74

Sierra's POV

Five years. Five whole years since the trial.

Sometimes I couldn't believe it. The time just flew, like sand through your fingers. Katie was fourteen now. A teenager. She had her own phone and her own attitude and her own opinions about everything.

"Mom, you can't wear that to parent-teacher night," she said one evening, looking at my outfit like I'd lost my mind.

I looked down at my nice black pants and blue sweater. "What's wrong with this?"

"It's so... mom." She wrinkled her nose. "Wear the red dress. The one with the sleeves. You look pretty in that."

Louis walked in at exactly that moment. "Did I just hear my daughter giving fashion advice?"

"Someone has to," Katie said, and swept out of the room like a tiny queen.

I looked at Louis. "She's fourteen going on forty."

"She gets that from you."

"She gets the attitude from YOU."

He came over and kissed my cheek. "Wear the red dress. She's right. You look hot in it."

"Hot? For parent-teacher night?"

"Especially for parent-teacher night." He wiggled his eyebrows.

I pushed him away, laughing. "You're ridiculous."

But I wore the red dress.

Parent-teacher night was the usual thing. Her teachers loved her. She was smart, they said. A leader. Maybe too social sometimes, but that wasn't really a problem.

"She's popular," her math teacher said with a little smile. "The boys are starting to notice."

My heart stopped. "What boys?"

"Oh, nothing serious. Just notes passed in class. Very innocent."

I wanted to ask more, but Louis put his hand on my knee under the table. Squeezed. *Let it go*, the squeeze said. *She's fine.*

I let it go. Mostly.

In the car on the way home, I couldn't help it. "Boys are noticing her."

"She's fourteen, Sierra. That's normal."

"Normal is how girls get hurt."

Louis was quiet for a minute. Then he said, "We raised her smart. We raised her strong. She knows she can talk to us. That's all we can do."

He was right. I knew he was right. But my heart was still a little worried.

When we got home, Katie was on the couch watching something on her phone. She looked up. "How was it?"

"Great," I said. "You're a genius."

"I know." She went back to her phone.

Louis sat down next to her. "So. Anyone special at school we should know about?"

Katie's face went pink. "What? No. Ew. Dad."

"Just checking." He put his arm around her. "You know you can tell us anything, right?"

"Yeah, yeah." But she leaned into him a little. Just a tiny bit.

My heart melted.

Later, after she went to bed, Louis and I sat on the back porch. The garden was pretty in the moonlight. We'd added a fountain a few years ago. It made a soft trickling sound.

"She's growing up," I said.

"They do that."

"I'm not ready."

"Me neither." He took my hand. "But we don't get a choice."

We sat in comfortable silence. The stars were out. The night was warm.

"Remember when we used to sit here and wait for ghosts?" I asked.

"Yeah." He squeezed my hand. "Feels like a different life."

"It does."

We talked about nothing for a while. Work. The foundation. A trip we wanted to take next summer.

Then Louis got quiet. I could tell he was thinking about something.

"What?" I asked.

"I got a letter today."

My stomach dropped. Old habits. "From...?"

"No. Not that." He shook his head fast. "From my lawyer. About something else."

"Okay..."

He took a breath. "My father's estate. There's been a thing. A legal thing. For years. They finally settled it."

I waited. I didn't know much about his father. He died when Louis was young. Louis never talked about him.

"There's money," he said. "A lot. From something he owned that just got sold. It's mine now. Ours."

"We don't need money."

"I know. That's not the point." He looked at me. "The point is, it's from him. And I don't know how to feel about that."

I shifted to face him better. "Tell me."

He was quiet for a long time. The fountain trickled. A cricket chirped.

"He wasn't a good dad," Louis finally said. "He was... cold. Distant. He loved his work more than us. More than my mom. More than anything."

"I'm sorry."

"I used to think it was my fault. That I wasn't good enough. Smart enough. Interesting enough." He laughed, but it wasn't happy. "Took me years to realize it was him. Not me."

I put my hand on his cheek. "He missed out. You're the best dad. The best husband. He missed all of it."

Louis leaned into my hand. His eyes were wet in the moonlight.

"I don't want his money," he said. "But I also don't want to throw it away. That feels wasteful."

"Then give it away," I said. "To something good. Something that helps kids who had dads like yours. Kids who need someone to care."

He looked at me. Really looked. Like I'd given him the answer to everything.

"Yeah," he said slowly. "Yeah. That's perfect."

We sat there a little longer. Then we went inside. To our room. To our bed. To each other.

The next few months were busy. Louis set up a whole new foundation. For kids with absent parents. Mentoring programs. Scholarships. He threw himself into it.

"It's like therapy," he told me one night. "Helping them helps me."

Katie kept growing. She got her first boyfriend. A sweet, shy kid named Marcus who brought her flowers and stammered when he talked to us.

