Epilogue II

~One Year Later~

~Fallon~

The rain had just stopped when I stepped onto the porch.

The world looked rinsed clean—washed of everything heavy. The sky was still gray at the edges, but light had begun to filter through in soft streaks, like gold ink bleeding through vellum.

The air smelled like lavender and wet grass.

Somewhere down the hill, a wind chime danced gently in the breeze—delicate, hollow, musical. It sounded like a lullaby. Like grace. Like the beginning of something quiet and holy.

In my arms was everything I didn’t know I’d been missing.

My daughter.

Wrapped in a blush knit blanket, warm and impossibly small, her tiny cheek pressed against my collarbone. Her breath was soft and even, rising and falling like she had all the time in the world. As if she already understood something the rest of us hadn’t quite figured out—how to simply be here.

I couldn’t stop looking at her.

She had Reid’s lashes—absurdly long and unfair for someone so new to the planet. My nose. Ful