Epilogue
Ten years later
Hudson
I pull into the townhouse driveway, kill the engine, and step out into the warm evening air.
I follow the stone path around the side of the house, cutting past the garden borders toward the glass-and-timber studio we built out back eight years ago.
Before I even reach the threshold, I hear Fleetwood Mac drifting through the open windows, almost drowned out by a chorus of high-pitched giggles.
I open the door and stop because the scene inside is utter, beautiful carnage.
My wife—one of the most celebrated contemporary artists in the country, whose solo shows sell out before the gallery doors even unlock—is sitting cross-legged on the floor in a paint-splattered denim apron over one of my old T-shirts. She’s covered in blue and yellow.
So are our daughters.
Four-year-old Charlotte and two-year-old Emma are currently engaged in what looks like a full-contact finger-painting war.
Whether they’re attempting to paint the ten-foot canvas stretched across the floor or each other, I’m not sure.
Even the cats are pacing around the perimeter, looking distinctly more purple than they did when I left this morning.
There’s no such thing as getting angry at a mess in this house.
Not here. Rowan taught me that long ago.
Paint washes off floorboards, and spills wipe away.
The real messes—the ones that happen inside your head, the ones that take years of patience to unravel—are the only ones that matter.
And those can be cleaned, too, if you give them enough time.
I lean against the doorframe, watching them.
Ten years.
It feels like a lifetime ago that I stood in an observation room, watching a stubborn, terrifyingly talented redhead crash my research study with a sketchbook and a fake dead husband named Roger.
We’ve built a life in the space between then and now.
Rowan took the art world by storm. She stopped using other people’s pain as a shield and gave the world her own. Her work hangs in major galleries from New York to London, but every piece still carries that unfiltered honesty that made me fall in love with her.
The changes didn't stop at her studio door, either. The walls between Rowan and her family slowly crumbled over the years. Sunday dinners at her parents’ house are no longer a landmine of unspoken resentment.
Donna and Arthur show up with containers of soup and affection, taking care of her without making her feel small, while Madison, Piper, and Noah protect her fiercely without ever treating her any differently.
And every now and then, Rowan still visits the chronic illness support group at Westbrook, offering a quiet I see you to the people sitting in those chairs.
Her illnesses haven’t vanished. There are still bad days.
Days when the cane comes out, days when her joints lock up, days when she’s too dizzy to stand at the easel, and I spend the evening carrying her around the house and running warm baths to ease the ache.
But we don’t fight her body anymore. We adapt.
We build ramps, we put cushions on her studio chairs, and we keep moving.
Our story of how we met—complete with a fake dead husband named Roger—became our daughters’ favorite bedtime story, usually followed by Charlotte solemnly declaring that she plans to invent her own fake husband one day.
“Dad’s home!” Charlotte’s squeal shatters my train of thought.
Before I can even think about stepping back to protect my clothes, Charlotte hits my left leg like a tiny, paint-drenched missile. Emma launches herself at my knees, leaving bright pink handprints across my dark slacks.
I lift them both onto my hips as they shriek with laughter.
“Look at you two,” I say, kissing Charlotte’s forehead and getting a streak of yellow across my jaw. “Are you supposed to be painters?”
“We’re fast art!” Emma announces.
Fast art? That’s definitely something Rowan came up with.
“Very fast,” I agree, ruffling her messy red curls.
Rowan pushes herself up from the floor, using her good hip to balance before sauntering over to us. Her copper hair is tied up in a messy knot, held together by a small paintbrush stuck through the top. Her green eyes dance with mischief.
“Welcome home,” she says.
She steps into my space, plants her paint-stained hands on my chest, and presses her lips to mine in a slow, lingering kiss that tastes like home.
When she pulls back, she smirks and looks at her handiwork. “Oops.”
“You’re terrible,” I tell her, though I can’t hide the smile pulling at my mouth.
I set both girls back down on the drop cloth, then unbutton my cuffs and roll my sleeves past my elbows. I look at the ruined shirt and the woman holding a fresh jar of paint.
“All right,” I say, dipping my fingers into the jar. “What are we painting?”
The End.