Epilogue
GRIFFIN
A FEW MONTHS LATER
“So what brings you here today, Griffin?”
I study the carpet. My first instinct is to downplay my response.
The reason for coming here is anything but easy. I could say that I’m here for the typical reasons: guilt, anger, the sense that maybe my time with Lila was never enough, that I failed as a husband, a father, a man. Or I can hit her with the classic: “I need closure.”
“I’ve never really done this. The therapy thing,” I say, clearing my throat. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just not sure.” I shift in the tiny leather chair, which almost gives under my weight. “I mean, it’s been six years since I lost my wife. You’d think—” I stop, and look up.
The therapist, Dr. Anderson, watches me with her hands folded in her lap and a soft smile. Her head tilts in a way that says “I’m listening.”
“I’m not really here because of my late wife,” I try again.
“That’s okay. Who do you think you are here for?”
“My son,” I offer. “And… I’m with someone now. She’s different. Younger, but mature. She’s smart, and she… sees me.” I catch a smirk on my therapist’s lips. “I want to be good for her. Not perfect, just not some fucking trainwreck.” I wince. “Sorry, language.”
Dr. Anderson chuckles. “It’s okay. Go on.”
“Is it bad that I’m not doing this for me?”
Dr. Anderson shakes her head. “Not at all. It’s not uncommon to want to heal for someone else, when healing for yourself hasn’t been enough motivation.”
“I just don’t want to drag her into all this old shit.”
Dr. Anderson nods. “I understand. Sometimes, that’s the beginning of healing.”
I’m not sure what to do with my hands. They’re knotted together, fingers slipping and squeezing.
“I keep waiting for the guilt to hit me again, you know?” I say. “What I have with Tiana is real. But I somehow keep expecting my life to snap back to how it was before.”
“Like the universe will punish you for your happiness?” Dr. Anderson prompts.
“Yes, exactly.” The relief at being seen loosens a knot in my shoulders. “It feels like every time I let myself have something good, something bad is waiting in the wings. I’m always bracing.”
Dr. Anderson pauses. “Griffin, do you think your happiness comes at a price?”
I exhale. “I don’t know. Lila got sick so suddenly; we’d had all these plans, and afterward, I just—” I gesture helplessly. “I keep waiting for the next shoe to drop. Like it has to.”
Her silence draws the words out of me, the way competent therapists do.
I pick a spot beyond her shoulder and stare at it, as if the right words will materialize there in the air. “Tiana says I look at her like I expect her to vanish.”
“Do you?”
Part of me wants to laugh. “Maybe? Not vanish, exactly. More like I never deserved her in the first place, and sooner or later the universe is going to realize it.”
“Is it possible that you do deserve her? That she’s in your life for a reason?”
“I mean, sure,” I mutter, but it sounds hollow.
Dr. Anderson’s mouth presses to one side, considering. “It sounds like you carry a lot of responsibility. As if you feel accountable for everything that happens—whether it’s within your control or not. Is that correct?”
I let out a scoff. “Is that a trick question? My whole job revolves around troubleshooting things when they go wrong.”
“Let’s talk about that for a moment,” Dr. Anderson says. “Responsibility. When Lila died, you had to hold your son together, manage your own grief, and keep your life on the rails. I’m not sure anyone could have done all that perfectly.”
I lean back in my chair, considering.
She gives me a moment to chew on that before continuing, “Grief, after all, is not just missing someone. It’s a reorganization of what you believe about yourself, and the world. Every loss is a little rupture in the story you thought you were writing.”
“I guess I never really adjusted,” I admit. “I just worked around it.”
“I want you to try something before our next session. Nothing crazy,” she says, raising a palm, as if she’s seen the flinch before it even reaches my face.
“I want you to notice when you’re bracing for something bad.
Don’t try to change it, just catch yourself in the act.
Write those moments down. Even if it’s just a word or two. Bring them in with you next week.”
I nod, trying to look game. “Just notice when I blame myself or wait for a disaster and jot it down?”
