Epilogue
LARKIN
One Year Later
It was another perfectly sunny day in Seattle, not that those didn’t happen often, but this one felt brighter, happier, the promise of even better days to come.
I sat on the porch, sipping on my warm tea and watching as Courage and two of the other horses roamed the field.
They were free here, which wasn’t the same for every horse, but these three, including the once-starved gelding that Ephraim had fallen in love with, needed that extra space.
And as they roamed and explored, I watched, seeing their excitement for their world in the way they kicked up their heels, racing one another toward the shade of the trees. It was pure freedom.
Behind me, I heard the door open and a set of heavy steps on the old floorboards. I looked over my shoulder at my husband, smiling at him, not because there was a reason to but because he had that effect on me. “You look comfortable.”
Ephraim grinned down at me from his spot behind the chair, bending down to brush his lips against my cheek, just a kiss to say hello.
“I don’t know how long it’s going to last, but I’ll take advantage of it while it’s here.
” He stepped off the porch to watch the horses with me.
“I’m never not surprised at the change in Courage. ”
I didn’t answer him. The truth was that he had been the one who really believed in Courage and his potential.
If not for Ephraim, I wasn’t sure where Courage would have ended up, maybe he wouldn’t even be here, and that thought was one I refused to consider because it didn’t feel possible.
The horse was so different now, confident, and sweet to the core.
I could see it every day when he worked with our children and some of the new rescue horses we’d gotten.
But all the praise should go to the man beside me.
I looked back, studying his face, the sun reflecting in his eyes.
He met my gaze, giving me the same look he always did when we were together.
A look that told me I was everything to him, even if we didn’t have all the right words all the time to express the full depth of our relationship, or at least not out loud.
But I understood. I loved the man he had become, and I wasn’t afraid of anything as we stood there on a day like today.
All the ghosts of the past didn’t have anything on our future.
As we stood like that, the sun shining and the breeze ruffling his hair, the baby inside me moved for the first time, and I felt every glorious kick that was a promise of new life and new growth in our world.
My breath caught, and I gasped, not from pain but from the absolute wonder I felt at knowing something I had never felt before was moving within me.
Ephraim must have seen the emotion on my face, because he reached out, his hand hovering above my belly before he looked at me, a question on his face.
I took his hand, bringing it to rest on me as I felt the life inside me move again.
My eyes met his, seeing that I wasn’t alone in this, that the love I felt was shared, and for the first time since the pregnancy began, the fears of inadequacy or failure finally faded, making room for the truth that we had done this together.
Just as we did all of this. The baby, the life we shared, the work and home and all the details that we had learned to manage, it was all a part of what was real and what was ours.
I held his hand and stood, kissing him right there under the sky, knowing that wherever this journey took us next, it didn’t matter as long as we were there, together and taking each day as it came.
That was what I had learned here with Ephraim, in this space I carved out for myself.
We didn’t have to have it all planned or perfect to be happy or be a family.
We could live and exist with purpose and still not be everything all the time.
All we had to be was true to who we were, to what we wanted, and to who we loved.
Everything else fell into place with time, just as this had.
“Did you feel that?” I whispered, knowing that it had been a movement neither of us would miss, even if it was still too small to really feel from outside my belly.
Ephraim’s face had lit up, pure joy at the first evidence of what we made.
“I think I did.” His smile softened as he leaned forward, pressing another kiss to my forehead and lingering for a second to savor the moment before finally pulling away.
“What do you think? Are you ready for the rest of this? Or do you need to take a nap and digest it all a little more?” His teasing tone told me he wasn’t really expecting me to do anything, but was more concerned that I was feeling good and had enough time to just sit with it all and let myself adjust.
“I could use a nap.” I had been trying to fight that urge, to do all the things that had come easily before.
But this baby was making herself known, and I couldn’t argue with that.
“But I’d like you to lie down with me.” I looked out at the horses once more, watching as the sun moved across the sky.
“Just to be together for a little longer.”
“We can be together as long as you like, my love.” There was so much promise in those words. And I didn’t doubt for a second that we had it, all we needed. We were right here, on the brink of the next chapter, ready to start as husband and wife again.
As we went inside, my eyes drifted to Ephraim’s back, admiring how he had changed so much and yet remained the same man I always loved.
Our life together wasn’t perfect. It never would be.
But I knew how to handle it now, to lean in and stand firm where I needed and give ground where it made sense.
I no longer feared his neglect or his ability to love me the way I deserved to be loved.
And that was a gift I wouldn’t forget every day for as long as I lived with my husband at my side, creating the world we had always been meant to live in, even if it took us a few detours and years to figure it out.
I wouldn’t trade a second of this journey, not anymore.
I was finally ready to let this love settle around me like the most comfortable, warmest embrace, and to trust that no matter how the future unfolded, we would find the path forward together.
This was the life I wanted, with the man I wanted.
And I’d never been so sure of anything in my entire life.
And that was what finally set me free. Free to love him, all the time, in any and every moment we had together, as a wife who was completely and utterly loved by her husband in return.
It was beautiful, the whole of it, the good, the bad, and the mundane.
Every day we were building something new together, and I couldn’t be happier about it. It was right. We were right.
And I was right here. At last.