pulls the pillow over his head. “Five more minutes.”
“You can’t sleep on my BIRTHDAY!” Nova yanks the pillow away. “Birthdays are for WAKING UP!”
The baby monitor on the nightstand crackles to life. A small voice emerges, plaintive and demanding: “Mama! Dada! Up! UP!”
Lucas. Our son. Two years old now and already ruler of the household.
I kiss Nova’s forehead as I climb out of bed. “I’ll get your brother. You and Daddy start the birthday waffles.”
“They’re not SECRET if you already KNOW about them!”
“Then pretend I don’t know.”
“Okay!” She grabs Damian’s arm and drags him toward the edge of the bed. “Come ON, Daddy! The waffles won’t make themselves!”
I pad down the hall to Lucas’s room - decorated with stars and moons that Nova helped pick out. He’s standing in his crib, chubby hands gripping the rail, dark curls wild from sleep. He has Damian’s eyes and my stubborn streak, a combination that keeps us all on our toes.
“Mama!” He reaches for me with grabby hands. “Up! Birday!”
“That’s right, baby. It’s Nova’s birthday.”
“Birday!” He claps his hands together. “Cake?”
“After breakfast.”
“Cake NOW?”
“Nice try. Waffles first.”
He considers this negotiation, then nods solemnly. “Waff-les.”
The kitchen is already chaos when we arrive. Flour everywhere - on the counter, on the floor, in Damian’s hair. Nova is perched on a stool, “supervising” his waffle-making with the critical eye of a master chef.
“Daddy, that’s too many eggs.”
“It’s exactly the right amount of eggs.”
“Mommy uses three. You used four.”
“Mommy’s waffles are inferior to mine.”
Nova gasps dramatically. “MOMMY! Daddy said your waffles aren’t as good as his!”
I settle Lucas into his high chair and survey the disaster zone. There’s batter on the ceiling. I don’t want to know how.
“Did he now?”
Damian shoots me an innocent look. “I said no such thing. I simply stated a fact about egg ratios.”
I dip my finger in the batter. Walk over to him. Smear it on his nose.
He freezes. “You did not just do that.”
“I did.”
“In front of the children.”
“They should learn that actions have consequences.”
His eyes narrow. He reaches toward the flour bag.
“Damian. Don’t you dare.”
He throws the flour.
It hits me square in the chest, white powder exploding everywhere.
Nova screams with delight. Lucas shrieks from his high chair, banging his hands on the tray: “MORE! MORE!”
What follows is absolute pandemonium. Flour flying through the air. Batter splattering on walls. Nova attempting to play both sides, armed with a wooden spoon. Lucas somehow getting egg in his hair even though he’s across the room.
By the end of it, the kitchen looks like a bakery exploded. We’re all covered in various breakfast ingredients, panting and laughing.
Damian pulls me close, flour and all.
“Happy Saturday,” he says.
“Happy Saturday.”
***
Damian
An hour before the party, I slip into my office for a moment of quiet.
My phone shows a message from a Portugal country code.
Donald: Thinking about Nova today. I know it’s her birthday. I’m not ready to call yet. But can you tell her I love her? That I’m trying to get better? I know I don’t deserve it. I just want her to know.
I stare at the message for a long moment.
After Vivian’s conviction, Donald spiraled.
The guilt he’d been suppressing for years came rushing up all at once, and he didn’t have the tools to handle it.
Gambling at first. Then drinking. Then things that were harder to come back from.
He signed over control of Castillo Enterprises to me before he hit rock bottom - said he couldn’t stand to look at it anymore.
Now I run most of the company, rebuilding the Castillo name into something worth being proud of.
He checked himself into a treatment facility in Portugal six months ago - voluntary, finally admitting he needed help.
I should hate him. Part of me still does. He stood by while Jade rotted in prison. He believed Vivian’s lies because it was easier than facing his own guilt. He let another woman raise his daughter and never once questioned whether he was doing the right thing.
But he’s also trying, finally. And for Nova’s sake, I hope he makes it.
