Forgiveness, Trust & Forever

Emily

We went back to Clara-Bellas on a Thursday.
Not because the police told me I could.
Not because security had finished.
Not because Jen said it was sensible, although she did, which made me suspicious on principle.
We went back because Eleanora stood in the safe house living room that morning, pointed at her yellow blanket, then at the door, and said, very seriously, "Boo go."
Hero looked at me.
I looked at Hero.
Neither of us breathed for a second.
Then Eleanora slapped the blanket against her own chest.
"Boo go."
Hero swallowed.
"She has spoken."
"She's one."
"She sounds decisive."
"She's demanding."
"She gets that from-"
"Finish that sentence and you'll need urgent care again."
His mouth closed.
Wise man.
Eleanora stomped one small foot.
"Go."
The safe house had been kind to us.
Or maybe kind was too strong.
It had been blank.
It had held us without asking questions.
It had given me rooms with no ghosts, doors I could learn to close, a shower I could survive, and a living room where my daughter had taken her first steps with a rabbit in one hand and her own name in her mouth.
But it was not home.
Clara-Bellas was.
The studio.
The flat above it.
The building I had hidden in.
The building Ava had violated.
The building Hero and I had once bought when we were meant to start university together and believed adulthood was something you could organise with paint charts, cheap furniture, and a joint calendar.
I still remembered the day we got the keys.
Hero had swung them around one finger like he had won a kingdom.
I had told him not to drop them down the drain.
He had said, "Have some faith, Em."
Then dropped them down the drain.
We had spent forty minutes lying on the pavement with a coat hanger, laughing so hard we couldn't breathe, while Brandon stood over us and said buying property had clearly been a mistake because neither of us could be trusted with metal.
That was before.
Before university didn't happen the way we planned.
Before grief.
Before Ava.
Before court.
Before Eleanora.
Before the flat above Clara-Bellas became less a beginning and more a museum of everything we had failed to finish.
I had lived there after Hero left.
Hero's things had stayed.
The nursery had stayed.
The walls had kept every version of us because neither of us had known how to clear them without admitting what was gone.
But now lockdown had done something strange.
It had trapped us.
And then, slowly, it had given us time.
Time to stop running.
Time to patch holes.
Time to argue over where the kettle went.
Time to realise the flat was not asking to be preserved like evidence.
It was asking to be lived in.
So we packed.
Again.
Formula.
Nappies.
Rabbit.
Blanket.
Two sleep suits.
Hero's medication, because apparently grown men could not be trusted with dosage schedules.
My toothbrush.
My charger.
The cardigan Melinda had dropped at the security gate two days earlier with a note that simply said:
No need to answer. It looked cold. M x
I had not answered.
But I had worn it every night since.
That counted.
Maybe.
Hero saw me fold it into the bag.
He said nothing.
Good.
We drove to Clara-Bellas with security behind us and Officer Grant waiting outside.
No sirens.
No drama.
No press that I could see.
Just rain-washed pavements, quiet streets, and the studio sign appearing through the windscreen like a memory I had been afraid would reject me.
Clara-Bellas.
White lettering.
Soft blue door.
New camera above it.
New lock.
New light.
Same building.
My stomach turned.
Hero reached for my hand in the back seat.
I let him take it.
Eleanora sat strapped into her car seat between us, chewing rabbit's ear and humming to herself.
Not the song.
Not properly.
Just sound.
Her own little noise.
Alive.
Unbothered by history because she was too busy making her own.
The car stopped.
I did not move.
Hero did not ask if I was okay.
He had finally learned that I was almost never okay and almost always moving anyway.
Officer Grant opened the outside door and spoke briefly with security.
Hero got out first.
Then turned.
Not reaching in.
Waiting.
I unbuckled Eleanora.
Her arms lifted.
"Mmm."
My throat tightened.
"Yes. Mummy's got you."
The word came easier now.
Not easy.
Easier.
I lifted her out and set her on my hip.
She immediately pointed at the studio sign.
"Bellas."
I froze.
Hero froze too.
Officer Grant, bless him, pretended not to notice the entire world changing on the pavement.
Eleanora slapped my shoulder.
"Bellas."
My eyes filled so fast the sign blurred.
"You remember?"
She couldn't.
Not properly.
She was too little.
But maybe she remembered the sound.
Maybe Hero had said it.
Maybe I had.
Maybe Clara-Bellas had lived somewhere under her skin the way my voice had.