"He's nice," I told Louis after Marcus left one day.

"Too nice," Louis grumbled. "I don't trust nice boys."

"You were a nice boy once."

"I was never a nice boy. I was a schemer."

"True."

But I caught him giving Marcus the talk one afternoon. The "if you hurt her, I have friends in deep places" talk. Marcus turned white as a sheet.

Louis came inside looking satisfied.

"You scared that poor kid half to death," I said.

"Good. He should be scared."

I kissed his cheek. "You're a good dad."

"Dads are supposed to be scary."

"To boys, yes. To daughters, soft."

"I'm soft with her."

"I know. I've seen you."

He smiled. A real smile. The kind that crinkled his eyes.

That night, Katie came downstairs after Marcus left. She was glowing.

"He's so cute," she said, flopping on the couch.

"He seems nice," I said carefully.

"He is! He brought me flowers! Real ones!"

"Dad brought me flowers once," I said, looking at Louis.

"I bring you flowers all the time."

"Not all the time."

"More than other husbands."

Katie watched us bicker with a little smile. "You guys are weird."

"We're in love," I said. "That's different."

"Is it?"

Louis threw a pillow at her. She caught it and threw it back. Then it was a war. Pillows flying. Laughing. Shouting.

We ended up in a pile on the floor, breathless and happy.

"I love our family," Katie said, her head on my shoulder.

"We love you too, baby."

"I'm not a baby."

"You'll always be my baby."

She groaned. But she didn't move.

That night, after she went to bed, Louis and I stood in the kitchen making tea.

"She's happy," he said.

"She is."

"We did that."

"We did." I leaned against him. "We made a happy kid. Out of all the mess. All the fear. We made her happy."

He wrapped his arms around me. "We made ourselves happy too."

I turned in his arms. Looked at his face. This man who started as a stranger. Who became my enemy. Who became my partner. Who became my home.

"I love you," I said.

"I love you more."

"Not possible."

"Statistically possible."

I laughed and kissed him.

The tea got cold. We didn't care.

---

The next summer, we went back to the beach house. All three of us this time. Katie brought a friend, a girl named Chloe who was just as loud and silly as she was.

They ran on the beach. They screamed at boys. They ate too much ice cream and got sick.

Louis and I watched from the terrace, holding hands.

"This is it," he said. "This is what we fought for."

"Worth it," I said.

"Every second."

That night, after the girls were asleep, we walked on the beach. The moon was full. The waves were gentle.

"You know what I was thinking about?" Louis said.

"What?"

"That first night we came here. Years ago. When I gave you the key."

"I remember."

"I was so scared you'd say no."

"I was so scared you'd change your mind."

He stopped walking. Turned me to face him. "I'll never change my mind about you. Not ever."

I looked at him. At the silver in his hair. At the lines around his eyes. At the man who held me through nightmares and fought ghosts and made me laugh every single day.

"I know," I said. "Me neither."

He kissed me. Soft and slow and sweet.

The waves kept crashing. The moon kept shining. The girls kept sleeping.

And we kept loving each other. The way we always would.

Forever and ever. The end.

---

But it wasn't really the end.

The next morning, we woke up to Katie shaking us. "Mom! Dad! There's a baby whale on the beach!"

We ran down. There was no whale. Just a big rock that looked like one from far away.

"You got us out of bed for a rock?" Louis said.

"It looked like a whale!" Katie insisted. "From the window!"

Chloe was laughing so hard she was crying.

We stood there in our pajamas, freezing in the morning wind, looking at a rock.

And I wouldn't have traded it for anything.

That's the thing about life. It's not the big moments. The trials. The ghosts. The fights.

It's the rocks that look like whales. The cold tea. The burnt pancakes. The pillow fights.

It's the people you love, loving you back.

It's waking up every morning next to the same person, year after year, and still wanting to hold their hand.

It's watching your daughter grow up and roll her eyes and fall in love and break her heart and mend it again.

It's knowing that no matter what comes, you're not alone.

You never were.

You never will be.

Because love, real love, doesn't end.

It just changes shape. Grows bigger. Fills every corner.

And that, right there, is the whole point.

The end.

For real this time.

---

*But wait...*

Katie's voice from the beach: "CAN WE GET BREAKFAST NOW? I'M STARVING!"

Louis: "There's a diner down the road. Best pancakes on the coast."

Me: "You just want pancakes."

Louis: "I always want pancakes. But I want you more."

Katie: "EW DAD STOP BEING GROSS."

Chloe: laughing forever.

Me: holding his hand, walking toward the diner, toward the future, toward everything.

The waves crashed behind us. The seagulls screamed overhead.

And we walked on. Together.

Always together.

The actual end.

(I promise.)