“Are you okay, Mama?” asked André, his voice subdued. He sounded mature beyond his years.

Logan put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Watching Maya on camera, he could see her struggling to keep her smile in place.

“I’m okay now, baby boy,” she said. “I swear, I’m okay.”

“Christmas wasn’t perfect.” Logan eased his arm around Darcy as they sat together on the sofa that night, after everyone else had gone to bed. “But it was one of my favorites.”

Darcy smiled, snuggling closer. The power hadn’t come on until evening, and their Christmas dinner had consisted of hot dogs roasted over the fire. Yet the kids had all had a great day, and they’d gone to bed content.

“Maybe we just have to redefine perfect,” she said. She felt nervous and excited. She told herself she’d better have the conversation she was afraid to have. If it didn’t go her way, if it scared him off, then at least she could know. She could move on with no lingering doubts. Would she miss him? Of course she would. Would it kill her? No, she’d survived worse.

She finally felt like herself again. After all this time and after all she had been through, her wishes and dreams had stumbled. They’d been downgraded. She had come to believe that shrinking her dreams was better than inflating her hopes. It was the ultimate self-protection against disappointment.

That was the wrong kind of thinking, though. In Logan’s arms, she remembered the value of taking a risk. It was better to risk everything for something she believed in than to hide from the best part of life, from love and connection and joy. Now here was this unexpected thing happening, right in the middle of her life, something she had never planned for or dared to imagine for herself.

With Logan, she discovered that the dreams she had set aside actually had a chance of coming true. Almost in spite of her hopes and fears, without even realizing it, something new was forming. She sensed it in the deepest part of her, the way she felt when something clicked into place. It seemed as if her body knew what was happening before her mind accepted the concept. She felt herself relax, a big unwinding of the squeezing tension she didn’t know she was holding on to. It was like exhaling at last after holding her breath for a year.

“How is this going to go?” she asked Logan. “Do we get a happy ending or...”

“What if it doesn’t end at all?” he asked.

“Meaning?”

He smiled and kissed her temple. “Suppose it’s a happy beginning that never has to end?”

She couldn’t think straight when he kissed her. “Fair enough. But there are logistics to consider.”

“Logistics,” he said, his voice prompting.

She shifted on the sofa, turning to face him. “Logan, we want different things.”