"Bellas," she said again, pleased with herself.
Hero's voice was rough.
"She knows."
I looked at the sign.
Then at my daughter.
Then at the door Ava had not managed to own.
"Yes," I whispered.
"She does."
Officer Grant handed me the new key.
Not Hero.
Not security.
Me.
"The old locks have been fully removed," he said. "All access codes reset. Camera system replaced. Rear door reinforced. No one has access unless you authorise it."
My fingers closed around the key.
Cold metal.
New cut.
No history.
Mine.
"Thank you."
He nodded.
No speech.
No grand reassurance.
Just stepped aside.
I walked to the door.
Eleanora on my hip.
Yellow blanket tucked over my arm.
Hero behind me.
Not leading.
Not rescuing.
There.
I put the key in the lock.
My hand shook.
The lock turned.
Clean.
Smooth.
Mine.
I opened the door.
The studio smelled different at first.
Fresh paint.
Cleaner.
New wood.
Security equipment.
Then underneath, like something breathing through bandages, came polish and old floorboards.
Clara-Bellas.
My chest hurt.
Eleanora leaned forward.
"Down."
"Not yet."
"Down."
"Bossy."
"Boo down."
Hero made a strangled sound behind me.
I looked over my shoulder.
His eyes were wet.
"Don't," I warned.
"I'm not."
"You are."
"I'm silently moved."
"Be silently useful and bring the bags."
"Yes, ma'am."
Again, the word did something inconvenient to my stomach.
Still not the time, body.
Read the room.
I stepped inside.
The studio mirrors had been cleaned.
The reception desk straightened.
The noticeboard had been stripped of old posters and student timetables, leaving bare cork and tiny pinholes.
Evidence of things removed.
But also space.
New notices could go there.
New classes.
New rules.
New life.
I carried Eleanora across the studio floor.
Her eyes widened at the mirrors.
She saw herself.
Gasped.
Pointed.
"Boo!"
Her reflection pointed back.
Eleanora gasped harder.
"Boo!"
I laughed.
I couldn't help it.
Hero laughed too from the doorway, bags in both hands despite my explicit instruction that he was not a pack mule.
"Tiny narcissist."
"She gets that from you," I said.
"Fair."
Eleanora leaned towards the mirror.
I crouched, slowly, scar pulling but not stopping me, and set her feet on the floor.
She stood between me and the reflection.
One hand gripping my fingers.
The other clutching the yellow blanket.
She stared at herself.
Then took one wobbly step forward.
Then another.
Towards the mirror.
Towards Clara-Bellas.
Towards herself.
My daughter walked across my studio floor.
For a second, everything inside me stopped hurting.
Not because the pain vanished.
Because something else stood in front of it.
She slapped the mirror.
"Boo!"
"Yes," I whispered.
"That's Boo."
Hero set the bags down.
His face had gone soft in the way that still made me want to look away and lean closer at the same time.
"She looks like she belongs here," he said.
I looked at Eleanora.
At the floor.
At the mirrors.
At my own reflection behind hers.
"She does."
Then, after a breath, "So do I."
Hero went still.
I did not look at him.
If I did, he would make a face.
If he made a face, I would cry.
If I cried, I would blame him.
A mature, healthy system.
Obviously.
We went upstairs before I could change my mind.
The flat was waiting.
That was the only way to describe it.
Not clean.
Not ruined.
Waiting.
The living room still had the sofa we had bought from a clearance warehouse because Hero said it had character and I said it smelled like dust and regret.
The kitchen still had the tiles we had argued over for three weeks because he wanted dark green and I wanted cream.
We had compromised on pale green.
Marriage training without the marriage.
The bedroom still had too much air in it.
The nursery door was open now.
I hated that.
I needed that.
The chair was gone.
The camera was gone.
The bookshelf had been removed.
The wall behind it had been patched but not painted.
A square of new plaster sat there like a scar.
I stood in the doorway and stared.
Hero stayed behind me with Eleanora on his hip.
He had picked her up downstairs when she tried to lick the mirror.
Parenthood.
Glamorous.
"We can shut it," he said quietly.
"No."
My voice sounded flat.
But sure.
"No?"
"No." I looked at the patched wall. "I don't want to keep shutting rooms because they hurt."
Hero said nothing.
Good.
I stepped inside.
The room smelled of fresh plaster and baby laundry.
No dust sheet now.
No camera.
No old watching.
