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“I found it on Dad’s phone. I think the nurse took it for us,” Mateo said softly, rubbing the back of his neck. “It was just kind of… sitting there. I liked it. So I asked Aunt Gabrielle to help me get it printed.”
I couldn’t speak for a second. My throat just closed right up.
Damian stepped behind me, a palm resting lightly on my shoulder as he looked down at the photo. “I’ll never forget that beautiful day,” he murmured, voice roughened by the memory.
I laughed through the joyful ache in my chest.
Mateo flushed with pride. “I just thought it should be in the house. You know… where everyone can see it.”
I reached out, tugged him into a quick, one-armed hug. “It will be. Right by the entry. Thank you, honey. It’s perfect.”
The sun was starting to drop behind the horizon now, slanting copper and rose gold across the water. Anthony handed Gabrielle a glass of sparkling water with a lime wedge tucked in the rim. Isla stirred and settled again against my chest.
For a moment, I just looked around.
At Mateo, sprawled in a patio chair, grinning like he hadn’t a care in the world.
At Damian, quietly watching me with that slow-burning affection I’d come to recognize like a second heartbeat.
At my sister, her baby dozing in her lap, her husband’s arm resting across the back of her chair.
This life… it had once seemed impossible. And now?
Now it was just mine.
I leaned into Damian, resting my temple against his shoulder. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. Because I had everything I never thought I could want.
A daughter who smelled like baby powder and dreams.
A surprise son who called my husband Dad, and looked at him like Damian was his hero.
A twin sister who had once held me together through heartbreak and now walked beside me through joy.
And a man who made good on every promise he never said out loud.
I looked again at the photo in my lap, the dock, the way the light had bent around us like a blessing, and I smiled.
Love wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t tidy.
But tonight, as the sun sank low and the stars began to blink awake across the sky, I felt whole.
Not alone.
Home.
More than a happy ending.
It was just the beginning.