My first mom was the best, but I think hearts can have room for two if you stretch them enough.” She kissed the top of his head, unable to speak. Later, after the cake and the toasts and Tommy’s increasingly enthusiastic playlist choices, Catherine and Marcus found themselves alone at the garden’s edge. The party continued behind them, laughter and music in the chaos of celebration, but for a moment, they existed separately.

“Mrs. Reed,” Marcus tested the name, “has a ring to it.” “I’m keeping my work name at Bridge Academy. Cat Riley got hired there. Cat Reed would raise questions.” She smiled. “But, yeah, Mrs. Reed, I never thought I’d have a name I actually wanted to keep.” They stood watching their guests, their people, celebrating a union that shouldn’t have worked, but did anyway.

“What do you think happens next?” Marcus considered the question. “We go home. I carry you across a threshold like people do. We figure out sleeping arrangements since my bed is too small for regular two-person occupation. We wake up tomorrow married and deal with whatever that means.” Catherine laughed.

“I meant more broadly, the future. What life looks like now.” “Same as it looked before, I think. Just more official. Work and school and dinners together. Helping Danny with homework. Keeping the house from falling apart. Ordinary stuff.” “Ordinary sounds perfect.” Catherine leaned into him. “I spent my whole life surrounded by extraordinary.

Extraordinary money, extraordinary expectations, extraordinary pressure. Ordinary is what I was always missing. They returned to the party. Danny had commandeered the music, was attempting to teach the Rodriguez children a dance he’d apparently invented. Catherine got pulled into conversation with her Bridge Academy director. Marcus found himself fielding congratulations from clients he hadn’t expected to attend.

The evening wound down naturally. Guests departed with hugs and well wishes. Tommy stayed to help clean up, surprisingly sentimental after several glasses of champagne. Mrs. Chen took Danny home, giving the newlyweds privacy for their first night. The house felt different with marriage in it.

The same cluttered kitchen, the same saggy couch, the same photos of Sarah watching from the walls, but something had shifted. A new layer of meaning added to familiar spaces. They lay in bed afterward, the kind of exhausted that followed big events. Catherine’s head rested on Marcus’s chest, her ring catching moonlight through the window.

I was so scared in that parking lot. Her voice came quiet. Not just of the date, of everything. Of being seen, of wanting things I didn’t deserve, of believing happiness might be possible if I was brave enough to reach for it. Marcus stroked her hair. What changed? You, Danny. The way you both looked at me like I was already enough.

She shifted to see his face. My whole life I was never enough, never smart enough, accomplished enough, profitable enough for my father. Never social enough, polished enough, compliant enough for my mother. Then suddenly there’s this guy in a parking lot who sees me crying and thinks I’m worth helping me anyway, who doesn’t want anything except to make sure I’m safe.

I wanted plenty of things, Marcus admitted. Just not the things you were used to people wanting. That was the difference between Catherine’s fingers traced patterns on his chest. You wanted me, not my money or my connections or my family name. Just the woman underneath all that. They slept eventually, tangled together in a bed that really was too small, uncomfortable in the best possible way.

The year that followed proved ordinary as promised. Catherine’s work at Bridge Academy expanded when grant funding allowed new programs. Marcus’s business grew steadily, enough to justify that second truck he’d been considering. Danny discovered robotics club and added mechanical engineering to his list of future careers alongside astrophysicist.

Challenges appeared without destroying anything. A plumbing emergency that flooded the basement. Danny struggled with a bully at school, resolved through conversations rather than confrontation. Catherine’s occasional grief over the family she’d lost, not mourning her father, but mourning the possibility of a father who’d been different.

They learned each other’s rhythms more deeply. Marcus discovered that Catherine needed alone time after difficult work days. Space to process without immediately discussing problems. Catherine learned that Marcus expressed love through action rather than words. That a fixed drawer or organized closet meant more than spoken affirmations.

They fought sometimes, never about big things, usually about loading the dishwasher incorrectly or forgetting to mention schedule changes. The fights felt normal in a way that startled them both. Neither had experienced relationships where conflict didn’t threaten annihilation. Richard Monroe remained absent.

Whatever arrangement Catherine’s confrontation had produced held firmly. No contact, no interference, no shadows from the world she’d left behind. Occasionally news reached them. Monroe Technologies acquiring a competitor. Richard appearing at some industry event. But it distant, irrelevant to their actual lives. A year after the wedding, Catherine started feeling strange.

Fatigue she couldn’t shake, nausea in the mornings, emotions swinging wildly between elation and tears. The pregnancy test confirmed what she’d begun to suspect. She showed Marcus that evening, unable to find words adequate to the news. He stared at the positive result, processing slowly. “We’re having a baby.” “We’re having a baby.

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