Chapter 8 - The House With the Yellow Door
One year later, I bought a house.
Not a mansion.
Not a compound.
A normal house.
White walls.
A backyard.
A yellow front door.
Sophia chose the color.
“Daddy, yellow makes people happy.”
So we painted it yellow.
Alina laughed when she saw it.
“You spent forty million dollars on real estate and your daughter chose a yellow door.”
“She has better taste.”
Sophia ran through the grass.
I watched her.
She was eight now.
Healthy.
Happy.
Alive.
Her cardiologist said she could participate in almost everything other children did.
We had stopped talking about the past every day.
That was healing.
Not forgetting.
Just refusing to let old pain dictate every new morning.
Alina and I started dating again.
Slowly.
Coffee.
Walks.
Family dinners.
Movie nights.
No grand declarations.
No promises we weren't ready to keep.
Then one evening, she found me in the backyard.
“You're thinking too loudly.”
I smiled.
“Is that possible?”
“With you, yes.”
She sat beside me.
“I got an email.”
“From whom?”
“St. Margaret's.”
My expression softened.
“What happened?”
“They want to name the new children's library after Sophia.”
I smiled.
“She'd love that.”
Alina looked at me.
“She asked me something today.”
“What?”
“Why did you and I get divorced?”
I exhaled.
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth.”
“That we were young and scared.”
“That we loved each other but didn't know how to trust each other.”
“That we both made mistakes.”
She nodded.
“Good.”
Then she said:
“She asked if people can fall in love twice.”
I looked at her.
“What did you say?”
“I told her I didn't know.”
I smiled.
“You lied.”
She laughed.
“Maybe.”
Inside the house, Sophia shouted.
“Daddy!”
I stood.
“What?”
“Come see!”
I walked inside.
She was holding an old photograph.
A photograph from before she was born.
Alina and me.
Sophia pointed.
“You both look happy.”
“We were.”
“Can we be like that again?”
I looked at Alina.
She was standing in the doorway.
Tears filled her eyes.
I knelt beside Sophia.
“We can be better.”
She smiled.
“Good.”
That night, after Sophia fell asleep, I found Alina in the kitchen.
She held a glass of wine.
“I think she knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That we still love each other.”
I smiled.
“She has your instincts.”
“She has your stubbornness.”
“That's unfair.”
She laughed.
Then she stepped closer.
“Marco.”
“Yes?”
“I don't want to spend another year being afraid.”
“Neither do I.”
She took my hand.
“Then don't.”
I kissed her.
Not like a man reclaiming something he had lost.
Like a man grateful to have been given another chance.
May you like
For the first time, there was no fear behind it.
Only choice.
