“Goodnight, darling.”

She crossed the room and kissed Sophie’s cheek.

Then she switched off the bedside lamp, leaving the little moon glowing softly against the wall.

At the doorway, she turned for one last look.

Both children were asleep.

Safe.

Loved.

Home.

Downstairs, Daniel was waiting beside the fireplace.

The Christmas tree continued glowing in the corner.

Maria came into the room and settled beside him on the sofa.

He placed the blanket across their knees.

“Everyone asleep?”

“Finally.”

“Even your father?”

“I think so.”

Daniel smiled.

“Then we have approximately six hours before Oliver wakes up and discovers Christmas.”

“Four, if we’re lucky.”

They laughed quietly.

Maria leaned against him.

The fire had burned low, leaving a soft orange glow beneath the logs.

On the mantelpiece, Eleanor’s photograph stood beside the picture from their wedding.

Maria looked at the two photographs for a moment.

There had been a time when she believed the most beautiful part of her life was already behind her.

She remembered being twenty-five, walking through London at Christmas with a future she thought she understood.

She remembered how suddenly that future had disappeared.

And she remembered arriving in France, uncertain whether she’d ever feel entirely at home anywhere again.

Now her father was sleeping upstairs.

Her children were dreaming of Christmas morning.

Her husband was beside her, absentmindedly tracing a small circle against the back of her hand.

Outside, snow covered the garden they had planted together.

She no longer wondered what might have happened if she’d stayed in London.

That life had belonged to a younger Maria.

She could remember it with tenderness without wishing to return.

Daniel turned toward her.

“What are you thinking about?”

She smiled.

“Nothing in particular.”

“Really?”

She looked around the room once more.

Then she took his hand.

“Just how lovely everything is.”

Daniel smiled and pulled the blanket a little closer around her.

Outside, the snow continued falling.

The clock moved quietly toward midnight.

And in the little stone house beyond Lyon, surrounded by the people she loved, Maria celebrated another Christmas.

Not the Christmas she once imagined.

Not the future she once planned.

Something gentler.

Something she had chosen.

Something entirely her own.

And for the first time in a very long while, there was nowhere else she wished to be.