Chapter 9
By summer, the rhythm of our life had settled into something sustainable, rich, and occasionally chaotic.
Eleanor and Marcus had established a fragile, enduring truce. They spoke weekly, trading memories of their
parents, discussing gardening, and occasionally arguing about local politics in Wisconsin.
Marcus even sent Clara a hand-carved wooden rabbit for her first birthday—a gift so meticulously crafted that
Dorian placed it on the mantelpiece in the study, right beside the framed ultrasound photos.
One Saturday in August, Eleanor arrived unannounced, carrying a heavy cardboard box smelling faintly of old
paper and cedar.
“What is this?” Dorian asked, opening the front door while balancing Clara on his hip.
“Your childhood,” Eleanor announced, brushing past him into the foyer. “Or at least the parts I managed to
rescue before your father turned our attic into a secondary filing cabinet.”
I came out of the kitchen wiping my hands on a dish towel. “More family secrets?”
“No secrets,” Eleanor said, setting the box down on the living room rug. “Just proof that my son was once an
awkward, overly serious child who built elaborate spreadsheets for his Lego collections.”
Dorian looked genuinely horrified. “Mother, please tell me you didn’t bring the architectural inventory.”
“I brought three volumes of it.”
I burst out laughing. “You inventoried your Lego bricks?”
“They were structurally significant,” Dorian defended himself, though a faint flush rose on his neck. Clara,
sensing the tension or perhaps just liking the sound of our voices, patted his cheek with an open palm.
Eleanor knelt by the box and pulled out a faded photograph. She looked at it for a long moment before handing
it up to me.
It was Dorian at perhaps ten years old, standing on the shore of Lake Geneva with a fishing rod in his hand. He
wasn’t smiling—he looked intensely focused, as if trying to calculate the hydrodynamic probability of catching a
perch—but behind him, standing in the dappled sunlight, was a younger Dominic Cross, resting a heavy hand on
his son’s shoulder.
For the first time, I saw the physical echo down three generations: Dominic, Dorian, and now, sleeping quietly
upstairs in her crib, Clara.
“He loved him, you know,” Eleanor said softly, her eyes fixed on the photograph. “Dominic. In the only way he
knew how. He thought love meant making sure his son never had to experience vulnerability.”
“By making him impenetrable,” Dorian said quietly.
“Yes.” Eleanor looked up at her son. “And you almost made the exact same mistake with Alina.”
5
“I know.”
“Knowing it and stopping it are two different disciplines.”
“We’re working on the discipline,” I said, walking over and leaning my shoulder against Dorian’s side. He
shifted Clara slightly, wrapping his free arm around my waist and pulling me close. It wasn’t a dramatic gesture,
but it was instinctive, grounded, and completely real.
Eleanor watched us, a quiet, melancholic smile touching her lips. “Good. Because I’m too old to start managing
another generation of emotionally incompetent Cross men.”
* * * s
Later that evening, after Eleanor had driven back to Wisconsin and Clara was finally asleep, Dorian and I sat
out on the back patio. The Chicago summer air was warm, carrying the faint, distant hum of city traffic and the
rustle of maple leaves in the courtyard.
Dorian poured two glasses of iced tea, handing one to me.
“Penny for your thoughts,” I said, watching the ice cubes clink against the glass.
“I was thinking about the day we met.”
I raised an eyebrow. “At the gallery opening on Michigan Avenue? When you stood by the pillar looking like an
executive gargoyle?”
“I wasn’t a gargoyle.”
“You were wearing a bespoke charcoal suit, glaring at the abstract paintings as if they had personally insulted
your balance sheet, and refusing to speak to anyone who didn’t hold a master’s degree in finance.”
“You walked up to me and asked if I was hiding from the hors d’oeuvres or my own reflection.”
“And you looked at me as if an alien had just landed in downtown Chicago.”
“I looked at you,” Dorian corrected softly, “and wondered how someone so alive had managed to wander into a
room full of statues.”
My chest tightened, not with pain, but with a deep, settling warmth. “And six years later, you tried to turn me
into a statue by locking me away in a separate apartment to protect me from your corporate ghosts.”
“I know.” He turned his head, his dark eyes catching the amber patio light. “I am sorry, Alina. Not just in
therapy. Not just when you demand it. Every day, I’m aware of what my silence cost us.”
“It cost us six months,” I said. “And it almost cost us everything.”
“It taught me that love isn’t about building a safe harbor where nothing can touch you. It’s about being willing
to stand in the storm together.”
6
I set my glass down on the table, leaned across the gap between our chairs, and kissed him. It wasn’t the
hurried, desperate kiss of our early dating days, nor the cautious, hesitant touch of our reconciliation. It was deep,
deliberate, and anchored in everything we had survived.
When we finally pulled apart, Dorian rested his forehead against mine. “Are you happy?”
“I’m tired, my husband is hopelessly stubborn, our daughter thinks sleep is optional, and your mother treats our
kitchen like her personal emotional laboratory.”
May you like
“That wasn’t an answer.”
I smiled in the dark. “Yes. I’m happy.”
