Epilogue #3
We don’t make it two steps into the hall before he pins me gently to the wall beside a framed photo of Nonna and kisses me like the bathroom wasn’t enough, because it wasn’t, because quickies are appetizers, because married hunger doesn’t clock out when a toddler laughs outside.
I shove him back, laughing under my breath.
“Pasta. Innocence. Enzo.”
“Cruel triad.”
“Effective triad. Move.”
In the kitchen I put water on while he leans against the counter looking like he just committed a felony in a claw-foot tub and got away with it.
His collar is crooked. I fix it. He fixes a strand of hair behind my ear.
Our hands look ordinary doing ordinary things; our bodies still thrum with the opposite.
“Official review,” I say, measuring salt I don’t need yet, “that was outstanding faucet repair.”
“Five stars. Would plumb again.”
“Enzo is going to smell it on us.”
“Enzo can bill me for emotional damages.” He steals a cherry tomato from the cutting board and pops it in my mouth instead of his. “Eat. Hydrate. Later I keep my promise about upstairs.”
“Later you keep all your promises. That’s the deal now.”
“That’s the deal forever.”
He catches me around the waist one more time before we fully recommit to pasta, forehead to mine, grinning like he got away with something sacred and stupid.
“Upstairs later,” he reminds me.
“Noted,” I agree. “Assuming we survive Enzo’s face when he comes back inside.”
“We’ll survive. We’re professionals.”
“You’re a professional. I’m a woman who just got fucked on a sink. Different skill sets.”
He laughs, soft, and lets me go. My body hums through the next ordinary minutes, water boiling, salt measured, spoons clinking, while the locked bathroom behind us keeps our secret warm.
Happily ever after, it turns out, includes fogged mirrors and stolen minutes and a husband who can switch from filthy to fatherhood in the time it takes water to simmer.
I stir the pasta and listen to Tori laughing outside.
Later, after lunch and another uncle-approved escape upstairs, wrapped in sheets that smell like us, I trace patterns on his chest while the afternoon light goes golden through the windows.
“Enzo’s going to know what we were doing,” I say.
“Enzo’s a grown man. He can handle it.”
“He’s going to make comments.”
“He always makes comments. It’s his primary form of communication.”
From the next room, Enzo is already narrating something outrageous to a delighted toddler.
“He’s going to make comments at dinner. In front of your daughter.”
“Tori doesn’t understand comments. She’s one.”
“She understands tone. She’s going to learn that tone.”
“Then she’ll be well-prepared for life in this family.” He pulls me closer, pressing a kiss to my hair. “Stop worrying about Enzo. He’s fine, Tori’s fine, everything’s fine.”
“I know everything’s fine. That’s the problem.”
“How is that a problem?”
“Because I keep waiting for something to go wrong. For the other shoe to drop. For someone to show up with a gun or a legal document or some new crisis that requires us to-” I stop, shaking my head. “It’s been over a year. I should be used to things being okay by now.”
“You spent four months running for your life. You’re allowed to take more than a year to recover from that.”
“I know. I just, I want to enjoy this. I want to stop looking over my shoulder. I want to believe that this is actually real and not just a temporary reprieve before the next disaster.”
Max is quiet for a moment. Then: “Do you remember what you said to me in the backyard? When I proposed?”
“I said I wanted to choose you. This time on purpose. Not because of a treaty or because I had to, but because I wanted to.”
“And I said I wanted the same thing. To be chosen, not obligated.” He tilts my chin up, making me meet his eyes. “This is real, Caterina. This is the life we chose. Both of us, eyes open, knowing exactly what we were getting into. No treaties, no arrangements, just us.”
“Just us and a toddler and a homicidal goose and your entire criminal empire.”
“The empire mostly runs itself these days. Nico handles the day-to-day. I just show up for quarterly calls and intimidate people occasionally.”
“You intimidated Dominic Castellano this morning.”
“Dominic Castellano needs regular intimidation. It’s good for his character.”
I laugh, and he smiles, and for a moment everything is exactly as simple as it should be.
Evening comes soft and gold, the way it always does here.
Enzo stays for dinner, Max’s carbonara, which he’s been perfecting for months and which is, admittedly, exceptional. Tori makes a mess of her high chair, smearing pasta in her hair and offering bites to Cannoli through the window, which the goose accepts with regal disdain.
