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“Margaret.”

He sighed.

“What kind of mother does that? What kind of person just leaves a three-year-old little girl by herself?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is. This sickness isn’t the only thing I got from Susanna, Eamon. I was never safe with her, just like Annie isn’t safe with me.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I do.” I nodded, insistent. “I never should have become a mother.”

Eamon looked at me with an expression that bordered on fury.“Look, I don’t know why you did what you did, but you would have died for our daughter. If you remember, then you know that.”

I wanted to hold on to the words and let them pull me from the darkness. I wanted to believe him.

“You’re the same person I met that day in Esther’s fields. The same one who decided to stay here and marry me. To have a child with me.” Tears filled his eyes as he said it. “Even if that door appears right now and you walk through it, all of that is still true.”

“Eamon.”

“Listen to me.” He took my face in his hands, the timbre of his voice deepening. “I wouldn’t change any of it. If I could walk through a door and undo all of this, I wouldn’t. Do you understand?”

I stared at him, afraid to speak.

“You and Annie are the loves of my life,” he breathed. “And I wouldn’t change it.”

My hands tightened on his wrists. I remembered the man who was holding me. I remembered the fierceness of his love and the way he felt so unwavering and safe. For the first time, I was truly afraid of the idea of leaving. I had loved Mason for who he was, but also because he was the only one who’d ever chosen me. But this—thiswas a home I’d built with my own two hands. I’d made this. It was mine.

There was a life on the other side of the door. A history. A strange disappearance. But in this life, I had something that I’d never had before.

“I need to ask you something.” Eamon’s voice lowered.

“What?”

He set his forehead against mine, holding me there. “Do you remember me?” He asked the question like he was scared. Like I had an answer that could destroy him. “I don’t mean do you have memories of us. I mean, do yourememberme.”

I nodded, and he exhaled, like it was the first time he’d been able to breathe since I’d left.

“I do,” I whispered.

He caught my mouth with his, making the space between us comealive, and I melted into him. There was only the burn of his fingers. The heat of his breath. The feeling of his teeth grazing my lip.

I was desperate to feel it. All of it.

My hands found the collar of his shirt, frantically working at the buttons. There wasn’t a storm-churned sea of thoughts in my head anymore. There was only this—the way his skin felt under my palms as I pushed the shirt over his shoulders. The searing wake his mouth left on my throat. The way it hurt just a little when he touched me.

His arm came around me, guiding me backward, toward the bedroom. As soon as the door was closed, I broke from him long enough to pull at the buckle of his belt.

His hand pressed to my back, holding me closer to him, and the other reached into the thin white fabric of my nightgown, findingmy breast. I exhaled against his mouth, a small cry escaping me. Everywhere he touched me, every place he returned to, was screaming.

I pulled the nightgown over my head and dropped it to the floor. I didn’t want to wait. I couldn’t.

He kissed me deeper as we leaned back onto the bed, the weight of him pressing the air from my lungs. There was no fumbling. No awkward searching of hands. This wasn’t the breathless thrill of discovery. It didn’t have the mark of a first time.

This was a homecoming.

He pulled my leg up around him, and he groaned as we came together. My chest rose and fell beneath his, and he stilled for a moment, breaths slowing as his forehead rested against mine again. There was a tear sliding down the bridge of his nose.