Dylan took my hand in the garden and said, “We started here in so many ways. It feels right to keep ending here too.”
I looked at the oak tree, the fountain, the paths we had walked for decades. “Ending?”
“Not ending us,” he said. “Ending the need to keep explaining. We’ve lived it. Now we just get to stand in it.”
I tightened my fingers around his. “Then let’s walk it one more time.”
We moved slowly. First to the spot near the roses where Hope had taken her first steps. Dylan stopped and smiled at the memory.
“She fell twice and still kept going,” he said. “You wanted to pick her up right away. I told you to let her try.”
“You were right,” I answered. “She needed to know she could get back up on her own. I was too afraid of every scrape back then.”
“You were protecting her,” he sai
