Anna || HS

Anna 2- Epilogue Anna

*** A/N: First, THANK YOU!! Thank you for reading and commenting and loving my characters like I did. This series, to many, did not have a happy ending, and I understand why some would say that, but to me writing is about inviting the reader to experience the full range of human emotions. Some of my most memorable reads pushed the limits of my emotions or left me questioning what truly makes a happy ending?

I hope by now you can see that, years later, the family that Harry and Anna made is a happy one. An imperfect, but thriving one. Anna is happy and thriving, too, in her own way. She's always been stronger than any of the characters around her, and that was done with intention from the very first words I wrote for this book. Harry was her most important supporting character, and that was equally intentional. She learned to be the best version of herself through him, but at the heart of it all, this story was always about Anna.

So, we end it where it all began. With our sweet Anna.

Life those first few years was me shamelessly searching for the illusive 'new normal' so many people had told me I'd eventually find. I buried myself in being both mom and dad; making sure that I was parent enough for August, Robin, Florence, Hazel and Milo, but I failed more times than I succeeded at trying to be both. What they needed was for me to just be their mom and forge this new life for us all that only held sweet memories of Harry. The best of me interlaced with the best of him.

After the first year, I did go back to work at AR Harris and Bumble, straddling working at both. The London office was refreshingly familiar and working kept my mind focused on something other than missing Harry, which everyone in the world seemed to be doing right along side me. I went through moments of his fans grieving being a comfort, but I also had moments of absolute disgust at their inability to pull it together, especially when I was holding it together better than so many of them.

Having the kids back in London at their old school that first year was the perfect choice. We were surrounded by teachers that knew and loved my kids, friends that knew and loved us all and a country full of people that just wanted to see us thrive. I credit a lot of our thriving to Dr. Holcombe. My family single handedly funded her newest office spaces in London. I know this because I designed them. She kept me functioning through the worst of it, making sure that my kids didn't see too much of that side of me and making me take a break when I was too stubborn to realize I needed one myself. She also helped each one of the kids come out on the other side of their grief, at their own pace. Then, she did the impossible, helping me parent them all through their teenage years with the minimal consumption of wine and fewer grey hairs than there would have been without her. 

It took two years for me to go back to the New York apartment. I avoided the city at all costs because no matter where I went, or what I did, being in that city always brought me back to the sights and sounds of the last place Harry and I were together. When I finally stepped foot back into our flat there, I was in a better place than I had been in months, if not years. Nobody had to convince me to face this time capsule- it was my choice.

It was a particularly gloomy day in May. I flew in for Wyatt's birthday and told mom and Sofie that I wanted the afternoon to myself, but didn't tell them what I had planned to do. I stepped into the flat, not knowing what to expect, but finding it still very much the same as when we had left it. Things had been cleaned up and obviously a crew still cleaned it monthly. The fridge and cupboards were bare, the countertops and tables were free of any evidence of life in the space, which was understandable because there hadn't been anyone there in years.

It wasn't that there was no trace of him left, but the grief that had a particularly harsh hold on me when I went back to every other place I had, was gone. The fact that it was unchanged also allowed me to see just how far we had come- how much the kids had grown and how much I had grown, too.