Just a cot.
A changing unit.
A few boxes.
The mobile was still missing from the ceiling hook because police had taken it down during the search and returned it wrapped in tissue.
Hero had placed it on the changing unit.
Clouds.
Stars.
You Are My Sunshine.
I touched one tiny cloud.
My throat tightened.
"I want to paint it."
Hero shifted Eleanora.
"What?"
"The wall."
"The patched one?"
"All of it."
He stared at me.
I turned slowly.
"I don't want Ava's room."
His face softened.
"No."
"I don't want the room I made when I was pretending I knew how to be a mother."
"No."
"I don't want the room from the photographs."
His throat moved.
"What do you want?"
I looked around.
Green walls.
Soft, old hope.
Almost me.
Almost mother.
Almost unbearable.
"I don't know yet."
"Okay."
"I want to choose it."
"Okay."
"With you."
Hero went completely still.
Eleanora patted his cheek.
"Da."
He did not look away from me.
"With me?"
My face heated.
Not embarrassment.
Fear.
Hope pretending to be inconvenience.
"We bought this flat together," I said.
His eyes changed.
"I remember."
"We were meant to start university together."
"I remember that too."
"You dropped the keys down a drain."
His mouth twitched.
"I remember that less fondly."
"Brandon said we couldn't be trusted with property."
"Brandon was right."
"He usually was."
"Infuriatingly."
I breathed in.
The nursery blurred for a second.
Then cleared.
"This was supposed to be our beginning," I said. "The flat. Not this room. Not a baby then. Just us. Bad furniture. Student loans. Cheap pasta. Dance classes. Auditions. You stealing my shampoo."
"It smelled better than mine."
"It cost more than yours."
"I was enriching myself culturally."
"You were stealing shampoo."
"Both."
I almost smiled.
Then the smile broke.
"We never got to be that version of us."
Hero stepped closer.
"No."
"Maybe we don't get it back."
"No."
"But maybe..." I looked at the wall again. "Maybe we stop treating this place like a crime scene and a grave."
His voice was rough.
"And make it a home?"
The word hit me hard.
Home.
Not safe house.
Not studio.
Not flat above Clara-Bellas.
Home.
My hand went to my stomach without thinking.
To the scar beneath my clothes.
"Yes," I whispered.
"Make it a home."
Hero's eyes filled.
I pointed at him.
"Don't."
"I didn't-"
"You did internally."
"Catastrophically."
"Keep it there."
"I'll try."
Eleanora squirmed.
"Boo down."
Hero set her carefully on the rug.
She immediately toddled to the cot, slapped the side, and shouted, "Bed!"
I stared.
Hero stared.
"She's terrifyingly advanced when bossing furniture," he said.
"Bed," Eleanora repeated.
"Yes, that is a bed," I said.
"Boo bed."
My throat tightened.
Hero's hand brushed mine.
Just once.
A question.
I let our fingers touch.
Just touch.
Enough.
The first lockdown eased slowly.
Not all at once.
The world did not fling open its doors.
It cracked a window.
One week, we were still inside, painting the nursery wall in old T-shirts with Eleanora sitting in the middle of a dust sheet, smearing a baby-safe paint sample onto her own sock.
The next, the rules changed enough that people could meet outside at a distance.
Outside.
A word that had once felt enormous.
We spent lockdown making the flat ours again.
Not quickly.
Not prettily.
Hero ordered paint samples online and held them against every wall like he was making a national decision.
I told him they were all beige.
He told me one was "warm oat."
I told him if he said warm oat again, I'd end the reconciliation before it started.
He chose soft blue for the living room because he said the room needed sky.
I pretended that was ridiculous.
Then cried in the bathroom because it wasn't.
We painted the patched nursery wall a pale buttery yellow to match the bee blanket.
Not all the walls.
Just one.
A sun wall, Hero called it.
I told him that was disgusting.
Then agreed.
We boxed his old things properly.
Not to erase them.
To decide what belonged in the present.
His leather jacket stayed.
The old scripts went into storage.
The trainers were binned because I had standards and apparently fresh starts required basic hygiene.
The nursery chair was not replaced.
Not yet.
Instead, we put a low bookcase in that corner and a basket of toys, because I wanted the spot where Ava had watched me pregnant to become a place Eleanora threw wooden blocks and shouted "no" at gravity.
Hero painted the hallway badly.
I painted over the drips.
He said I was controlling.