I type back: She’s happy. She’s healthy. She’s surrounded by people who love her. Focus on your recovery. We can talk about more when you’re ready.
I pocket the phone.
The darkness can wait. Today is about joy.
***
Jade
The party is magnificent chaos.
The backyard has been transformed into a butterfly wonderland - Nova’s choice, naturally. Purple and pink streamers everywhere. Balloon arches. A bounce house that Damian spent an hour inflating while Nova critiqued his technique.
Seven-year-olds swarm the space like a small, sugar-fueled army. Screaming. Running. Someone’s already crying over a popped balloon, and we’re only twenty minutes in.
Lucas clings to Damian’s shoulders, surveying the mayhem from a safe height.
“Loud, Dada.”
“Very loud, buddy.”
“Too loud?”
“Definitely too loud. But your sister’s happy, so we suffer in silence.”
“Okay, Dada.”
Cake time arrives like a hurricane. Nova insists on carrying the cake herself - chocolate with purple frosting and butterfly decorations - which gives me a minor heart attack. Damian walks behind her with his arms outstretched, ready to catch.
“Lucas, come blow out the candles with me!” Nova calls once the cake is safely on the table.
Lucas perks up. “Me?”
“Yes, you. You’re my brother. Brothers help with important things.”
Damian sets him down. Lucas toddles over to his sister and stands on tiptoes, barely reaching the edge of the table.
“Ready?” Nova asks.
“Ready!”
“One, two, three-”
They blow together. Nova’s powerful puff takes out most of the candles; Lucas’s tiny contribution gets two on the edge. He looks at his accomplishment with immense pride.
“I did it!”
“You did it! Good job, baby brother!”
After the party, when the backyard is littered with deflated balloons and discarded wrapping paper, the house finally falls quiet.
Lucas passed out an hour ago, chocolate frosting still in his hair because I was too exhausted to fight the bath battle.
Nova is on the couch, surrounded by new toys, fighting sleep with everything she has.
I sit beside her and stroke her hair.
“Did you have a good birthday, baby?”
“The best.” She yawns hugely. “Mommy?”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you for finding me.”
My heart stops. “What do you mean, sweetheart?”
“When I was little. And I didn’t know you were my mommy.” Her voice is drowsy, matter-of-fact, the way children are when they’re stating simple truths. “You came back for me. You found me and you saved me. Some kids don’t have mommies who come back. But you did.”
Tears burn my eyes. “I’ll always come back for you, baby. Always. No matter what.”
“I know.” She snuggles closer, her eyes drifting shut. “That’s why you’re the best mommy.”
“And you’re the best daughter.”
“I know that too.”
I laugh through my tears. “Humble as always.”
“What’s humble mean?”
“It means... never mind. Sleep, birthday girl.”
“Okay, Mommy. I love you.”
“I love you too, baby. More than anything in the whole world.”
She’s asleep within seconds.
Damian appears in the doorway, watching us with soft eyes. He crosses the room silently and lifts Nova from the couch, cradling her against his chest like she weighs nothing.
We carry her to bed together. Her room has evolved over the years - twinkle lights now frame the ceiling, and her “big girl” bed replaced the toddler one - but the butterfly stickers are still on the wall. The same ones we put up during that first impossible week.
I stand in the doorway, watching my daughter sleep.
Damian’s arms wrap around me from behind. His chin rests on my shoulder.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
“She said I found her. She thanked me for coming back.”
“Because you did. Against everything. Against all odds.”
“I almost didn’t make it. So many times, I almost didn’t make it.”
“But you did.” He turns me to face him, hands cupping my face. “You’re here. She’s here. Lucas is here. I’m here. This is real, Jade. This is yours. You fought for it and you won.”
I kiss him. Deep. Grateful. Full of everything I can’t put into words.
“Take me to bed,” I whisper.
“Kids asleep?”
“Kids asleep.”
“Lucas ate his weight in cake. He won’t wake for hours.”
“Then we have hours.”
