Giulia gave me an indignant look. “You did that on purpose.”
I kissed her and she softened against me. Giulia handed me Gabriel, who peered up at me with my dark-blue eyes. It filled me with pride seeing our physical similarities, but it wasn’t stronger than the pride I felt when Daniele and Simona did something that I’d taught them—like play pool. Both of them were quite good at it. I loved all three of them equally.
“I have more hats like that,” she said pointedly.
“I know. I’ve made peace with your love of sunflowers.” Giulia had planted several of those ginormous flowers in our garden. What had once been a neatly manicured lawn was now filled with toys (for children and Loulou), wildflowers, and those yellow atrocities. “You brought chaos into my life.”
“You like my kind of chaos.”
Daniele and Simona continued their chase on the beach. Loulou jumped up from her spot on a lounge chair and joined them with cheerful barking. The floor of our beach house would be littered with sand tonight. In the past, this would have made me furious.
“I do. More than anything else, I love our life. It’s perfect in my eyes.”
Giulia kissed my chest over my heart then Gabriel’s forehead. “We made it that way. We work every day so it stays that way. Happiness is a choice.”
I wasn’t sure it was true for everyone, but for me, especially since Giulia had come into my life, it was. Giulia still painted almost every day and even took courses to improve her craft. In one of them, the teacher had asked them to create a painting that expressed their vision of happiness.
Giulia had painted our children, Loulou, and me taking a stroll on the beach.
It was as easy as that. Whenever I looked at the photo of Giulia and our little family that I carried in my wallet, one overwhelming feeling filled me: happiness.
THE END