Part 8

Legally, the divorce had been completed years earlier.

Emotionally, things were less simple.

Sometimes Dominic stayed after putting the children to bed.

We drank tea.

Sometimes we talked about the past.

More often, we talked about ordinary things.

Work.

Books.

The children.

There was comfort in discovering that intimacy could return without demanding a name.

One rainy evening, nearly a year after the gala, Dominic found me organizing photographs.

Lucy and Eli’s first birthday.

Their first day at preschool.

Trips to the beach.

Christmas mornings.

Dominic sat beside me.

“May I?”

I handed him the album.

He turned each page slowly.

I watched him experience five years in photographs.

Lucy asleep inside a laundry basket.

Eli covered in spaghetti sauce.

The twins wearing rain boots three sizes too large.

Their fourth birthday cake collapsing because I had attempted to bake it myself.

Dominic laughed at that one.

“It was ambitious.”

“It was structural negligence.”

He looked at me.

“You’re happier.”

“Than I was?”

“Yes.”

“I am.”

He nodded.

“I’m glad.”

There was no possessiveness in his voice.

No wish to claim credit.

That mattered more than I expected.

He turned another page.

Then stopped.

A photograph had slipped loose.

It showed me in the hospital after the twins were born.

I was exhausted.

My hair was tangled.

Eli slept against my chest.

Lucy lay beside me.

Claire had taken it.

Dominic touched the edge of the photograph.

“You were alone.”

“No.”

“I mean without me.”

“Yes.”

His eyes filled.

I had seen Dominic furious.

Cold.

Proud.

Protective.

Determined.

I had almost never seen him cry.

He did not hide it now.

“I’m sorry.”

This apology was different from the others.

It asked for nothing.

Not forgiveness.

Not reconciliation.

Only the right to exist.

I placed my hand over his.

“I know.”

He looked at our hands.

“Do you ever think about what would have happened if I had received your first letter?”

“Yes.”

“What do you imagine?”

I smiled sadly.

“Different mistakes.”

He laughed softly.

“That sounds accurate.”

“No life avoids them.”

“No.”

“The question is what we do after.”

Dominic turned toward me.

“And what are we doing after?”

I knew what he meant.

For months, the question had been waiting quietly between us.

I looked through the window.

Rain moved down the glass.

Inside the living room, Lucy had left colored pencils scattered across the carpet.

Eli’s dinosaur was lying beneath a chair.

Our lives were no longer elegant.

They were better.

“I don’t want our old marriage back,” I said.

Dominic nodded slowly.

“Neither do I.”

That surprised me.

He continued.

“I loved you then.”

“But I didn’t know how to trust you when trusting you became difficult.”

I looked at him.

“And I loved you.”

“But I didn’t know how to stay when staying required me to be vulnerable.”

He nodded.

“So we were terrible at marriage.”

“Remarkably.”

He smiled.

“We made excellent children.”

I laughed.

“That was mostly me.”

“Fair.”

The laughter faded.

Dominic reached into his coat pocket.

For one terrifying second, I expected a ring.

He produced an envelope instead.

“What is that?”

“Something my mother left.”

I stared at him.

“Another letter?”

“No.”

He handed it to me.

Inside was a small photograph.

Elena stood in her garden beside Dominic and me during our engagement.

On the back, she had written a note.

Family is not the people who never disappoint you.

Family is the people who learn how to return truthfully.

Below that was a date.

I frowned.

“This was written before we married.”

“Yes.”

“Why do you have it?”

“Samuel found it with the letter.”

I looked at Dominic.

“You waited a year to show me?”

“I was learning.”

“Learning what?”

“To stop using meaningful objects as arguments.”

I smiled.

“That does sound like progress.”

He looked at me for a long time.

“Natalie.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t want the old marriage either.”

My heart began beating faster.

“But I would like to know whether there is room in your life for something new.”

I did not answer immediately.

The old Natalie might have rushed toward certainty.

The woman I had become understood that some answers deserved time.

“I don’t know.”

Dominic nodded.

“All right.”

“You’re not going to persuade me?”

“No.”

“You’re not going to make a grand speech?”

“I had one.”

I laughed.

“What happened to it?”

“I decided your answer mattered more than my performance.”

That was when I kissed him.

Not because everything had been repaired.

Not because the past disappeared.

Because for the first time, neither of us was trying to control what came next.

The kiss was brief.

Quiet.

When we separated, Dominic looked stunned.

“That was unexpected.”

“Good.”

He smiled.

A floorboard creaked.

We turned.

Lucy and Eli stood in the doorway.

Lucy’s eyes were enormous.

Eli looked deeply suspicious.

Lucy whispered loudly.

“You kissed Daddy.”

“Yes.”

“Does that mean he lives here now?”

“No.”

Dominic nodded.

“Definitely no.”

Eli folded his arms.

“Are you getting married?”

“No.”

Dominic looked at me.

“Also definitely no?”

I raised an eyebrow.

“For tonight.”

Lucy gasped.

“What does that mean?”

“It means bedtime.”

Both children groaned.

Later, after stories and glasses of water and three separate reasons why nobody was tired, the house finally became quiet.

Dominic stood at the front door.

“I’ll see them Saturday.”

“They’re expecting dinosaurs.”

“I have purchased six.”

“Why six?”

“I panicked.”

I laughed.

He opened the door.

Then my phone rang.

Unknown number.

I almost ignored it.

Something made me answer.

“Hello?”

A woman spoke.

“Is this Natalie Moretti?”

“Natalie Bennett now.”

“I’m calling from St. Catherine’s Hospital.”

My heart lurched.

“Is someone hurt?”

“No.”

Her tone was calm.

“We’re reviewing archived maternity records as part of a digitization project.”

Dominic watched my expression.

The woman continued.

“We found a sealed document attached to the birth records of your twins.”

“What document?”

“A genetic screening report.”

I frowned.

“I never requested one.”

“That is why we’re calling.”

I gripped the phone more tightly.

“The order was submitted shortly after their birth by an outside physician.”

Dominic stepped closer.

“Who?”

I asked the woman.

“Who ordered it?”

She paused while checking the record.

“Dr. Adrian Moretti.”

The name made Dominic go completely still.

I stared at him.

“Who is Adrian Moretti?”

Dominic did not answer immediately.

When he finally spoke, his voice was scarcely above a whisper.

“My uncle.”

I had never met his uncle.

I had been told Adrian Moretti died before Dominic and I married.

The woman on the phone continued.

“Mrs. Bennett, there is also a handwritten notation attached to the report.”

“What does it say?”

Paper rustled.

Then she read it.

“Do not contact the father until the second marker is confirmed.”

I looked at Dominic.

All the color had left his face.

“What second marker?” I whispered.

The hospital employee hesitated.

“That information isn’t in the note.”

Then she added the sentence that reopened every question we thought we had finally answered.

“But according to our records, Dr. Adrian Moretti was alive three months after your children were born.”

Outside, rain continued falling over the city.

Inside, Dominic stared at me as though another locked door had just appeared inside his family history.

And this time, neither of us intended to walk away before opening it.