Page 107 of Until Our Hearts Collide
We walk out of the kitchen together, side by side, our hands still linked. The dining room is full of soft light, the first guests being seated, the hum of conversation already rising.
My eyes drift up to the sign above the host stand, the way they always do. Hand-lettered in gold leaf on a piece of reclaimed wood, the name we chose for our restaurant.Sous le Figuier.
Under the Fig Tree.
For my grandmother, and her garden in Provence, and the tree that grew beside her kitchen door heavy with fruit every August. For the night Alex made me a dish that broke something open in me before I knew what was happening. For the fig tree outside this very building, the one that stopped me in my tracks the first time I saw it, that felt so much like a sign from her I almost cried in the parking lot.
I look up at it every time I walk in, and I swear I can feel her smiling somewhere.
Alex squeezes my hand, and I squeeze back, and together we step forward to begin the life we've built from scratch. The one we chose for ourselves.
The one that's completely and perfectly and messily and wonderfully ours.
THE END
