Later That Day
Jasper pulled me into his arms as I stood silent in the kitchen.
“You okay?” he whispered.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I think… I think Brit might be.”
He kissed my temple, and I leaned into him, the familiar hum of our home buzzing around us.
From the hallway, Nathan laughed loudly. Astrid sang off-key. Kyle shouted, “Stop braiding my hair!” The twins babbled at the TV.
Our home.
Alive.
And somewhere, miles away, maybe—just maybe—another kind of healing was beginning, too.
A Good Life
Corinne
I always thought the end of my story would come with fireworks, with something dramatic or loud. But instead, it came like a quiet Sunday morning—warm light pouring into the windows, the sound of little feet running across hardwood, laughter drifting through the halls like music.
This is what peace looked like for me.
Not perfect. Not painless. But mine.
Jasper was sitting on the back patio, legs stretched out, Aspen curled on his chest with her thumb in her mouth. She was two now, all curls and giggles and wide, curious eyes that had him wrapped around her finger. I watched them from the kitchen window, one hand around my mug of tea, the other pressed to the faint scar on my wrist.
"You okay?" he asked softly, noticing me before I even opened the door.
I nodded. "Yeah. Just watching my whole heart outside."
He smiled that slow, quiet smile that only I ever really saw. "Come sit."
I stepped out, curling beside him on the wide cushioned bench, Aspen shifting slightly but not waking. Jasper kissed the top of my head.
"She still daddy's girl?"
He chuckled. "Always. You just carried her for nine months, but I’m the favorite."
I rolled my eyes. "She almost killed me, Jasper."
He grew quiet.
We didn’t talk about that time often, but it still lived inside us. When Aspen was born, she was our miracle. After three boys and two miscarriages, she was the baby we thought we’d never have. But my mind betrayed me. I cried all the time, over nothing. Sometimes I thought Jasper would take the baby away. Sometimes I wanted him to. There were nights I couldn’t sleep because I was afraid I’d hurt her. Afternoons I couldn’t hold her without shaking.
But Jasper never left.
Never looked away.
He sat with me in the bathroom as I sobbed on the floor, held the baby when my arms were too heavy. He locked away the knives when I told him I had thoughts again. He called my doctor. Slept on the floor beside the crib when I was too scared to be alone.
He protected all of us from my mind.
"Thank you," I whispered.
He glanced over. "For what?"
"For staying. For saving me again. For not being afraid."
Jasper shook his head. "I was terrified. I just didn’t let you see it. But I wasn’t going to lose you. Not again."
I rested my head on his shoulder. "I still have bad days."
"I know. We all do."
From inside the house came a bang followed by twin laughter.
"Celic and Colt," Jasper sighed.
"God, those two."
Our six-year-old mischief-makers. One time, they filled the dishwasher with bubble bath. Another, they painted the dog blue. They were energy and trouble and joy in little bodies, and I didn’t know whether to scream or hug them most days.
Nathan wandered outside next, a basketball under his arm. Tall for eleven, all arms and legs and big dreams. He grinned at Jasper.
"Dad, wanna shoot hoops with me later?"
"Always," Jasper nodded. "But only if you finally beat me."
"I’m gonna dunk on you."
I raised an eyebrow. "He’s eleven. Can he even reach the net?"
"Mom!" Nathan groaned.
Jasper laughed. "Give it a few more years. He’s already taller than Kyle at his age."
That name still tugged at my heart.
Kyle was eighteen now. Preparing to graduate high school. My firstborn. Allen’s firstborn. The boy who made me a mom and Allen a dad.
He’d gotten into UCLA and Harvard. The golden boy, so smart it sometimes scared me. But he was lost trying to choose.
"If I go to UCLA, I’m home," he’d told us over dinner one night. "I’ll be close to you guys. But if I go to Harvard, I’ll be far. I’ll be alone. But I’ll earn my seat before I take over dad’s company. My birthright as he always says"
Allen and Jasper had taken him out for lunch the next day. Just the three of them. Jasper told me later, “He doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone. But if Harvard is what he wants, he needs to take the leap.”
Kyle had decided that week. Harvard. He cried when he told me. I cried, too.
“Promise me you’ll visit,” I said, hugging him too tightly.
“Every chance I get, Mom.”
Astrid, sweet Astrid, was sixteen and already following in my footsteps. A beauty influencer with a million followers and a face that reminded the world of me in my prime. People called her a nepo baby, but she owned it. She was proud of me.
She still talked about that last Victoria’s Secret show I did—the one where I walked down the runway in glittering white wings, belly just beginning to swell with Nathan.
“You looked like an angel,” she told me once, wiping her eyes. “You made me believe I could be anything.”
Her first heartbreak had just hit. Some boy with perfect teeth and an empty heart.
She cried in my arms for hours. Then the next day, Jasper, Kyle, and Allen all drove to his house.
"We just wanted to talk," Allen had said innocently when they returned.
I didn’t ask for details.
Now, Allen had started seeing someone new. Blakely. A sweet woman who owned a bakery and had a smile that softened even Allen’s most serious frown. They’d just had a baby—his third—at forty. And I was genuinely happy for him.
But Kyle and Astrid weren’t.
"It’s too soon," Astrid snapped. "He forgot Mom."
"He didn’t forget me," I said. "He just finally gave himself permission to be happy again."
"Doesn’t mean I have to like her," Kyle muttered.
"You don’t," I agreed. "But you have to be kind."
That night, Jasper and I sat on the back porch again, Aspen asleep between us.
The stars were out. The house was finally quiet.
"You ever think we’d get here?" I asked.
He looked at me. "No. But I hoped."
"Do you miss the old days?"
"Sometimes," he said. "But mostly, I’m just grateful for the ones we have now."
I reached over, took his hand.
"Thank you for choosing me. Over and over again."
He turned, eyes soft. "There was never anyone else. Even when I didn’t have you, you were always it for me."
I broke a little then. Let the tears fall.
"I was so broken."
"You were rebuilding."
"I still feel like I’m rebuilding."
He pulled me close. "So am I. And we’re doing it together."
Inside, laughter erupted again—Celic and Colt chasing Nathan with water guns. Astrid yelling about her stolen lip gloss. Kyle muttering about Harvard essays. The baby monitor buzzed faintly.
Our life.
Not perfect. But loved.
I kissed Jasper’s shoulder. "I wish I could freeze this."
He leaned down, whispered in my ear. "Then let’s just remember it. Every day."
And in that moment—surrounded by noise, chaos, and endless love—I realized something:
This wasn’t the end.
It was just another beginning.
The End.