-Four years later-

“Aria, come to Papa.”

The little girl with black hair and pale blue eyes bounds from the other end of the room and leaps up onto the sofa.

“What is it, Papa?” she asks.

I tap her on the nose and shake my head. “It is long past your bedtime, yes?”

She giggles and shrugs.

“I’m not tired, though.”

“Ah yes, this is what you say. However, in the morning it will be, Papa I’m too tired to get out of bed.”

She giggles again.

“Can you tell me one story first?”

Like most things, I cannot turn her down when she uses this voice. The same one she got from her mother.

She is a songbird, like her mother too.

“Which story would you like tonight, my Aria? Will it be Kings and Queens or fairies and toads?”

“I want the story about the caged bird,” she tells me.

I smile.

My heart aches whenever I tell this story, but I indulge her. It is good for me, to never forget.

“Come, come.” I pat the sofa beside me and Aria cuddles into my side.

“Okay, here we go. You comfortable?”

“Yes, Papa,” she says.

“Okay then. Once upon a time, there was a beautiful songbird. The most beautiful songbird in all the land.”

“You forgot the most important part,” Aria interrupts me.

“I have not forgotten. You just need to learn patience, my Aria. Now hush and let your Papa tell the story.”

“Okay,” she whispers.

“The beautiful songbird looked just like you. With long raven hair and pale blue eyes. Her skin was porcelain, and she could have been an angel who fell from the sky.”

“Soooooo pretty,” Aria adds.

“Yes, she was. And this beautiful songbird had the voice of an angel too. But sometimes, she did not always know this to be true. She was filled with doubt by all the villagers who told her she did not sing so well as she thought.”

“They were sooooo mean,” Aria contributes.

“Yes, they were mean. But the meanest of all was the beast that she crossed paths with one fateful day. He thought her so beautiful that he decided he should have her for himself. But it was not to covet her like the songbird she was. The beast had set out to hurt the songbird.”

“But why, Papa?” Aria asks. “Why would he want to do that?”

“I have told you this story many times,” I say.

She grins.

“I know, but not for a while now.”

“Okay,” I concede. “Well the Beast, he was cold-hearted, Aria. Not like you. He did not care for others. He had no compassion. His heart was filled with hate and a thirst for revenge. Because the songbird’s father had tricked him once. And because he was scarred and ugly. He decided that it was easier to have his revenge than to accept what was.”

“So he did not think the songbird could love him?” Aria asks.

“No,” I answer. “He did not. For he was a beast after all.”

“But sometimes, maybe, a songbird could love a beast anyway,” Aria says thoughtfully. “Right, Papa?”

“Yes.” I smile. “You are so smart, Aria. And this is precisely what happened. In spite of his terrible ways, the songbird fell in love with the beast, anyway.”

Aria wiggles her feet beside me nervously in anticipation for the part that she remembers next.

“But it was not to be. For there was a terrible, terrible illness that took…”

“Papa!” Aria covers her ears and screeches. “Don’t say this part.”

I poke her in the tummy, and she smiles.

“But this is the story, Aria. Do you want to hear it or not?”

“I do, but skip to the best part.”

“Patience,” I mumble. “You must learn patience, my Aria.”

“Okay,” she yawns. “Then let’s finish the story tomorrow night.”

She closes her eyes and snuggles against me, and I do not have the heart to move her. Instead, I stroke her hair beneath my palm and marvel over the little girl that Isabella and I created.

“Do we miss mama?” I ask her.

She yawns again and nods into my side, her answer only a faint whisper.

“Yes, Papa. We miss her very much.”

And then she is asleep. Off to dreams in a place that no darkness can touch her.

I close my eyes too and remember my Bella. I remember her in a white dress, with her hair falling in curls around her face. She wore a halo of roses that day, and I told her that I thought it was shameful I was the only one to bear witness to such beauty.

She argued with me that the minister was there to witness it too, and all the stars in the sky above us, and of course, our Aria.

I told her I had no need for the stars in the sky or the moon or the sun, because I had her, and that was everything to me. She replied with a smile on her face that I had gone soft, and she was probably right.

But my vows were not soft. And the ceremony was not soft. I was determined to bind her to me for life, and words weren’t enough. Her blood still hangs in a vial around my neck, where it will remain until my heart gives out.

My Bella conceded that this was the way it should be because our journey had never been all roses.

I laid claim to her with my ring and my words and my knife. The minister paled as we performed the blood ceremony and exchanged vows.

I promised to love, cherish, and protect my wife. And then I promised to punish and reward her when I saw fit too.

Bella promised to love me, even when I didn’t deserve it. She promised to teach me patience when I needed it, which was always. And she promised that even if I lived to earn another thousand scars, she would see nothing except for her beautiful beast.

The last part was not necessary. Because I discovered that as time went on, my scars faded away. Perhaps not in the mirrors, but in my own eyes. It was easy to forget they existed when Bella loved me in spite of them. Her opinion was the only one that mattered. The only one that still matters.

And I miss her terribly sometimes when she disappears this way. When she goes away to write. Vanishing into the other wing of the house for hours on end.

It is something that helps her. It is her way of processing the emotions that she feels so strongly at times. I will often hear the soft notes of the piano at all hours of the night, playing songs with words only I can hear.

She does not put them on albums. She simply records them and uploads them to YouTube. Something for her fans that costs nothing. And then she leaves them, never to return again.

She does not read the comments. She remains safe in her bubble here with her family. Ever since that day when we brought our little girl home.

It took some time to make this happen. I almost lost her. We almost lost her. To an embolism. But against the odds, she recovered.

The doctors told me she was a fighter. And I told them they had no idea. I brought my Bella home, and we have never looked back.

The door opens, and with it comes the light.

“I wasn’t expecting you to finish so early.”

“I know,” Bella says. “But I missed you guys.”

She looks lovely this evening, her tired eyes roaming over Aria and then me. She is always so lovely.

“Let me put her to bed,” she says. “And then I’ll come to you.”

I scoop Aria into my arms and hand her to Bella. She leaves, and I go to the place where it all began, amongst the roses and stars.

Bella meets me in the conservatory and pulls me against her, stretching up on her toes to kiss me goodnight. She always kisses me like it’s the last time now.

We always treat each day like it may be our last.

Bella has taught me patience, and I have taught her strength, and together we overcome every obstacle life has thrown our way. We have both learned that nothing can break those who have already been broken like us.

“You are still my monster,” she tells me.

I kiss her again, just to be sure she knows I mean it.

“And you are still mine. Forever.”