It was not the life I had imagined when I married him.
It was not the home we had once promised to build together.
It was something different, and it was honest.
Alexander lifted Eleanor carefully and carried her toward the window, where she could watch the sunlight move across the water.
I joined them, resting one hand on the sill.
For a while, we stood together, neither of us asking the other to become what we had been.
My mother’s house no longer felt like a place I had fled to in the middle of a broken night.
It was ours now in the way I had made it: safe, imperfect, full of small rituals and room to breathe.
Eleanor reached for my finger with one hand and Alexander’s with the other.
I looked down at her bright, curious face.
Alexander met my eyes across her small, open palm.
