Page 113 of October
We left with two new family members, a bag of kibble, and a plan: to spend the next week at the house he renovated with Dad, the one with the wraparound porch and the wildflowers growing through the fence. The one we hadn't dared return to until we were ready.
And now we were.
That night, we packed lightly, tucked the kids in, and promised each other the only kind of vow that really matters in a home full of noise and second chances: To keep choosing this life, this love, this messy, miraculous thing we're building.
One scent at a time. One dog at a time. One healed version of ourselves at a time.
Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Letters and The Light
One Year Later,
It's strange how a year can pass without you noticing until you do. Until you're standing in the kitchen barefoot, pouring coffee for a woman who still makes your chest ache with how much you love her, and you realize you've somehow built something soft and solid out of what was once rubble.
The morning I got the call, thirty years for my father, ten for Laura, something inside me exhaled for the first time in what felt like years. Charges of fraud, conspiracy, corporate corruption... it was all real now, official. The damage had been done, but justice had landed. I didn't celebrate, not exactly but I did close my eyes and breathe, long and steady, like someone finally released from a weight they didn't realize they were still carrying.
The company, surprisingly, had survived. Thanks to interim restructuring, external audits, and a few loyal board members who stepped in when everything came crashing down, we'd managed to stabilize operations. There was talk of "good faith receivership," and though the brand took a hit, the core business remained intact. Once it became clear that the crimes wereisolated to my father and Laura, not systemic, were able to present a recovery plan and retain most of our investors.
Any profit that comes from it now goes directly to October and the kids. She didn't ask for it, never expected it, but it felt right. They deserved something clean, something reparative, even if the past couldn't be rewritten. I never want her to feel trapped in this marriage again because of money, never again.
As for me, I built something different. I focused on the shelter. On making something from the ground up that felt honest, that gave back. That place became my second home, my reminder that healing isn't abstract, it's concrete, visible, daily. Most days, when I'm not at the shelter, I'm at home with October, with the kids. That's the center of my life now. Not boardrooms or bottom lines. They're all gone now. My father. Laura. The chapter closed, filed away where it belongs.
Things with my mom were... different. Healing, slowly. October had said something, weeks after the sentencing, when I admitted I didn't know whether to let my mother back in.
"If you want her in your life, that's okay," she said gently, her thumb brushing the inside of my wrist. "you're allowed to miss her you know?"
"I have you and the kids," I said.
She smiled. "And if there's room for more, that doesn't take away from us. I know your heart."
Maybe she did. Because now, once a month, I take my mom to lunch. We sit in some quiet place and talk about the girls, about Jimmy's teenage mood swings, about her therapist, her regrets. She's not perfect. But she's trying. She's always been a goodgrandma, and she's beginning to be more than that. It's cautious but it's real.
The nights are my favorite.
Lola's asleep on her stomach with her butt in the air like a tiny mountain. Alice insists she's too old for lullabies now, but still hums along when October sings in the hallway. Jimmy, taller than ever, plugs in his phone and calls his Carissa.
We go to bed together now. Every night. Some evenings we read. Sometimes we just lie there, her head on my chest, my fingers in her hair. We talk about the kids, the perfume shop, the new dogs snoring at the foot of our bed, and sometimes, we say nothing at all. Just exist beside each other.
Sex... hasn't happened. Not in the way it used to. But closeness, that we have. That we've rebuilt in quiet, patient steps. Nights where her body curled around mine, skin to skin beneath the sheets, her breath steady against my collarbone. Mornings where she'd linger in my arms, half-asleep, fingers tracing lazy lines along my ribs. There's still desire. Still the pull but it's different now, slower, deeper, waiting for safety to settle.
Because for October, it was never just about touch. Never just about release or routine. For her, sex has always been something sacred, something built on trust, emotional truth, presence. Love, translated through skin and silence and breath. After everything—after the distance, the betrayal, the heartbreak, she needed time. Not just to want again, but to feel safe wanting. To believe the wanting wouldn't hurt her.
So I never pushed. Never asked. Not once. I would've waited forever.
And then one night, she reached for me.
I was folding laundry in the bedroom, humming without thinking, half-distracted. She came up behind me, quiet as a breath, and pressed a kiss to the middle of my back, lips barely touching the fabric of my shirt. I turned to look at her, and something in her gaze stopped me still—open and bright, but edged with nerves. Like a hand held out across a bridge not fully rebuilt.
"I want to," she whispered.
I didn't ask what she meant. I knew. I set the basket aside. I took her face in my hands and I touched her the way she deserved, gently, reverently, like every inch of her mattered. Because she does. Because no matter how long it had been, no matter how much we'd had to relearn each other, loving October felt like discovering home all over again.
When October touched me that night, it wasn't just want. It was trust. A trust I hadn't always earned, but one she was offering anyway, like a new kind of vow. I followed her lead, letting her body guide mine, and when she kissed me, it felt like coming home to a place I thought I'd lost forever.
It wasn't urgent. God, no. It was tender. Full of pauses. Our mouths finding each other again and again, like we had all the time in the world to relearn every curve and breath and sound. And we did. I would've spent the rest of my life in that moment if she asked me to.
Afterwards, we didn't move much. Just stayed close. Her skin on mine, her breath slowing against my chest. Then she said softly, hesitantly.
"Can I tell you something?"
