James is here. And I’m leading him to my stolen house—his uncle's cabin. I'm not sure when my messed-up life became a fairy tale... but today it did. It's like the universe is rewarding me for finally taking the risk I always dreamt about.

Rewarding me with the man I thought was gone from me forever.

He filled me under the oak tree and it felt like everything wrong in the world was suddenly right.

He holds my hand, marveling at us both being here, but my stomach is churning with anticipation, knowing what is through the doors of the cabin.

His children.

"I'm trying to understand how you ended up here," he says, squeezing my hands tightly as we pass my tiny garden, my beat-up van. "How long have you been here?"

"About a month."

"Why didn't you tell Harper you were here? You know Honor lives on this mountain now, too? Got herself married, even."

I shake my head. "I didn't know that... but I don't want anyone to know where I am. You know how the church is... what if they come looking for me?"

"We could go to the cops."

"No, James. I don't want that mess in my life..." But really, I'm not thinking about me. I'm thinking about the babies. If I rat out George... who will come after me? It's too dangerous.

"You need to use your voice though, make sure no one—"

"James," I tell him, stopping at the base of the small porch. "I made sure nothing bad happened to my family by living like I did."

"Family?" His eyes narrow. "What does that mean?"

I push open the front door, a finger pressed to my lip. Nodding toward the bassinets in the living room.

"You’re a mother?" James's face goes white. I know this is going to be a lot to take in... when he pulled up here tonight he had no idea I would be here, waiting.

And now... now he is going to discover he is the father of three.

"I had triplets three months ago."

James runs his hands over his beard—a look that is taking no getting used to. He looks so handsome like this: rugged, strong and capable. I know with all my heart that he is going to be an incredible father.

When I look back at him, though, I see a sadness in his eyes I wasn't expecting.

"You had George's children?" he asks softly, his hand finding the small of my back.

"Oh, James," I say, shaking my head, giving him the slightest of smiles. "No, these babies are yours."

He draws in a deep breath and steps closer to the sleeping babes.

"How can you know? Surely you and George..." James lets his sentence drop and I'm grateful. I don't want to talk about lying with George either.

"I did what I had to do, but look at them, James. These children are yours."

He kneels before the bassinets, his hands on the rim, looking down at his children for the first time in his life.

Our boys have hair as dark as a raven's wing, eyes that dark, too—mirror images of me. But his daughter, Jamie, has hair as light as the sun, eyes green as the grass. His double. They're sleeping now, but I know when he looks in her eyes, he will know what I knew the moment I held them in my arms: they are ours.

James pulls in a sharp breath as I lift Jamie from the bassinet, swaddled tight, her little hands tucked beneath her chin. I hand James his daughter and there are tears his eyes. "Triplets?" he asks in wonder.

I can't hold back the grin now, and why would I? "Crazy, right? Just like your sister."

James blinks back tears, lifting Jamie closer, kissing her little nose, her cheeks, her lips. Breathing her in and staring at her perfection. My heart has melted, seeping toward my family.

He sets down Jamie and picking up Jacob, then Andrew, memorizing their faces. We stand there for what feels like hours, staring at our children, he unswaddles them looking at their fingers and toes, marveling over their existence. Watching him fall in love with our babies is the most beautiful thing I've ever witnessed.

As they stir, I bring them, one at a time to my breast. Nursing them in the rocker, James is transfixed by us, by his family. He begins humming the Beach Boys song, Wouldn't It Be Nice as a lullaby, and that's when I lose it. My tears begin to fall for the time he has lost, and they have lost. For the moments he has missed.

But it's only been three months... and the truth is, I thought it was forever.

I thought he was dead, but he is here, his voice cracking, tears in his eyes, over the lyrics that mean so much to us both. And somehow his voice is more soulful, raw—real—it's as if all that we’ve been through has made him more of a man than I thought possible. His beard is rough, but his heart, it's still soft.

He’s always been soft to my hard, the wide-open to my closed-door heart.

