Chapter 20
The children graduated from high school two years later.
All four of them.
Honor students.
Leaders.
Athletes.
Artists.
I sat in the audience, watching them walk across the stage, and I cried.
Marcus held my hand, crying too.
Aunt Margaret was there, cheering the loudest.
Daniel and his wife were there too, sitting a few rows away.
After the ceremony, we all gathered for pictures.
The children in their caps and gowns.
Me and Marcus.
Aunt Margaret.
Daniel and his wife.
One big, complicated, loving family.
Noah was going to MIT to study engineering.
Ethan had a soccer scholarship to the University of Texas.
Sophia was going to art school in New York.
Olivia was going to Stanford to study creative writing.
They were all leaving home.
All starting their own adventures.
I was proud.
And terrified.
And so, so sad.
That night, after the celebration, Marcus found me in the children's rooms.
I was going through old things.
Baby clothes.
Drawings.
Report cards.
Memories.
"They're really growing up," I said, my voice thick with tears.
"They are," Marcus said, sitting beside me. "But they'll always be our babies."
"I know. But it's going to be so quiet around here."
He pulled me close.
"We'll find things to do. We'll travel. We'll spend time together. Just us. It'll be an adventure."
I smiled through my tears.
"An adventure, huh?"
"Absolutely."
He was right, of course.
Life was changing.
But change could be good.
Over the next few months, we helped each child pack.
We drove Ethan to Austin (which was easy, since we lived there).
We flew with Sophia to New York.
We traveled with Olivia to California.
And finally, we took Noah to Boston.
Each goodbye was harder than the last.
But each child was ready.
Excited.
Eager to start their new lives.
When we got back home, the house was indeed quiet.
Too quiet.
Marcus and I looked at each other.
And then we started to laugh.
"What do we do now?" I asked.
"Whatever we want," he said.
And that's exactly what we did.
We traveled.
We went to Europe.
We visited Eleanor's favorite places in Italy.
We spent a month in Hawaii.
We reconnected as a couple.
We'd spent so many years focused on the children that we'd sometimes forgotten to focus on each other.
Now we had all the time in the world.
But we also made sure to stay close to the children.
We called them every week.
We visited them on campus.
We flew back for holidays.
They came home for summer breaks.
May you like
The house was filled with noise and laughter again whenever they were around.
And we wouldn't have had it any other way.
