Epilogue #4
“You said it required negotiation.”
“You kicked it.”
“It was hostile.”
I touched the weathered wood.
The memory held.
No pain.
No flash that vanished before I could understand it.
A complete small moment belonging to me.
“I remember arriving.”
Reid’s eyes filled.
We walked up the ramp together.
At the porch, I stopped again.
The door was painted blue now instead of white.
But beneath the new paint, a shallow gouge remained near the frame.
I touched it.
“Mercy’s anchor.”
Reid inhaled sharply.
“You carried it inside during the storm because you thought someone would steal it.”
“I dropped it.”
“Into the door.”
“You were furious.”
“I was trying not to laugh.”
I looked at him.
“You laughed in the bathroom.”
His mouth opened.
“You remember that?”
“Yes.”
More followed.
Not a flood.
Rooms lighting one by one.
Reid at the kitchen counter chopping onions too large because he was impatient.
The smoke alarm sounding after I forgot oil on the stove.
A blanket on the floor when wind drove rain beneath the bedroom window.
His wet sweater hanging over two chairs.
My feet in his lap.
The way he had watched me when he thought I was asleep.
I gripped the porch rail.
Reid’s hand covered the back of my neck.
“Stay with me.”
“I’m here.”
“Do you need to sit?”
“No.”
The front door opened with the code Marian had sent.
Warm lamplight filled the small room.
The cottage interior had changed more than the outside. Pale walls. New kitchen. Built-in shelves. A broad sofa facing the stone fireplace.
But the old ceiling beams remained.
So did the narrow hall.
The window seat looking toward the cove.
I stepped inside.
My wedding ring flashed beneath the lamp.
A memory took shape with such gentleness I almost missed the moment it began.
Reid and I on the old sofa.
Not having sex.
Not fighting.
Simply sitting beneath a green quilt while rain struck the glass.
He had a book open but was not reading.
I was watching Mercy rise and settle beyond the window.
“You’re quiet,” he had said.
“I’m deciding something.”
“What?”
“Whether I can trust being happy.”
Reid had closed the book.
“What did you decide?”
“That happiness isn’t safe.”
His face had fallen.
Then I had touched his hand.
“But you are.”
I remembered the words.
I remembered saying them.
I remembered Reid’s eyes.
The way love looked before I had learned to believe it would stay.
A sob broke from me.
Reid caught me immediately.
“Noah.”
“I remember.”
“What?”
“This room.”
I turned inside his arms, desperate to show him the memory before it faded.
“We sat there. There was a green blanket. You had a book.”
His face changed.
“You asked why I was quiet.”
He stopped breathing.
“I told you happiness wasn’t safe.”
Reid’s eyes filled.
“And then?”
“I said you were.”
The memory settled rather than disappeared.
“It was the first time I understood the difference.”
Reid held my face.
“I remember.”
“I remember you remembering.”
A wet laugh broke between us.
He kissed me.
There was no audience.
No schedule.
No celebrant waiting to finish a sentence.
Only my husband’s mouth and my hands against the lapels of the suit he still wore.
He kissed me until the cottage, the missing years, and the long road between then and now became one continuous thing.
When we drew apart, his forehead rested against mine.
“I thought today was already perfect,” he whispered.
“It was.”
“This is…”
“Extra.”
He laughed.
I touched his wedding ring.
“Do you know what the memory means?”
“That you trusted me.”
“Yes.”
He waited.
“But I didn’t need it.”
His eyes searched mine.
“I’m glad it came,” I said. “I’ll keep it. I’ll write it down tomorrow.”
My palm settled over his heart.
“But it doesn’t prove anything I didn’t already know.”
Emotion softened his face.
“The man I was felt safe with you.”
I smiled.
“So does your husband.”
Reid closed his eyes.
For one quiet second, he leaned into my hand.
Then he bent and slid one arm behind my knees.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You promised not to carry me.”
“I did not.”
“Reid.”
“It is our wedding day.”
“This is not our house.”
“It is a threshold.”
“I can walk.”
“I know.”
His other arm came around my back.
“You are insufferable.”
“Husband privilege.”
He lifted me.
I laughed despite myself and wrapped my arms around his neck.
He carried me the remaining three steps into the living room.
Not because I could not cross them.
Because he wanted to.
Because I let him.
He lowered me beside the sofa.
The same place where another version of me had once wondered whether happiness could be trusted.
Reid’s hands remained at my waist.
Outside, fog moved across the cove. Mercy would arrive in the morning. There would be breakfast, a slow boat ride, medication alarms, photographs, arguments about weather, and an unreasonable amount of time in bed.
Ten days.
Then work.
Ordinary mornings.
A marriage made from everything that followed.
Reid touched the ring on my hand.
“Found you,” he murmured.
Once, I might have answered with the whistle.
Tonight, I gave him the truth.
“You never lost me.”
His eyes shone.
I drew him closer.
“And I know the way home.”