"It's like those lyrics were written for us," I tell him, rewrapping Andrew in his blanket and lying him in his bassinet. The babies are all fed, and back to sleep. "I haven't heard you sing in so many years."

"I lost my voice when you...."

I close my eyes, knowing they'd be cloaked in regret. "When I refused to leave with you when we were eighteen?"

He nods, walking toward me, and pulls me to stand. "You came out here all alone, with them?" he asks, his arms around my waist, my cheek resting on his chest.

I know I need to tell him my story, hard as it is to tell. It is time.

I take his hand and lead him to the bed I have made on the floor with all the blankets and comforters I had packed. He takes off his boots and pulls me to him, he's watching me as if I am something fragile. What he doesn't know is that right now, I am the strongest I have ever been. Stronger than I ever thought I'd be.

So, with that courage, I tell him the story. I detail the marriage vows with George, how the sister-wives dressed me in white and slipped the gold band on my finger and stood with me before Luke, our pastor. How I stood frozen, the shell of who I had once been, my heart wrecked over his death, unable to grieve.

I tell him how after, I went to the bathroom and threw up in the toilet, terrified of the night to come. How all I wanted was him.

How all I wanted was him.

How all I wanted was him, but he was dead and I was left alone.

And how I slept with George, but that it never felt real.

Because the only real thing I knew was gone.

I tell him about the months of sorrow, not being able to show my heartache over losing him to anyone for fear of what may happen to me.

When I realized I was pregnant, I knew immediately that I was carrying his child. I refused to believe George could ever fill my womb. How I clung to his memory as our babies grew and I how I was stuck in bed—but how that was better than anywhere else I may have had to be.

During the pregnancy, I resolved to leave as soon as the babies were born; as soon as I was strong enough to leave the compound with them.

And how the church planned on leaving anyway. When I tell him about the day of my escape, sick at the memory, he pulls me to him, and I lie across his chest, his head on the pillows, and I realize I have never been in a bed with him. That tonight is the start of a new sort of life.

"Where did they go?" James asks.

I sigh. "Not sure, George told me Montana... but I don't know any more than that."

"Those fuckers should have to pay," he says, anger in his tone. I've never heard that from him before. He has always been the grin-and-bear-it kind of man, an anchor in the rough seas of life. Not shaken. But now, now he is charged with something different.

I pull up and look at him. "Can't we leave it all behind us? We're together now. It's all that matters."

His eyes are hard, and the day has turned to night and suddenly everything that should be bright and hopeful feels covered in something dark.

"Those men should pay for what they did to you."

"You mean what they did to you and Jonah?" He was the one with broken bones, left for dead.

He shakes his head. "No, to you. I should have taken you from that place before it ever came to that. You say you spent a lifetime being scared—well I was scared too, in ways I've never admitted before. Dammit, Cherish. I should have taken you away and shielded you from this mess. I failed you." He buries his face in his hands, but I refuse to let him think this way.

I pull his hands down, straddling him. Looking deeply into his eyes with intent, blinking my tears away.

"Listen to me, James," I tell him. "You are the man I love, the man who made me a woman and a mother. The man who saw something in a sad little girl and wanted to make her world shine like the stars. And I refuse to let you beat yourself up over the past."

He shakes his head, my tears falling down on his cheek, the salty pain covering us both. He cups my face with his hands, refusing to let go. Just like he's refused to do forever.

"If you want me to forgive myself, you need to forgive yourself too,” he tells me. “We both need to let go of the shit that holds us down. We both need to move forward without regret. Without the past, we wouldn't have this present. And baby, I wouldn't trade this moment for a goddamned thing."

He looks over at our babies, then he looks at me, and he kisses me.

He kisses me until the hurt I've buried deep down surfaces. As our mouths part, and his tongue finds mine, the pain rises like a force, like a spring of water that cleanses us both, washing away the parts of our story we are ashamed of.

Making us whole.