No cameras, no alarms triggered. Just a dim porch lamp flickering under the overhang like a firefly too afraid to die. You park in the spot beneath the jasmine-covered trellis, the one Maddie said was “safe from prying eyes and nosy neighbors.” Her house isn’t grand, not like Regan’s place up in Mill Valley with the glass walls and wine fridge, but there’s something quietly beautiful about it — like Maddie herself. Warm. Untouched by design trends. Real.

She opens the door before you can reach it. Barefoot. Hair loose. No makeup. Wearing one of your old flannels she stole years ago.

You step inside. The scent of lavender and oatmeal cookies wraps around you. It’s too domestic, too familiar, and it hurts.

“You said they’d be asleep,” you murmur.

“They are. But Landon never sleeps through the night anymore unless I let him sleep on the couch with the dogs. So keep your voice low.”

"Still the little protector?”

“Still your son,” she replies, quiet, with no accusation. Just fact.

That’s when it hits you again. How your children are asleep upstairs, breathing under a roof you don’t belong to, tucked under covers you didn’t choose, but still… they are yours. Flesh and blood. Not names on a page. Not hypothetical ghosts.

Maddie walks past you toward the kitchen, hips swaying just enough to make you forget you’re married. Again. She grabs a glass and pours you something deep red, no label. Probably something local and expensive that she got as a favor from a vintner who try to woo her at the farmers market.

You sit. At the breakfast nook. Same one where Landon once asked Maddie why his eyes didn’t look like “Uncle Teddy's.” She told him they were from her side. From a grandparent that didn’t exist.

“Can I… see them?” you ask.

She doesn’t hesitate. “You’ll wake them.”

“I don’t care.”

She leads you upstairs.

The first door opens.

Johanna. Nine years old. Long lashes, head buried in a book even as she sleeps. You recognize her blanket — it’s one Maddie knitted the year she thought she’d finally settle into a life with Husband #2. The man everyone still believes is Johanna’s father.

You brush a curl from her forehead. “She dreams like you,” you whisper.

“Every night,” Maddie replies. “Sometimes I hear her talking to you in her sleep. I don’t correct her.”

The next room.

Julianna. Seven. Fierce little storm. She sleeps like a soldier — arms spread, foot hanging off the bed. There’s a cracked compass on her nightstand.

“Found it at the lake last summer,” Maddie says. “She says it points to the people you belong with. So far, it only points here.”

You swallow hard.

And then — Landon’s room.

The boy’s chest rises and falls in slow, even breaths. A dog lies curled at his feet, as promised. You move closer, heart pounding like you’re about to hold a miracle and break it at the same time.

“He called you Dad last week,” Maddie says behind you, barely audible. “Out of nowhere. Just said it like it had always been true.”

“Did you correct him?”

“No.”

“Thank you,” you say.

“Don’t thank me,” she answers. “Just don’t disappear again.”

Back downstairs, the wine is gone. The air between you is heavy. Not with lust — not tonight. With history.

“Do you ever think about what it could’ve been like?” she asks, not looking at you. “If we’d just… taken the fire and let it burn?”

“All the time,” you admit. “But then I remember what it would’ve cost.”

“My sister?”

“Your peace.”

Silence again. Then Maddie turns to you.

“You don’t get to keep showing up like this if you’re going to keep choosing her.”

“I choose them,” you say, nodding toward the stairs. “I choose you. I’m just… trapped in the wrong life.”

She nods.

Then she leans in.

Not a kiss. Not yet. Just a whisper.

“You want to be brave, ? Then don’t leave tonight. Stay. Wake up when Landon does and make him pancakes. Be here when Johanna asks you what the difference is between a comet and a meteor. Show Julianna how to read that compass.”

You stare at her.

"Ok." You simply say. "I'll stay for the night."