ETERNALLY BOUND
764 Words
CHAPTER 6: ETERNALLY BOUND
Vince’s house changed.
It was louder now. Crayon drawings were stuck to the fridge with magnets that didn’t match and one that was clearly a dinosaur with too many teeth. Ria’s laugh echoed off the marble floors again, bouncing down the hallways that used to only hear footsteps and phone calls. For the first time in years, the house didn’t feel like a fortress. It felt like a home.
We started small, dinner at 7.
I still kept my distance, I never moved out of the guest room. Not officially. But some nights my sweater was on the back of Vince’s chair. Some mornings my toothbrush was in his bathroom. Some nights I didn’t go back to the guest room at all.
Four months after I returned from the hospital, I was delivered of a baby girl.
Labor was 14 hours and Robert didn’t leave my side once, even when the doctor told him to sit down.
We named her Ella. Ria’s middle name. Ella Vince
I had new rules, written on a sticky note on the fridge in Ria’s pink marker with glitter pen:
1. No business talk at 8PM. That was Ria’s and Ella's bath and story time. Phones face down.
2. Story time was both me and Robert's job. No exceptions, even if “the world was ending,” especially then.
3. Sundays were for the park. No security detail in sunglasses. Just two guys across the street in a black SUV. Just the four of us, ice cream and pigeons and Ria running until she collapsed.
It worked. Better than either of them expected.
Ria started calling me “Mama” . She said it casually, while asking for pancakes and syrup in the shape of a heart.
That night, after Ria and Ella were asleep, the city was loud below them. Sirens. Traffic. Life.
Vince was at the dining table, tie loosened, going over files he wasn’t supposed to be looking at. I walked in, took them out of his hands, and set them on the counter.
Silence. Comfortable for once. No tension. No waiting for the other shoe to drop. Just the hum of the fridge and Ella making baby noises on the monitor.
Then he took my hand. No warning. No speech prepared. His thumb ran over my knuckles like he was memorizing them.
"Ava," he said. His voice was rough. "Marry me."
My breath caught.
"Marry me," he repeated, looking straight at me. No mafia boss mask. No calculated words. Just Vince. Tired. Honest. Scared and sure all at once. "Not because of the attack. Not because of Ella. Because when you’re here, this place stops feeling like a war zone. Because Ria said ‘Mama’ and you didn’t run. Because you yell at me when I work past 8PM. Because I don’t want to do Sundays at the park with anyone else. Because I want to come home to you."
I looked at the baby monitor. At Ria’s crayon drawing taped to the wall, Our Family. Stick figures, 4 of them, holding hands. One had a crown. Probably Ria.
I squeezed his hand. Tears were threatening but I blinked them back. "Yes," I whispered. "But I’m keeping my last name."
A real laugh broke out of him, the kind I hadn’t heard in years. "Deal," he said, and pulled me in. His forehead against mine. "Deal. Whatever you want."
We got married. Small, private, just family and a judge in a room with bad lighting and plastic chairs.
Ria was the bell ringer. She carried two rings on a pillow and a crayon drawing that said: “Now you can’t leave.”She read it out loud to the judge, very seriously, and then added, "And you have to give them cake."
Vince wore a suit. I wore a simple white dress and Ella in a carrier, asleep through the whole thing.
When the judge said, “You may kiss the bride,” Vince kissed me like it was the first time he hadn’t waiting for gunfire after. Like he finally believed we got to have this.
In New York, 21st century.
We built something no rival family could touch.
Not with money. Not with power.
With 8PM bath time. With park Sundays. With sticky notes and crayon drawings and pancakes shaped like hearts.
With learning to stay, even when it was easier to run.
I looked around. At the drawings on the fridge. At the baby monitor. Ria is asleep on the couch .
"Yeah,"
It finally felt like home.
- Writer