“Sure. And,” she adds, tapping her pen against her notepad, “each time you do, I want you to ask yourself two questions: ‘What am I afraid will happen?’ and, ‘What would I do if it did?’”
“Okay. And then what?”
She grins. “That’s it for now. Let’s walk before we run.”
When I step outside of the clinic, the air in my lungs is a little lighter. Less knotted. I unlock my car, sink into the driver’s seat, and sift through the notes the therapist gave me in my head.
Before I can even start the engine, my phone rattles in my back pocket. It’s Tiana’s name on the screen. The picture I took of her by the pool flashes, her expression both annoyed and fond.
“Hey, Sugar.”
“Hi, Grumps. How was therapy?”
“Not the most fun I’ve ever had, but the fish tank in the waiting room was top-tier.”
“Yeah?” she laughs. “ Did you have a breakthrough?”
“That depends,” I say. “How do you feel about dating a guy who’s two-thirds generalized anxiety disorder?”
She’s quiet for a half-beat, then: “Is the other third coffee?”
I chuckle. “Yes. With a side of Diet Coke and fear of death, actually,” I say, and her full-bellied laugh slides through the phone and makes everything less tight in my chest.
“Can you stop by the supply store and get more champagne flutes for later?”
“For the café that will mostly serve coffee?”
“It’s the soft opening, Hayes. Let me be extra.”
“You’re always extra.”
“And yet you love me.”
My mouth curves. “I do.”
“Good. Then prove it with champagne flutes. And the little gold cocktail napkins, if they still have them.”
“Anything else?”
“Probably, but I’m trying to seem calm and reasonable.”
“You’re doing great, Sugar.”
“I’m absolutely not, but thank you for lying in a supportive way.”
I let out a loud chuckle and the sound surprises me. It still does sometimes, how easily she can pull a laugh out of me now.
“I’ll be there soon,” I tell her.
“Okay. I’m going to go panic over the pastry display.”
“Tiana.”
“Hmm?”
“It’s going to be perfect.”
“Don’t say that or I’ll cry into the croissants.”
The call ends, but I keep the phone against my ear for a second longer, holding on to the echo of her voice.
Tonight is the soft opening of Tiana’s café—The Yellow Door.
She named it that because of Lila.
Lila loved yellow, sunshine, and summer mornings. Anything bright enough to make a room feel less lonely. So Tiana painted the front door the softest shade of yellow and built a whole dream around it.
A café full of warmth, light, and life.
The first time she told me the name, I couldn’t speak for a full minute.
Somehow, the woman I love found a way to honor the woman I lost without making either love feel smaller.
Sylas will carry a piece of his mother into every corner of that place, every time he walks through the door. And I couldn’t be more grateful.
I love Tiana more than anything in this world.
Not because she fixed what was broken. Because she stepped into my life and made room for me, Sylas, our grief.
Loss hollowed me out, but she turned me into the man I am now, trying every day to deserve the life Tiana is choosing to build beside me.
She might’ve left Willow’s, but she didn’t leave us.
Tiana stayed—not as the nanny anymore. After everything, there was no world where I could keep calling her the nanny when she had become the center of this family.
Our family.
A unit.
Sylas loves her like a mother, with his whole fearless little heart, and Tiana loves him like a son.
There is nowhere else she should be.
Nowhere except home with us.
It took me longer than it should have to convince her of that.
The guest room lasted exactly four nights after we decided we were done pretending this was temporary. Tiana had claimed she needed her own space and that moving into my room felt like a big step. But that same evening, she moved her skin care into my bathroom.
The rest followed slowly after that. Clothes in my closet. Her ridiculous fuzzy socks in my drawer. Hair ties on my nightstand. A half-empty glass of water on her side of the bed every morning because she never finishes one. Little pieces of her everywhere, turning my room into ours.
Now, I glance at the passenger seat where the list she texted me is open on my phone.
I add flowers, even though she told me not to, because they’re not apology flowers this time. They’re celebration flowers.
And tonight, when Tiana opens the doors to the dream she built, I’ll be there with Sylas, watching her with pride.