Chapter 9 - THE FAMILY PORTRAIT
Months passed.
Winter arrived in Chicago,
covering the city in a blanket of white.
Ethan had become a permanent fixture in our lives.
He was there for every soccer game.
He was there for every flu outbreak.
He was there for the quiet moments in the evening.
The boys now called him ‘Dad,’
a word that still made him choke up every time he heard it.
He bought a house only a few blocks away,
refusing to push me into moving back in together.
He was courting me,
in the most old-fashioned sense of the word.
Dinner dates that lasted for hours.
Late-night phone calls about everything and nothing.
He apologized every day,
not with words,
but with actions.
On the boys' fifth birthday,
we threw a huge party.
All their friends from school were there.
Even Ethan’s parents flew in from New York,
weeping as they hugged their grandsons for the first time.
As the candles were blown out,
I looked at the scene around me.
It wasn't the life I had planned.
It was messier.
It was more complicated.
But it was full.
After the guests left,
Ethan and I sat on the back porch,
watching the snow fall.
“They’re happy,”
he said,
leaning back in his chair.
“They are,”
I agreed.
“We did it,
Olivia.”
“We gave them a family.”
He looked at me,
the question hanging in the air between us.
“Are we a family,
Ethan?”
I asked softly.
“I want us to be,”
he said.
“I want to marry you again.”
“Not because of the boys.”
May you like
“But because I finally realize that the first time,”
“I was too blind to see what I actually had.”