He takes my hand and leads me to our bedroom.
Moonlight streams through the curtains. The house is quiet around us - that particular quiet that only comes after a day of joyful chaos.
He undresses me slowly. Reverently. Like we have all the time in the world, because we do.
“Do you know how beautiful you are?” he murmurs.
“You tell me every day.”
“Not enough. I could tell you every minute and it still wouldn’t be enough.”
He worships me. Takes his time. Relearns my body like he doesn’t already know it better than his own.
“I watched you today,” he says against my skin. “With the kids. With the chaos. You were smiling the whole time. Laughing. Happy.” He pulls back to look at me. “You used to be so scared to smile. Like you didn’t deserve it. Like happiness was something that could be taken away.”
My eyes burn. “You gave me that. You gave me the ability to smile again.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “You gave yourself that. You survived four years of hell and came out the other side with your heart still intact. You let yourself love again. You let yourself be happy. I just got to watch. I just got to be here for it.”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
He laughs, low, warm, full of love. “Yes ma’am.”
He kisses me. Deep. Thorough. We tumble onto the bed in a tangle of limbs, me on top, him looking up at me like I’m the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
“I love you,” I say.
“I love you more.”
“Not possible.”
“Prove it.”
I do.
I ride him slow at first. Savoring. His hands grip my hips. His eyes never leave mine.
He sits up and pulls me against his chest. Forehead to forehead. Heartbeat to heartbeat.
“More,” I gasp.
He flips us in one smooth motion. Drives into me.
“Mine,” he growls. “Say it.”
“Yours. Always.”
We shatter together, his name on my lips, mine on his.
After, tangled and satisfied in the darkness:
“We’re good at that,” I murmur against his chest.
“Practice.”
“Let’s keep practicing.”
“For the rest of our lives?”
“At least.”
***
Morning comes too soon.
I wake to sunlight streaming through the curtains and Lucas’s voice on the monitor: “Mama! Up! Birday cake!”
Damian groans. “Five more minutes.”
“Tell your son that.”
The bedroom door bursts open. Nova, still in her pajamas, birthday crown miraculously still perched on her head.
“Mommy! Lucas is awake and he’s YELLING!”
“We hear him, baby.”
“Well, someone needs to get him because I don’t do diapers.”
“You don’t DO diapers?”
“I’m seven now. That’s baby stuff.”
Damian laughs into the pillow. I throw one at him.
“I’ll get Lucas. You start coffee.”
“I don’t know how to make coffee,” Nova says seriously. “I’m seven.”
“Then supervise Daddy while he makes coffee.”
“THAT I can do.” She grabs Damian’s arm. “Come ON, Daddy! Coffee doesn’t make itself!”
I go to Lucas’s room and scoop him up. He wraps his chubby arms around my neck.
“Mama!”
“Good morning, baby.”
“Cake?”
“After breakfast.”
“Cake IS breakfast.”
“Nice try.”
I carry him downstairs to join the chaos.
***
The kitchen is a disaster zone again.
Lucas has chocolate cake smeared across his face - Damian caved approximately three seconds after I left the room. Nova is lecturing him about nutrition while eating her own slice of leftover birthday cake.
“You can’t just give him cake for breakfast, Daddy.”
“You’re also eating cake.”
“I’m seven. I can make my own choices. He’s TWO.”
“She has a point,” I say from the doorway.
Damian looks up. Sees me standing there with Lucas on my hip, watching my family in all their messy, chaotic, perfect glory.
He smiles.
That smile. The rare one. The one that’s just for me.
I walk into the chaos. Into the noise. Into the flour on the floor and the frosting on the walls and the laughter that fills every corner.
This is my life.
Flour fights and birthday parties. Toddler tantrums and seven-year-old sass. A husband who looks at me like I hung the moon. Children who call me Mommy like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
I fought for this. Bled for this. Spent four years in hell dreaming of something I wasn’t sure I’d ever have.
And now it’s mine.
All of it.
Forever.
THE END