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“Is that a proclamation?” Kendra had asked, rolling her eyes at him, so dramatically she thought half of Athens must have seen.
But Balthazar only smiled.
Baz had been born in the following year, and Kendra grinned as she heard her oldest son shouting outside. Never one to pay attention to his older sister’s proclamations, far too much like his father, and currently making noise simply because he could.
Because unlike his father, Baz would not be beaten. He would not be cut into pieces and shoved into a cold, iron box.
Kendra stood from the sofa and went to the door, throwing it open so she could see her family come toward her across the fields. The two oldest ones bickering, as they did. And behind them, the most beautiful man she’d ever seen or ever would, holding the youngest two. One in each arm. Five-year-old Kassandra, all stubborn cheeks and a pouty lip. And the sunny, giggly baby, Thaddeus, who was eighteen months old and had the rest of them—and the world—wrapped around his chubby little fingers.
They could have been a painting, Kendra thought. Walking across golden fields studded with lavender and sunflowers, and the Alps in the distance.
But this was the life that she and Balthazar had made, and it was far better than any painting. It was complicated. Sometimes painful. And most of all, theirs.
They had taught each other how to love, and while there was no part of that Kendra did not find rewarding, that didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt along the way.
“I love you,” he had said the morning after their fateful wedding day, scowling at her as if the words caused him pain.
“I love you too,” she had replied, frowning right back at him. “And note that I didn’t say it like there was a gun in my back.”
Slowly but surely, they learned.
They had stayed on the island for the rest of Kendra’s pregnancy, because neither one of them wished to share their fledgling happiness with the world.
The world could wait. And it did.
“I love you,” he had said, over and over, every single day, so that by the time Irene was born, there was no more scowling.
And it only got better from there.
Though soon, too soon, it was time to let the world in again.
It had not always been easy.
Kendra had seen her father and brother only once. She and Balthazar had gone back to Connecticut, where it had all begun. There had been one unpleasant conversation, after which Kendra washed her hands of them both.
Balthazar had pressed charges against Tommy. Her father had not been ruined financially, but the ensuing scandal had made him persona non grata in all the places that meant anything to him.
They both found there was a solace in that. Kendra accompanied Balthazar to the long-term care facility where his mother lived out her days, and sat with him as he told her that it was done. At long last, it was done.
And she felt certain that if the other woman could have forgiven her son, she would have.
But the true surprise was when Emily Cabot Connelly had put down her Valium, contacted her attorneys, and divorced her husband. As part of her settlement she claimed, among a great many other things, that gracious old house on its own point on Long Island Sound that she had brought to her marriage in the first place.
The first thing she did was invite her daughter and grandchildren to visit her there.
And it made Kendra glad that she and her mother had found a way to build bridges in these last ten years. They might not always understand each other, but they tried. No matter what, they tried.
In the end, Kendra thought as she stood in the doorway of her cottage and watched the love of her life and the four children they both adored beyond the telling of it draw close, that was happiness.
True happiness wasn’t one thing. It wasn’t static. It was layered and deep, forever changing in the light. It was all the colors, feelings and frustrations of each moment and the broader life around it, wound together into the same tight knot.
The secret to life wasn’t holding that knot in one place. It was learning how to do the knotting in the first place and then keep doing it, day after day. Year after year. To get up when knocked down, brush herself off, and do it all over again.
Happiness was in the details. Joy was all around.
Balthazar smiled at her as he approached, because gone was that grim, cold, intimidating man she’d met long ago. This Balthazar smiled. He even laughed. He was still fierce in business, demanding in bed, but best of all, he was happy.
Theywere happy.
