her arm. “I hope you love it.”
I’m speechless as I enter, treading over gleaming wood floors. It’s comfortable here. Very nice, yet still very comfortable. We pass through a formal dining room and a butler’s pantry and into a large kitchen.
“Your father made it so we could sell your grandfather’s house,” Mila tells me. “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve bought this one. I wanted you to come home to a new start. Someplace we can start fresh with new memories, not ugly old ones.”
“I’ve never been happier,” I tell her honestly. She grins.
“Let me show you our bedroom.”
She leads me into the master suite, and it’s awash with grays and creams, the light streams in, and it’s all very soft, very sophisticated. “The shower is extra tall for you,” she tells me, as she leads me in. And it is. It’s the perfect size for me, and there’s a soaking tub for Mila.
“We’re going to be happy here,” I tell her. She nods.
“Yes, we will.”
We make our way through the rest of the house, through Zuzu’s room and what will be the nursery.
“I can’t believe you got this taken care of in just a couple of weeks,” I finally tell her as we sit in our new living room. It is decorated in a warm coastal style, laid back and casual.
My father pipes in. “Your wife is a force to be reckoned with.”
I glance at her. “That, I know.”
She laughs, and Zuzu sits on my lap, her blond hair against my chest. I pull at her curls gently, and I don’t forget the one that I have in my pocket. I’ve been carrying it with me to remember the things that matter the most.
“This room is missing one thing,” I tell my wife. Her head snaps up.
“I forgot something?”
I whisper into Zuzu’s ear, and she grins, then runs off. She returns a few minutes later, the picture that she had drawn of our family in her hand.
“I’d like to get this framed and put in here,” I say, and Mila’s smile lights up the room.
“I think that’s perfect.”
We sit and chat until well past Zuzu’s bedtime, and then my father excuses himself to leave.
“Don’t be a stranger,” I tell him as he hugs me.
“I won’t,” he promises.
Mila and I take Zuzu to bed, and tuck her in. We read her a story, and then two, and finally, we tiptoe out into our own bedroom down the hall.
After Mila takes a bath, and I take a shower, we climb into our new bed.
“I thought this moment would never come,” I tell Mila, and she collapses into me, her heat and her softness meshed against my hardness.
“Me either,” she admits. “I was ready for bedtime.”
I start to kiss her, and she kisses me back with soft lips before she pulls away.
“I need you to promise that you’re never going to try and face life without me again,” she says. “We’re a team. For better or for worse, always.”
“Always,” I agree. “I promise.”
And then…
Then…
I attack her. I crush her lips to mine, and I inhale her the way I’ve been wanting to for weeks. She smells so familiar, so mine, and I soak her up, like sunshine on a cold day.
She reacts, and her legs lift up and around my hips and my breathing is already ragged.
She slides her hand along my chest and kisses me hard. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I tell her because she’s pregnant, and I’m frantic already.
“You won’t,” she promises. “Make love to me, Pax. I’ve been waiting for weeks.”
So I do.
I gently make love to my wife. She is mine, and I am hers, and we come together in our bed like we will never see each other again. Something we’ve certainly learned is that tomorrow is never promised.
She arches her back and presses into me and I slide inside, gently, easily, then with more and more thrust.
“I love you so much,” I breathe into her neck. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too.”
She shudders against me and moans my name and I can’t hold out any more.
My entire body shakes with my release.
We make love three more times in the night. Gently, rougher, then gently again. We are two people who can’t get enough of each other. I get as close as I can, pulling her skin to mine, but it will never be enough.
By morning, we are a tousled mess.
Zuzu runs in at first light.
I’m sleepy, but I open my arms and she jumps into them.
“Daddy!” she shouts, bouncing. “Time to get up!”
“Mommy kept daddy awake last night, “I tell her. “Daddy’s sleepy.”
Zuzu glares at her mother. “Mommy, why did you do that? Daddy has to take me to the park!”
“I’m sure daddy will be fine,” Mila promises her. “Go get dressed, pumpkin.”
“Gabe is taking Eli, too,” she tells me. “So you guys can go together. Maddy and I are going to go shopping for nursery furniture.”
