Sometimes Willow catches Liam drifting off to another time. His eyes glaze over and she knows he’s thinking about prison and the things he did there. Sometimes she knows he’s thinking about Harriet. They found out from Peters not long after they moved here that Harriet was dead. Carlo was involved and her body had never been found so they weren’t able to charge him but they knew she was gone. Liam had been silent for a few days after they found out but later came to Willow and told her he was okay with it. That Harriet was the reason he’d gone to prison and gotten mixed up with Carlo in the first place. He wasn’t sad about it. Willow let him have it.
Willow often walks around their home, touching the small things she’s collected and that Frank has brought back from his and Liam’s walks in the woods. She’s made a real home here, with photographs and throw pillows and furniture that hasn’t been sat on by dozens of other people before it was hers. Frank has a stack of toys in the corner of his room and an open yard that Willow allows him to have free reign in. And Liam, to Willow’s surprise, has an amazingly green thumb. He tends the flowers and trees in their yard and his vegetable garden gives abundant and huge vegetables. Willow has plans to use his tomatoes in a soup for the café.
And at night, after they’ve put Frank to bed, Liam and Willow cross the hall to their own bedroom. As the cool mountain air pours in through the open window, Liam warms Willow’s skin with his tongue and his fingers and then he moves deep inside her and warms her down to her core. Then, he rubs at her growing belly and laughingly calls her Mrs. Johnson. And then she calls him Old Man Johnson and they drift off to sleep with the scent of mountain honeysuckle wafting in through the window.
They’ve become a real family, the three of them. Soon to be four. Willow can hardly believe it sometimes. She can’t imagine why she ever thought being a famous singer was a life she wanted. This is the life she wants. With her husband and her kids and her home and her little café. It may seem small to some people but Willow is happy with small.