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“Naturally, I bought a ticket.” I kissed her gently, not even sure if I was allowed to anymore. But I just couldn’t help it. “Want to go to New York for the night? I’m sure I could get upgrades on our tickets, and we could spend a romantic night in a penthouse?”
“Next thing you’ll be telling me is you want to go to that stupid restaurant that ripped off my favorite food truck,” Heather said, laughing a little. We started walking away from the terminal—a good sign, in my opinion.
“If you want to go to New York, I will go literally anywhere you want to go. To that dirty food truck, anywhere in the city, or even not New York. There aren’t any limits. Want to go to London? Paris? Prague? I’ll call the jet.”
She leaned heavily into me, and I hugged her to me even tighter, like if I squeezed her hard enough, I could rid her of whatever poison Josie had administered.
“I just want to go home,” she said.
“What home is that?” I asked carefully. I was there for her, and I wanted to be with her, but the very last thing I wanted to do was to force on her something she didn’t explicitly want.
“Yours,” she said quietly before coughing and correcting herself, “Ours.”
Epilogue
Graham
Three months later…
You know the saying, time heals all wounds?
It’s almost true.
It took longer than I wanted in order to completely heal from the trauma Josie had caused my new family. I took what was probably way too many days off from the office to make sure Collins and Heather were okay.
My daughter, of course, was none the wiser over what had almost happened.
“I want to go back to preschool,” she informed me one morning. “You are harming my development.”
“Who told you to say that?” I demanded, narrowing my eyes. If someone had fed a manipulation into my daughter’s ears, they were going to answer to me.
“My brain, just now.” Collins flounced away, and I sagged tiredly at my temporary work station, where I’m managing things from afar, mostly avoiding emails and video calls.
Heather was slower to get back to her baseline of normalcy. At first, she slept too much, sprawled out on the bed like a modern version of a comatose Sleeping Beauty cartoon character. Then, she slept too little. I’d awaken some nights to find her gone from the bed or studying the bright screen of her phone in the middle of the night.
“Sorry,” she would whisper when I grunted some questions at her. “Go back to sleep.”
But, in time, Heather found her stride again. She rebuilt her clients, had both digital and in-person sessions, and built her company and brand on her own, hiring other psychologists when the workload grew too heavy.
Through it all, I did whatever I could, smoothed whatever wrinkles I could, and tried to do everything I could for my company, my daughter, and the woman I loved.
Until I, myself, was treading too closely to a breaking point.
“Let’s get away from life for a little while,” Heather cajoled me one morning. “You’ve been going nonstop for so long. We both have.”
She held out a cup of coffee to me, and I took the opportunity to tug her in close. “Didn’t I tell you this life was going to be glamorous?”
“I didn’t ask for glamorous.” She kissed my cheek. “All I wanted was you. This family.”
“And we wanted you.”
Heather was so pliable and soft in my arms that I decided to forgo my coffee altogether, setting it aside in favor of better access to her. I’d grown to recognize the curves and planes of her body by pure touch. They were as familiar as my own but even more beloved.
“I’m going to have to see what I have going on at work,” I said. “There might be some meetings and events I can schedule around, but I’m really not sure. I think it might be a busy week.”
“Every week is a busy week,” Heather said. “But it’s time to prioritize yourself. I’ve already made the arrangements.”
I blinked at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”
