I’d like to say she leapt into our arms and overcame her fear that afternoon.
I’d like to say the next breakfast, when we all met in our suite for room service, she understood how much we wanted to care for her and no longer stayed too far away to be hugged.
I’d like to say our forage into parenthood was as easy as saying the binding words in our marriage ceremony.
But it wasn’t.
She made us work.
She made us try.
She made us realise we already loved her more than words could describe.
And that was what made it so much more precious when on the second to last day, while Elder and I sat on the couch in Tess and Q’s suite sharing a cocktail and discussing Elder’s business, that Aria finally came toward me on her own accord.
She abandoned the Legos blocks we’d bought her and willingly came closer. Her eyes latched onto my throat as I waved but didn’t speak. She cocked her head as if confused why my lips didn’t move.
I knew what it was like to be so focused on sound. And I knew what it was like to be comfortable with silence. Now, I recalled what it was like to prefer muteness because it was the only power I had left, and for the first time in a very long time, I pilfered the hotel stationery and turned to writing instead of voice.
I motioned her closer.
Inching toward the chair where I sat, she didn’t take her eyes off the paper as I drew a circle with a stick-man, stick-woman, and stick-girl all in the circle.
She traced the picture with her tiny finger as I slowly drew more stick-men on the outside, men with pitchforks and badly drawn guns. Things that no four-year-old should recognise but she did.
Shying back, she shook her head, staring at me accusingly.
I held up my hand, asking her to come closer again as I drew more and more lines around the circle protecting the stick family from the bad men outside, then pointed at Elder and myself and then her.
It took a few seconds, her face scrunched up until it smoothed out in understanding.
She might not be ready to write to No One, but she could understand drawings (no matter how bad) and she understood my message.
That we would protect her.
That we were hers.
That all she had to do was trust us and we would never, ever break that trust again.
Extended Epilogue
______________________________
Elder
WE ENDED UP staying in the hotel an extra week after Tess and Q returned to France.
We didn’t want to upset Aria by moving her so soon—not until she was ready.
Somehow, Pim had achieved the impossible and earned the little girl’s trust.
They regularly sat for hours drawing nonsensical pictures which would make Pim nod and grab something Aria had asked for or for Aria to smile hesitantly.
She allowed me to come closer and sat beside me without flinching one night at dinner, and by the end of the second week, she eagerly sought out hugs from Pim and didn’t shy away when I hugged Pim in return.
When we finally took the plunge to take her back to our house in Monte Carlo, she blossomed.
The gardens became her favourite place to be, and Pim proved me right when I’d guessed she’d be an incredible mother. My heart somehow continued falling in love with both these girls, and for the first time in my life, my OCD faded in favour of just sitting and watching my new family.
A few months passed while we lived on the hill, and I grew itchy to be back on the ocean.
One night, after Pim had put Aria to bed and we’d had a breakthrough with earning a full-fledged laugh from our rescued daughter, she snuggled close in bed. “Let’s return to the Phantom, El. I’m missing the ocean. I want to show Aria how perfect it is chasing the summer on the waves.”
The fact she’d embraced what I loved and made it as important to her as it was to me made me clutch her hard and kiss her.
The idea of being able to show Aria the life beneath the sea thanks to a silly submarine and watch her tear into toys that’d been unopened for years just waiting for someone to play with them filled me with joy.
We spent most of the night making love rather than sleeping, but I embraced my tiredness the next day as I told Jolfer to prepare the Phantom for her next voyage.
Last month, the ship Alrik had commissioned me to build had been completed, and I’d presented the keys to Pim with a mixture of relief and disgust. The Hammerhead was the final thing tying her to her past. She could afford to run it now thanks to having half of everything I had, but instead of accepting the yacht, she requested a courier bag and my mother’s address in New York.