It was August again. During August in Paris, everyone flees for the beach, taking refuge along the water to avoid the heat of the Parisian streets. Jack and I spoke about it for a long time before finally decided to go to Lisbon, Portugal for the month: celebrating our one-year anniversary as “husband and wife,” and showing Gigi another part of the world. I could hardly wait.

We packed up the private car, guiding the now nine-year-old Gigi into the back seat. As we drove to Charles de Gaulle, she spoke excitedly in a mix of both French and English, telling us all she’d learned about Portugal in her history textbooks. Behind her head, Jack and I held hands, passing glances to one another when Gigi gave us a particularly wonderful bit of information.

She really was the best kid in the world.

The past year with them had been the best of my life. We’d scoured Parisian streets for our favorite restaurants, the best baguette, the most wonderful scoop of ice cream. We’d flown my parents in for Thanksgiving, and I’d cooked them a remarkable turkey, pies, stuffing, along with several French dishes that they “just weren’t into” due to their Midwestern roots. My mother and father had been enamored with Jack, at first, until he’d proven himself to be a modest, normal guy—one my dad could speak to about sports, if he wanted to. My heart swelled as I watched them discuss play-by-plays over dessert and bourbon. “I’ve never had bourbon before. I’m mostly a beer drinker. But damn, isn’t this good?” my dad had said.

Our private plane arrived in Lisbon two hours after takeoff. The moment the plane door opened, we inhaled gorgeous ocean air. It tasted just exactly like freedom.

The city was almost as romantic as Paris, but draped along the cliffs near the sea. The streets were steep, like San Francisco, and our feet were sore by the time we neared the house we’d rented for the month. The house was tucked into a Cliffside, painted yellow and lined with rocks and stones. It was gorgeous, alight with the sun, with the windows glinting.

“I don’t know how I’ll ever leave,” I laughed.

Graciously, our driver and other hired movers took our stuff up the steep path, leaving us to make our way. I gripped Gigi’s hand, and Jack gripped mine, making sure we made it. Jack drew out the key at the front step, inserting it into the lock and opening the massive, almost two-story door. Behind it was an enormous foyer, with hardwood floors and long, Persian rugs. On the far side of the room, there was a large, antique mirror, which reflected us back.

In that reflection, Jack reached over and touched my belly. It was growing at an insane rate, now, putting me at five months’ pregnant.

“Perhaps our baby should be born in this house,” he said, as Gigi raced ahead and twirled in the center of the room. “If you feel it’s right.”

The moment he said it, I knew that was what I wanted. The wide-open space, the lack of Parisian chaos—it all did my soul well. I’d been sweating buckets in the Parisian summer, growing fatigued of the constant hustle. I wanted more nature, like what I’d grown up with in Michigan. Running through fields. Playing in streams. Maybe the ocean would give me what I lacked.

“There are so many rooms!” Gigi called from the second floor, running from each to each. They were completely furnished, with traditional, antique wardrobes and beds, which had been built in the same era as the house.

“Choose the one you like the best!” Jack called.

“There’s even a baby room!” Gigi said. “Wow!”

I gave Jack a large, bright smile. I hadn’t known he would have a nursery supplied to the house. I wrapped my arms around his thick, muscled form, inhaling him and thanking him, with a soft whisper. “You don’t know how happy you make me.”

“Right back at you.”

Jack’s year had been steeped with success, as well. His movie with that redhaired actress, Theresa, had generally bombed, which had made him rethink the types of movies he wanted to do. He’d filmed an artsy movie at around Christmas of the year before, with “some of the best dialogue he’d ever read.” It had premiered at Cannes to intense acclaim. “Jack Garrington is a man who takes risks, when it comes to films,” a review had read. “After years of rom coms and action movies, he’s actually stretching his chops. He’s one to watch.”

I’d discovered I was pregnant in February. Along with the intense morning sickness and fear, I’d found myself in an incredibly rich creative period. I spent long days, while Gigi was at school, writing a book about expats living in Paris. The characters flowed through me, becoming three dimensional and fully formed. By the beginning of summer, I had a complete draft to send to an editor. And by the time we’d left for Portugal, the second round of edits had been completed. I’d never imagined myself as a writer—as an anything, really. And now I was a wife, a mother, an expat, and a professional writer, living somebody else’s dream. Or maybe it had been my dream all along.

Kelsey Bonner, Gigi’s mother, had ultimately moved to Los Angeles and begun a relationship with a rock singer nearly ten years younger than her. She was beaming, confident, in all the magazine articles I saw her in, and she took several high paying action star roles, putting her face on countless billboards. “I never feel like Mom’s that far away,” Gigi had said, joking one day. “She’s always around me.”

Kelsey had visited Paris exactly three times since our wedding, taking Gigi out for a few dinners, a random museum trip, before leaving in a mad rush to return to her laissez-faire life, where she didn’t really have to be a mother. In passing, once, she’d told me she’d only gotten pregnant because she knew it was something Jack had always wanted. I respected her for that. That she’d given him Gigi. “I just got lost along the way, is all,” she told me, as if this made up for her trying to take Gigi away last year. It almost did.

We all made mistakes.

We settled into life in the Lisbon mansion, eating fish and salads on the terrace, watching Gigi learn how to surf on the water, making friends with several locals and celebrities, alike, and diving into the Portuguese way of life. They were a vibrant people, dancing in the streets, playing music loudly into the night, and demanding the best type of friendship you could give. They would honor you with the same.

It was exhausting, but it was nourishing. Sometimes, I longed for the dark souls of the Parisians: how secretive they were, how they forced you to earn their trust. But I fell in love with the Portuguese in a different way.

Gigi and I experimented with making “cocktails,” sans alcohol, and ultimately came up with several varieties, including pineapple, mango, and lime-based drinks. We would ask Jack to taste test, making his tongue blotched with color, with blues and greens and yellows. He was always a good sport.

After we’d been in Lisbon for months, we met each other on the balcony after a long day. He’d had a meeting with a potential director, who was pitching him a movie, and I’d spent the day at a nearby café, writing notes to myself about future novel plans. We grinned sheepishly, with me feeling the same butterflies I’d felt when I’d known I was first falling in love. They never really went away.

With his arms wrapped firmly around me, hugging me close, he said, “You know, we never really had a proper wedding ceremony.”

“What do you mean?” I laughed. “I had to wear that horrendous dress down the aisle. I remember how heavy it was. That all definitely happened.”

“Sure,” he said, kissing my forehead tenderly. “But that wasn’t really ours, was it? It was more for show? You hated your dress, for one. But I’m sure you dreamed about what you actually wanted your wedding to be like. And it doesn’t seem like you fulfilled it.”

I paused. Lifting his hand up to my lips, I kissed it tenderly. I found myself nodding, tears springing to my cheeks. “But not until after she’s born.”

“She?” he asked, his voice soft.

“A baby girl.”

She was born just half a month after that conversation, right on time, in the middle of December—while we remained in Lisbon. A Christmas baby named Charlotte, Lottie for short. When I first held her in my arms, I felt a surge of love that had, at first, seemed impossible. When I watched Jack hold her, then Gigi, that love grew exponentially. Tears drizzled down my cheeks. There was no greater moment of my life.

We held a small wedding ceremony in Paris the following summer, after I’d scrunched my waist back down. I chose a simple dress, with a high neckline (one that wasn’t see through), and invited my parents and Jack’s few relatives and best friends. Marcus stood among us, silent for once. When he kissed my cheek after the ceremony, he said, “You’ve really changed him. For the better, Margot. I never thought I’d see the day this man grew up.”