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Six Years Later

NEW YORK

“Mom, I love it when you read to me.”

“Really? Don't you get tired of me reading slowly?”

“No. It's really good the way you read it because I can imagine the characters and the whole story.”

I smile and kiss my little girl's hair. “Okay, honey. I love reading to you too, but now it's bedtime.”

I straighten her covers and get up, but I linger next to the bedroom door, even though the light is off.

No one can imagine what something as trivial as telling my children a bedtime story means to me, even though the twins no longer want it. They're eight years old now, and they don't want certain kinds of attention anymore.

Despite their independence, however, Odin always puts them to sleep. This is a small daily battle, but my husband is a tireless warrior. He is a loving father, but at the same time he knows how to control our troops, since it is a real struggle to make the boys brush their teeth before going to bed. They are argumentative and don't give up easily, but what could I expect from a mix between me and Odin?

Our Catarina, on the other hand, has a calm temperament, and I wonder who she got it from. Grandmother Cinthya, perhaps?

We've been trying to expand our family, and Zoe says that, like her, I might have twins again. I don't mind. Getting pregnant with two babies naturally was like winning the lottery for me.

I’m trying to raise our children in a totally different way than I was raised. Here at home, nobody yells, and we don't believe in physical punishment. In spite of that, it only takes one look from me or from their father to put an end to any rebellion that comes up.

Odin is wonderful with children. Present, caring, protective, but at the same time he gives them the freedom to grow independently.

We’ve both buried the past. We’ve learned to let the dead rest and to move on with our lives.

It took me a while to forgive my family, but now I don't hold a grudge anymore. The only member I have a real relationship with is my brother.

There is an insurmountable barrier between me and my sisters. Although they each contacted me after I told the world, through the Dyslexia Support Association, everything I went through during my childhood and part of my adult life, there are connections that cannot simply be sewn together.

It's like an object that, once broken, no matter how much you glue the pieces together, will never be perfect again.

My mother, to everyone's surprise, has remarried, and now lives in California with her new husband. She remains extremely dependent, because I think it's in her nature, but Robert, my stepfather, seems to try to encourage her to grow and invest in herself.

As with my sisters, there is an emotional distance between us. We speak very little, and to be honest, I've gotten used to their absence.

I don't harbor resentment, but I can't just erase the first thirty years of my life. I don't allow myself to think about Leandros except during analysis sessions.

I continue to undergo treatment, not only because of dyslexia but because of all the trauma I’ve suffered since I was a child, and only at that moment, when I’m working through my past, does the cruel man who destroyed so many lives have space in my mind.

As soon as I leave Catarina, I see my husband closing the door to the boys' room. We smile at each other knowingly because we finally have time just for the two of us.

Odin avoids traveling as much as he can these days, and I love the fact that our family eats almost every meal together. I think we both had this need to form a core, to be part of a whole.

“Alone at last,” he says, smiling, and I don't waste a second before I fly into the warmth of his arms.

“Yeah, I think they're all asleep now.”

He picks me up—even after all these years, he hasn't lost that habit—and heads to our room. “I have an idea. Some ideas, to be honest.”

“Ideas? Will I like them?”

He nibbles my ear and smiles. “Oh, I bet you will.”

“Do these ideas involve the two of us naked?”

“So naughty, my Greek goddess.”He’s given me a bunch of nicknames, some in Norwegian, which I don't even understand; I can't guess which one he’ll use on any given day.

“What can I say? You’ve turned me into an addict to your body.”

“I like this addiction of yours. I don't want you to heal.”

“I don't need healing. In fact”—I kiss his chin—“I think I need another dose of my Odin.”

“Have I told you how much I love you today?”

“Not enough.”

“I love you, my . You and our children are my wealth. I can never be grateful enough to God.”

“I never imagined a life like our love has given me, Odin. If there's someone who should be grateful, it's me.”