I put my hand to her lower back. “Do you want to go say something?”
“No,” Winter said. “I don’t want to confuse her. She has a mother, right? A good mother.”
“A very good mother,” Aldo said. “I spent the night with both of them. Andrea is a good person. I trust her with my granddaughter’s life. Andrea is being escorted to the new house right now. We’re taking Autumn there next and it’s going to be a big surprise for her. She has no idea what’s happened, what’s been happening.”
“The innocence,” Winter whispered.
“You’re a strong person,” I whispered to Winter. “Anything you want to do right now, just know how strong you are. What you’ve done and given to the world.”
“She’s beautiful, Tripp.”
“Just like you, darling.”
Autumn looked out the window and smiled at us. Winter lifted a hand and waved. Autumn waved back. She then looked down and started to play with a stuffed unicorn in her lap.
That’s when Winter turned to me. She came to me. She needed me. It was an amazing feeling.
“You’re all set,” Aldo said. “Remember, no leaving the damn country. I’ll be touch when I need to be. Go be free. Go live.”
Aldo went back to his car.
The window went up on the other car and Autumn was out of sight.
The two vehicles left us there, me hugging Winter. In the background was the crash of the waves, the call of the gulls, the end of the world that I had always obsessed with.
“Say something,” Winter whispered.
I took her by the face and wiped her tears. “You fixed my world with your eyes. You fixed my heart with your love. You fixed me, as a man, with your honesty. You’ve given me life in many ways, darling, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life giving it back to you.”
I gently kissed her and then took her by the hand. I turned, Winter by my side. We had a car, cash, and roads that could take us anywhere we wanted.
Life would never be easy because it wasn’t meant to be. Sometimes you just had no choice but to make a fist, put it up, and fight.
I made a fist around Winter’s hand, pulled it up, and kissed it.
Sometimes… the fight really was worth it all.