Four Years Later
Stella
The mornings no longer startled me.
There was a time when I woke braced—half expecting something to be missing. A face. A name. A sound.
Now I woke to sunlight.
And children.
"Mama!"
The word came barreling through the hallway before the body attached to it did.
Abby—five years old and entirely certain of her place in the world—skidded into our bedroom barefoot, hair wild and gold in the early light.
She had Caspian's stubborn chin. My eyes. And a presence that filled space without trying.
Right behind her toddled her little brother, two years old and perpetually determined to keep up with someone twice his size.
"Up," he demanded, arms raised, dark curls bouncing.
Caspian groaned softly beside me, not in annoyance but in the way of a man who had once ru