I said he had committed crimes against emulsion.
Eleanora clapped from her high chair and shouted, "Da bad!"
I laughed so hard I cried.
Hero looked betrayed.
"She's been coached."
"She has taste."
Lockdown days became strange things.
Slow.
Hard.
Ordinary.
Hero made breakfast.
I made lunch.
We both forgot dinner until Eleanora shouted at us like a tiny foreman.
We argued over paintbrushes.
We built flat-pack shelves and nearly separated over cam locks.
We sang You Are My Sunshine at nap time.
Sometimes I sang.
Sometimes Hero did.
Sometimes Eleanora joined in with a loud, tuneless "sun" and both of us acted like she had performed at the Royal Albert Hall.
At night, after she slept, Hero and I sat on the living room floor among dust sheets and takeaway containers and did not talk about being a couple.
Which meant, of course, that we talked about it constantly without using the words.
His hand near mine.
My head on the sofa cushion close to his knee.
His shoulder brushing mine at the kitchen sink.
My foot tucked beneath his thigh while we watched a film neither of us followed.
One night, while painting the last strip of hallway, he touched the back of my wrist with two fingers.
Not an accident.
Not quite a request.
A beginning of one.
I turned.
He looked at me.
No performance.
No grin.
No old Hero trick.
Just him.
Paint on his cheek.
Hair a mess.
Eyes tired.
Beautiful in the most inconvenient way.
"I want to kiss you," he said.
The room stopped.
Eleanora slept behind a half-closed door.
The world outside was still restricted, strange, frightened.
The walls were wet with new paint.
My heart slammed once.
Then again.
"Okay," I said.
His face changed.
"Okay?"
"Do not make me say it twice."
"I'm not."
"You are."
"I'm processing."
"Do it faster."
He smiled.
Small.
Nervous.
Then he stepped closer.
Slowly.
Giving me every chance to step back.
I didn't.
When he kissed me, it was nothing like before.
No desperation.
No punishment.
No grief wearing desire.
Just lips.
Warm.
Careful.
A little shaky.
His hand lifted to my jaw and stopped before touching.
I leaned into it.
Permission.
He exhaled against my mouth like that alone undid him.
The kiss stayed soft.
Too soft for all we had survived.
Exactly soft enough because of it.
When we pulled apart, I kept my eyes closed for a second.
Hero's forehead rested against mine.
Neither of us moved.
Then Eleanora shouted from the nursery, "No!"
We both froze.
Hero whispered, "Is she judging us?"
"She's one."
"She has strong moral positions."
"She's probably dropped rabbit."
Eleanora shouted again.
"NO!"
I sighed.
"Definitely rabbit."
Hero laughed quietly.
Then stepped back.
Not far.
Just enough.
No taking more because I had given one thing.
No assuming.
Another brick.
I opened my eyes.
"We don't rush," I said.
He nodded.
"No."
"I mean it."
"I know."
"We're not fixed because we kissed."
"I know."
"I might panic tomorrow."
"I know."
"I might need space."
"I know."
His eyes softened.
"And I might need reassurance."
That stopped me.
Hero, who had spent so long being certain for both of us, admitting need without wrapping it in charm.
I swallowed.
"Okay."
He smiled faintly.
"Our word."
"Our word," I agreed.
Eleanora screamed, "Boo no!"
We both ran.
The rabbit had indeed fallen.
Crisis resolved.
Romance interrupted.
Parenthood undefeated.
Two weeks later, we met my family in the park.
Outside.
Distance.
Fresh air.
The rules allowed it, technically, though Jen still sent three messages about "common sense" and "no photographs" and "if anyone leaks a park bench, I will burn society down."
Hero's parents could not come that day.
Nearly two hours away was too far for a short, distanced outdoor visit under restrictions, and his mum cried on the phone about it for exactly thirty-two seconds before pretending she had hay fever.
Titan called it "logistical oppression."
Dad, Melinda, Teddy and Sammy lived twenty minutes away.
So they came first.
The park was quiet.
Spring had started to push through.
Not dramatically.
This was England.
The trees looked damp and suspicious.
But there were buds.
Mud.
A few daffodils trying their best beside a path.
Eleanora wore a yellow cardigan over her coat and clutched the bee blanket in one hand.
I held the other.
Hero walked beside us, close enough that our sleeves brushed.
Not holding hands in public yet.
Not because I didn't want to.
Because I did.