“No rest for the wicked, then,” I roll my eyes as I climb out of bed.
“I thought it would be best to get right into a normal routine,” she tells me worriedly. “Was that ok?”
I stop what I’m doing and come round the bed to her. I cup her face and make her look at me.
“Don’t worry about trying to make life normal for me,” I tell her firmly. “It’s life. We can’t always control it, but it will always be ours. We’ll take it as it comes. But yes, I’m perfectly fine with going with Gabe to the park. Surely, between the two of us, we can control two children.”
Mila smiles and kisses me sweetly, and I’m already looking forward to bedtime again. I tell her that.
“Me too,” she admits.
“Let’s meet here again tonight?” I suggest.
She nods. “It’s a date.”
“Let’s make it a standing date,” I add. “Say… for the next sixty years or so?”
Mila is radiant as she agrees. “I’ll pencil you in,” she says and I pull her to me, and all is right with the world.
“Use a permanent marker,” I tell her and I kiss her until she’s breathless.
“I almost forgot,” she says, and she’s flustered as she gets into the drawer of her nightstand. She pulls out something wrapped in tissue.
“You know how Brand likes to make things out of leather?”
I nod.
“I asked him to make it for you. I didn’t know if you’d wear it or not, but…” her voice trails off as I open it.
It’s a leather bracelet. Words are stamped on it.
MY DEMONS DO NOT CONTROL ME.
“I thought it could be a reminder for you,” she says hesitantly. “I mean, you probably don’t need a reminder, but it never hurts, right?”
“It’s perfect,” I tell her as I snap it onto my wrist. “I’ll wear it every day.”
“You will?”
“I will,” I nod. “Of course I will.”
I follow her out of the bedroom and I glance at my wrist. The words stare back at me, wise and true.
My demons don’t control me.
Not anymore.
I’m going to live a sober, healthy, happy life, surrounded by people I love.
I’m worth it.
Epilogue
Mila
Seven months later
Sometimes, I’m still jumpy in the night.
It’s normal, they tell me. When a person has gone through what we did, with a person invading our home, it’s impossible to not think of it at times.
I usually think of it in the night, when things go bump or shadows move on the walls.
We live in a gated community with a guard, and our home has a state of the art security system, so there is no reason to fear. We’re more careful now, about the people we allow into our lives. We have to be.
I walk down the hall to the baby’s room. “Shhhh, Ethan,” I tell him, as I pick him u
p out of his crib. “It’s ok, babe. It’s ok.”
I settle into the rocker nearby, and rock him as I nurse.
I hum a lullaby, and stare down at his sweet little face.
He already looks like Pax. He has his nose, his eyes. Even the cleft in his chin. I love that. I rock him, and hold him tight, and sing and sing, until his belly is finally full and he falls back to sleep in my arms.
His room is soothing and quiet, a calm green with cream colored furniture. It’s perfect for a baby, and it’s only steps from our own bedroom. I take a deep breath and inhale the honeysuckle scent. We’d had honeysuckle planted all around the house and it had taken root and grown like crazy. I must’ve left the window open earlier.
I tuck the baby back into his crib, and ponder the past few months.
Leroy had finally been tied to Natasha’s crimes, and he will never taste freedom again. Pax has gone back to work, and he’s still sober and strong. He goes to narcotics anonymous meetings, and he’s still in therapy.
He’s putting in the work.
We’re happier than we’ve ever been, and now our little family is complete. Ethan sleeps peacefully in his crib as proof, his little hand curled up under his cheek.
I bend over the railing and kiss him on his head, inhaling his sweet smell.
There’s nothing better than that smell.
I smile and head to the window to close it, only when I get there, it’s already closed.
I’m confused for a minute, because the honeysuckle scent fills the room in a way that should happen only if the window was open.
But I’m tired, and maybe my olfactory senses are working overtime.
I pause at the door, and look back inside, and a feeling of such warmth and security and comfort comes over me that I close my eyes and just stand still, experiencing it with all of my might.
The warm feeling envelopes me, comforting me.
This is home.
I leave the door ajar, and return to bed where my husband waits.
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