“She’s going to think geese are indoor pets,” Enzo says, watching this exchange.
“Cannoli is an indoor pet. She just prefers to be outside.”
“She’s a farm animal.”
“She’s staff. Very specialized staff.”
After dinner, Enzo heads back to the city with promises to return next month and threats to bring an even bigger stuffed animal for Tori’s collection.
Max handles bedtime, their ritual now, the two of them in the nursery, his low voice reading stories while Tori fights sleep until she can’t anymore.
I find myself standing by the back door, looking out at the last of the light.
The flannel is hanging on its hook, the gray one, soft from years of washing, too big for me. I stole it the day I ran. I wore it through four months of fear and uncertainty. I’m still wearing it now, on quiet evenings when the house settles and I need something that feels like safety.
“That thing is falling apart,” Max says, coming up behind me. “The left elbow is more hole than fabric.”
“I know.”
“I could buy you a new one. Same brand. Same color.”
“It wouldn’t be the same.”
“It would be structurally sound.”
“I don’t need structurally sound. I need this one.
” I touch the worn fabric, remembering all the nights it got me through.
“This flannel is the reason I survived long enough to come back to you. It smells like the farm and old coffee and probably a little bit like goose at this point, and I’m never getting rid of it. ”
“It definitely smells like goose.”
“Then it smells like home.”
Max wraps his arms around me from behind, his chin resting on top of my head as we both look out at the darkening yard.
The garden is a shadow now, the hills rolling black against a purple sky.
Somewhere in the barn, Dante is settling for the night.
Somewhere in her coop, Cannoli is plotting tomorrow’s patrol routes.
“You know what I keep thinking about?” he says quietly.
“The Castellano shipping manifest?”
“No. Well, yes, but that’s not what I meant.” He pulls me closer. “I keep thinking about that first night. When I came to your door bleeding, and you stitched me up, and I promised I’d be there in the morning.”
“And then you weren’t.”
“And then I wasn’t. I’ve thought about that morning a thousand times. What would have happened if I’d stayed. If I’d just told you the truth instead of thinking I could protect you by keeping you in the dark.”
“We’d probably have figured things out faster. Saved ourselves a lot of pain.”
“Probably.” He’s quiet for a moment. “But we’re here now. That’s what matters. We got here.”
“We got here,” I agree.
The flannel sways slightly on its hook as a breeze comes through the screen door. Worn and faded and full of holes, but still here. Still mine.
Just like this life. Just like this man. Just like this home we built from the ruins of everything that tried to destroy us.
“I love you,” Max says. “I don’t say it enough. I’m still not good at saying it. But I love you, Caterina. More than I knew how to love anything before you.”
“You say it plenty. You just say it in spreadsheets and meal prep containers and quarterly calls you cut short to watch our daughter walk.”
“That’s not the same.”
“It counts too. Words and actions both. That’s your language.” I turn in his arms, looking up at his face in the fading light. “I love you too. Even when you write terrible romance chapters and step on my feet and calculate the load-bearing capacity of furniture during intimate moments.”
“That was one time.”
“It was three times.”
“The third time was relevant. The headboard was making a concerning noise.”
“The headboard was fine.”
“The headboard needed reinforcement. I was right.”
I rise on my toes and kiss him, soft and slow, the kind of kiss that doesn’t need to lead anywhere because we have all the time in the world.
When I pull back, he’s smiling. That real smile, the one I first saw during chess games and ABBA incidents, the one I’ve watched return as we’ve rebuilt our life.
“Come to bed,” he says.
“In a minute.”
I take the flannel off its hook and pull it on over my shoulders, letting the familiar weight settle around me. It’s too big. It’s falling apart. It smells like goose and coffee and woodsmoke and every single night I spent wondering if I’d ever feel safe again.
It smells like home.
Because that’s what this is now. Not just a farmhouse I inherited, not just a place I ran to when everything fell apart. Home. Earned and chosen and built from scratch with someone who loves me in spreadsheets and meal prep containers and family calls cut short.
I slip the flannel off and hang it back on its hook by the door. Right where it belongs.
Max holds out his hand, and I take it, and we walk upstairs together.
THE END