Chapter nineteen: Letting Go
1017 Words
Chapter nineteen: Letting Go
The Letter
The wind had picked up, carrying the scent of lavender and the faint hum of bees from the garden beds. Catherine walked Ronan back to the edge of the front path, where the street met the memory of a man she used to know.
He turned before he left.
“I almost forgot,” he said, reaching into his coat pocket with fingers that trembled slightly. “I wrote this… years ago. After the divorce was final. After Michelle left. After everything.”
He extended a folded letter—creased and worn, the paper softened by time.
“I never mailed it,” he added. “I didn’t think I had the right to. Maybe I still don’t. But… it helped me say the things I couldn’t back then.”
Catherine didn’t take it at first. She stared at the envelope like it was a relic from another life.
Finally, gently, she reached out and took it.
She didn’t open it.
Not yet.
It wasn’t out of curiosity. It wasn’t anger.
It was something quieter.
Control.
“I might not read it,” she said honestly, slipping it into the pocket of her cardigan.
Ronan nodded. “That’s okay.”
They stood there for a beat more, the silence no longer tense—just still.
No promises.
No reconciliation.
No rehearsed goodbyes.
Just truth.
Just closure.
When he turned and walked away, there was no backward glance. No aching pause. Just the soft thud of his footsteps fading against the cracked pavement of a road no longer meant for them.
Catherine stood for a moment longer, breathing in the golden light of late afternoon.
Then she went inside.
She placed the unopened letter in the drawer of her writing desk, next to some old photographs and an ultrasound printout of Leo, long faded. She didn’t look at any of them.
She didn’t need to.
Aftermath
Max came home just after six.
He smelled of sawdust and lemon oil—faint traces of the woodworking project he'd been lost in for hours. His hair was tousled, sleeves rolled up, shirt untucked in a way that only made him look more like home. When he stepped into the kitchen, he slowed.
Something was different.
Not wrong.
Not tense.
Just… still.
Like the house was holding its breath.
“Hey?” he called out gently, setting down his keys.
No reply.
Then he saw her—through the glass doors, on the back porch.
Catherine.
Barefoot, legs tucked under a blanket, cradling a mug against her chest. Her hair was loose, curling slightly in the early evening breeze. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t smiling. She was just… quiet. Thoughtful. Whole.
Max stepped outside, the screen door clicking softly behind him. The porch boards creaked beneath his weight.
The sky above was painted in strokes of tangerine and rose—like the day had been brushed into rest.
He knelt beside her chair, gently brushing her knee. “You okay?”
She turned her head slowly, her eyes finding his like magnets. She gave a single nod.
Then, with no warning, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him.
“He came,” she murmured against his shoulder.
Max didn’t need to ask who. He knew. The past had come knocking.
“I let it go.”
Her voice was soft—but firm. Rooted. There was no tremble, no weight dragging behind it. Only peace.
Max wrapped his arms around her tighter. He didn’t ask for details. He didn’t need them. Not anymore.
“I’m here,” he said, pressing a kiss into her temple.
“I know,” she whispered.
They stayed like that as the sun dipped lower. The rocking chair swayed gently, the old wood creaking like an exhale of its own.
Behind them, through the open windows, came the muffled sound of Mira and Leo’s laughter—something about who could balance the most couch cushions on their head. Mira squealed, Leo howled with joy, and someone shouted, “Mom, she cheated!” from somewhere down the hall.
Catherine chuckled softly. Her grip on Max’s shirt relaxed, but she didn’t pull away.
The breeze stirred the hem of her blanket. Her mug had long gone lukewarm, but she kept it nestled in her lap like a comfort she’d earned.
She tilted her head slightly, just enough to speak. “I buried it today. The anger. The guilt. All of it.”
Max looked up at her. “Was it hard?”
“No,” she said after a moment. “It was like putting down a stone I didn’t realize I was still carrying.”
He nodded.
“You know what I felt when I closed the door behind him?” she added, eyes glassy but smiling.
“What?”
“Free.”
Max rested his forehead lightly against hers. “You are.”
For a while, they just breathed together.
No noise but the rustle of leaves, the hum of crickets waking up with the moon, and the distant, ever-bright sounds of children being children.
And it was enough.
More than enough.
A Soft Forever
Later that night, after dinner and bedtime stories, after Mira had fallen asleep with one tiny hand resting on baby Hope’s crib rail, and Leo had finally agreed to turn off his flashlight and “stop engineering the perfect blanket fort”—Catherine and Max stood at the doorway of the nursery.
Hope stirred in her sleep, a bundle of pink and sighs. Her chest rose and fell in rhythm with the stars outside the window.
Max’s hand slid into Catherine’s.
She leaned her head on his shoulder.
And for the first time in a long, long while, Catherine didn’t look back. She didn’t feel the tug of regret, or the ache of what-ifs.
Only the glow of now.
Only the stillness of peace.
Only the truth:
She had built this.
From ashes.
From grace.
From love.
And this—this life, this family, this quiet—was her reward.
Her forever.
- Writer
