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He could see her. Clearly. Esme now, and Esme then.

“We would never have imagined this.”

He hadn’t realized he’d said that out loud until she responded.

“No. In many ways.” She turned away from the view and folded her arms tightly beneath her breasts. “We couldn’t even afford a one-bedroom apartment to house all of us. Now we all have several houses, and we don’t even have to think about this. We don’t…”

“What?” he asked.

She had wanted to say more. She had cut herself off. He wanted to hear her.

“If you would’ve told me years ago that I would have more money than I could ever spend, all the things that I could ever possibly want, and I would still feel like I had problems, I would’ve called you an idiot. It never occurred to me that people who had all the things they needed could still want more.”

More.

He knew that she wasn’t talking about things.

“Well, when survival is your primary concern of course you can’t bother yourself with anything else.”

“I suppose that’s true. Still, I find it baffling. We made it. We did.”

He nodded slowly.

And then he pushed himself away from the railing, and walked back inside the empty house.

It was easy to remember then, that abandoned building they had called home for so long. That single room with the lock that had kept them safe. Cold, hot. Basically the opposite of whatever he wanted it to be.

And here they were in a house that would’ve seemed like a palace to them back then.

They both walked through to the entry, vast and empty.

There was a starburst design on the tile, and the chandelier above that mirrored it.

Would their child take his first steps here? Would this be the first place their child knew?

So different to what they had experienced. They’d been alone, in a harsh and cruel world that treated children like garbage or worse. He had often felt like he was cursed. He could spin straw into gold, but he couldn’t figure out how to escape the broken, jagged edges of the past. He could build wealth, create empires, and he still didn’t understand love, connection. Family.

But looking at this house, being here, imagining bringing a child here, there were things that felt possible that never had before.

He could feel her gaze on him.

He looked up at her, his heart going tight in his chest. They stood there, and held each other’s gazes for a long moment. This was a home. A family home. They were going to be parents. And it felt precarious. Fragile, this thing that was building between them.

She was right. He would’ve been much the same if someone had told him that he would be a man with all of these things, and a great, aching hole inside of him.

In fact, his teenage self would disdain him.

Just grab what you want. Take it. Beat it to a pulp if need be. Dominate it. Make it submit. Take control. Because nothing in life is guaranteed.

And yet he had no appetite to handle any of this that way.

Because Esme had always been an exception.

She had always been the softest, weakest part of himself.

And right now it felt like her, this house, everything was made of spun glass, and he only had rough hands that would break it all with the slightest touch.

The enormity of the moment was overpowering. And he wasn’t equipped to handle it.