THE HOUSE ETHAN COLE BUILT FOR TWO
Chapter 20
The next morning, Ethan woke to footsteps running down the stairs.
“Dad!”
He opened his eyes.
“What?”
“I can’t find my shoes!”
Ethan sat up.
“They’re by the door.”
“They’re not!”
He sighed.
“Check again.”
“I did!”
Ethan walked downstairs.
Lily was standing in the hallway wearing one sock.
He looked at her.
Then at the floor.
Then beneath the couch.
One shoe was there.
The other was beside the front door.
Lily looked embarrassed.
“I found them.”
Ethan smiled.
“Good.”
She grabbed them.
“Can we have pancakes?”
“It’s seven in the morning.”
“So?”
Ethan stared at her.
She stared back.
He sighed.
“Fine.”
Lily smiled.
She ran into the kitchen.
Ethan followed.
The morning filled the house with noise.
A frying pan.
Footsteps.
Laughter.
A dropped spoon.
A complaint about the pancakes.
A second attempt.
Sunlight entering through the windows.
And Ethan smiled as he stood in the kitchen.
This was what he had been saving for.
Not the house.
Not the property.
Not the walls.
This.
A reason to wake up.
A reason to come home.
A little girl who knew she was staying.
And a place where, no matter what happened outside…
they belonged together.
For Ethan Cole, the journey had once been about finding somewhere to go.
Now it was about having somewhere to return to.
And for the first time in his life,
he wasn’t afraid of tomorrow.
Because tomorrow would begin in the same house.
With the same little girl.
And the same promise he had made the night she first asked him if she would still be there in the morning.
Forever.