Because wanting needed space to become choice and not panic.
Dad stood near a bench with Melinda, both of them carefully not moving forward too fast.
Teddy and Sammy bounced beside them like contained explosions.
Sammy held a plastic dinosaur.
Teddy held a packet of baby biscuits and looked very serious about responsibility.
Eleanora saw them.
Stopped.
Pointed.
"Rawr."
Sammy gasped.
"She remembered!"
"She remembers everything important," Hero said.
Sammy roared.
Eleanora roared back.
Teddy looked at me.
"Can she have a biscuit?"
I looked at the packet.
Then at Melinda.
Melinda held up both hands.
"They're age appropriate. No pressure. No offence taken if not."
A bridge.
Not a push.
My throat tightened.
"One," I said.
Teddy looked like I had given him a royal appointment.
He crouched, keeping distance until I nodded.
Then he held one biscuit out.
Eleanora toddled forward.
Not gracefully.
But determined.
She took the biscuit.
Ate it immediately.
Then held out her hand for another.
"No," I said.
"More," Eleanora replied.
Hero choked.
Dad's face crumpled with joy.
Melinda covered her mouth.
Sammy whispered, "She can say more."
"She can say no better," I said.
Eleanora looked at me.
"No."
"See?"
Hero laughed.
I did too.
Then Dad looked at me.
Not at Eleanora.
Me.
"How are you, Em?"
Such a dangerous question.
In the park.
In fresh air.
With my daughter chewing a biscuit and my brothers roaring at pigeons.
I could have lied.
Fine.
Better.
Okay.
Instead, I looked at the trees.
Then at him.
"I'm redecorating."
His eyebrows lifted.
"Are you?"
"Yes."
"That sounds like a lot."
"It is."
"Good?"
I looked at Hero.
He looked back.
No answer supplied.
No rescue.
Just there.
"Yes," I said. "Good."
Dad's eyes softened.
"I'm glad."
Melinda stepped forward half a pace.
Stopped herself.
"I kept some of your old dance photos," she said.
My chest tightened.
She rushed on. "Not to post. Not to show anyone. Just... in a box. Properly labelled. You can have them. Or not. They're yours."
Yours.
That word again.
Mine.
Not hidden.
Not decided for me.
"Thank you," I said.
Melinda's eyes filled.
She nodded.
No hug.
Not yet.
But closer.
Eleanora wandered between us with biscuit crumbs on her chin, completely unaware that four adults were emotionally rebuilding a family around her snack schedule.
She stopped in front of Dad.
Looked up.
Dad held very still.
Not reaching.
Not assuming.
She pointed at him.
"Gan."
Dad's entire face broke.
"Yes," he whispered. "Gan."
Then she turned to Melinda.
Studied her.
Melinda looked like she might stop breathing.
Eleanora lifted her dinosaur.
"Rawr."
Melinda laughed through tears.
"Rawr."
That was enough.
For that day.
For that door.
For that family.
Later, when we walked back to the car, Hero's hand brushed mine again.
This time, I took it.
In public.
Only for three seconds.
Then five.
Then longer.
He did not look at me.
Smart man.
His thumb moved once over mine.
Eleanora walked ahead of us, wobbling between Dad and Teddy, with Sammy roaring at birds and Melinda walking close enough to catch but not close enough to crowd.
The world was opening slowly.
Outside spaces first.
Carefully.
Awkwardly.
With distance.
With rules.
With fear still in our pockets.
But opening.
And maybe we were too.
That evening, back in the flat above Clara-Bellas, I stood in the nursery doorway and looked at the yellow wall.
The sun wall.
Eleanora slept in her cot beneath the mobile.
The bee blanket tucked over her legs.
Hero stood beside me.
His hand found mine.
I let it stay.
"We made a home," he whispered.
I looked at the patched wall, now painted warm and bright.
At the basket of toys where the chair had been.
At our daughter sleeping under clouds and stars.
At the man beside me, no longer just my past, not yet fully my future, but here.
"Yes," I said.
"We're making one."
Hero turned his head.
I knew he wanted to kiss me.
I wanted it too.
So this time, I met him halfway.
Soft.
Quiet.
Ours.
Behind us, Eleanora sighed in her sleep.
"Boo," she murmured.
We both laughed against each other's mouths.
And outside, beyond the locked doors and new cameras and the little flat we had bought when we were young enough to believe beginnings were simple, the world began to open.
Not all at once.
But enough.