Epilogue
Amelia
Seven years later
The paper bag full of groceries hangs under one arm as I balance my portfolio, my purse, and my uneaten lunch in one hand and I turn the key in the door of the apartment with my other.
The sound of sweet laughter echoes through the house as I walk in, letting the door close behind me. Kicking off my shoes, I smile at the giggles emanating from somewhere inside.
“Where are my girls?” I call as I drop everything on the bench by the door.
The tiny stomping of feet growing louder greets me as I move through the living room. Maisie bolts into the room in a paint-stained dress and her stark white hair hanging in what’s left of two buns on either side of her head.
“Mama,” she shouts with excitement. “Come look!” Turning on her heels, she scampers back down the hall toward their rooms.
Arching my back to relieve some of the tension around my slowly cramping rib cage, I follow the three-year-old to see what she has to show me.
When I turn the corner, I bite my bottom lip as I take in the sight. Matis is on the floor in Stella’s room, his back against the three-story dollhouse as our five-year-old kneels in front of him, biting her tongue as she focuses on applying a bright pink shade of blush to his cheeks.
Maisie giggles hysterically as if nothing funnier or more entertaining has ever happened, which is how she genuinely reacts to everything. It makes my cheeks hurt to watch her.
Matis winks at me with a smile. “Welcome home, mon trésor.”
“Bouge pas, Papa!” Stella scolds him.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, staying still for her to finish her job. He has thick black eyelashes, with mascara caked on his temples and under his eyes. There’s red lipstick in circles around his mouth and a bright pink bow planted at the crown of his head.
“Papa looks joli, Mama?” Maisie asks in her jumbled French and English.
Leaning down, I pick her up and plant a kiss on her chubby cheek.
“Daddy looks very pretty,” I say. “Did you have a fun day at home with Papa?”
“Oui!” she chirps, wriggling herself out my arms. Unless in a deep sleep, Maisie can usually only hold still for roughly two to three seconds. Back when I used to nurse her, it was the only thing I could do to make her still. Now that she’s outgrown that, she’s in a constant state of motion.
My mom likes to remind me I was much the same.
“How are you feeling, Trouble?” Matis asks from the floor, keeping very still for his daughter.
I rub a hand over my swollen belly. “I’m feeling wonderful.”
Under my hand, the baby kicks. Maisie places her hands there too and looks up at me with wonder in her eyes. When her little sister bumps her hand from the womb, she giggles and hops, knocking loose the last of her messy buns.
“Mama, the baby bient?t?” she asks.
“Soon, Maisie,” I reply, ruffling her hair. “Only a few more weeks.”
Walking farther into the room, I lean down and press my lips to Matis’s. The red lipstick smears onto my lips, making the girls laugh.
“I’m going to make dinner,” I say as I run my nails through his hair.
Maisie follows me to the kitchen, and I turn on the music from the speaker as I pull food from the paper bag. She starts coloring at the table as I sing along to the music and start preparing dinner.
Glancing back at Maisie, I admire her floral dress and start brainstorming things we could incorporate for our next spring line. Ever since moving over to children’s fashion, I’ve felt so much more liberated in my work.
As Matis says, I took the long way home, and it rings with so much truth. After many failed attempts at getting into the fashion industry, I started seeing every no as a new open door.
Five years ago, I started designing little girls’ dresses and rompers, which then led to opening my own self-made line and consigning them to local stores and running our own website.
Now I have my own brand, and we’re selling Stella Moon children’s clothes worldwide.
Matis has enough in his retirement and I have plenty in my inheritance to keep us and the girls well taken care of for the rest of our lives, so we put most of what we make with the brand back into Alzheimer’s research funds.
In Estelle’s name.
Glancing back at her chair in the corner, my heart aches with missing the way she used to sit there and watch the girls.
When Matis and I got married, we took Estelle out of the home and brought her here to live with us.
She spent the last of her days watching her grandbabies, and even if she never outwardly knew the girls were hers, I believe deep down she did.
The heart recognizes more than the mind can.
She passed one year after Maisie was born, living far longer than most do with her advanced condition. A black-and-white photo of her in her burlesque costume hangs over the chair so she stays with us.
“How the hell do you get this stuff off?” Matis enters the kitchen, wiping at his face with a makeup-removing cloth.
Laughing, I turn toward him and help to wipe the mascara from his eyes. They are still lined with black and honestly…it somehow manages to make him hotter still.
This man’s attractiveness should be studied.
Tossing the dirty cloth in the bin, he crowds me toward the counter. Tilting my chin up toward him, he kisses me gently.
“A good day at work?” he asks.
“A very good day. We signed the Harrods deal.”
His eyes widen and his jaw drops. “Mon trésor, that is incredible! I’m so proud of you.”
Taking my face in his hands, he devours my lips with his.
“We should go out and celebrate!” he suggests.
The thought exhausts me. “Can celebrating be you, me, and the girls going out for gelato after dinner?”
With a chuckle, he nods. “Voilà une idée parfaite.”
In our younger, less pregnant days, we would celebrate with long nights in the club, often with others in very kinky scenarios, but now…our lives are perfectly quiet and intimate, and I savor each and every moment.
Matis holds me against his chest as the food on the stove comes to a simmer. His warm arms hold me tight, and it’s so comforting, I hardly want to move. This man is my home and always will be.
“Papa, up please,” Maisie begs, tugging on his pant leg.
He turns away from me as he scoops up his daughter from the floor. Planting kisses on her cheek, he makes her giggle wildly. She squirms in his arms as he bounces her sweetly on his hip.
Glancing over my shoulder, I watch them together, and it makes my heart swell in my chest. I always knew Matis would be a perfect father.
He is so gentle and patient with the girls, continuously putting their safety and happiness first. My father was much the same, and it eases my soul to know my children will grow up in a loving household like I did.
Seeing all the layers of this man only makes me love him more. The sex god I fell in love with is also a nurturing father. He is everything all at once. And he’s all mine.
When the timer on the counter beeps, he sets Maisie on the floor and kisses my forehead again. “You go sit down, mon trésor. I will finish dinner.”
“I love you,” I reply on a sigh as I move toward the large comfy couch in the living room.
As I plop down and rest my feet on the ottoman, Stella crawls up next to me.
My quiet little cuddler, she nuzzles into my side.
With Matis’s dark hair and gray eyes, she truly is her father’s daughter.
She is also a little charmer like he is, always full of such light and kindness wherever she goes.
Maisie has a sixth sense for knowing when her sister is getting attention, so she quickly pads over and takes up space on my opposite side. The three of us sit on the couch together, soaking up the quiet, calm moments together.
This is what Matis calls the magic. The hushed, unassuming moments that often stick with us more than the more seemingly monumental ones.
Just then, the song on the speaker changes, and “La Vie en Rose” crackles through. I let out a groan because I know my feet-up break is about to end.
“Come here, Trouble,” he says, crossing to the living room with a towel hanging over his shoulder. As he puts his hand out for me, the girls clap and giggle with excitement. They know exactly what it means.
With a grin, I place my hand in my husband’s and let him pull me to my feet. Then, as our daughters watch on with happiness in their eyes, Matis dances me slowly around the kitchen. Not once in our almost seven years of marriage has he let this song go by without dancing with me to it.
And suddenly it’s three a.m. on the most romantic night of our lives, and I’m swept away to a moment in our history. A moment when love was new and our lives were changed.
Just like that.
Magic.