Page 109 of Rein Me In

“I found one!” he shouts. “It’s huge!”

Faye laughs and pulls away from me, moving toward him. “Let me see.”

I follow, slower, taking in the scene. The new dock stretching into the lake. The restored cottages behind us. My son and the woman I love, heads bent together as they watch a catfish dart through the shallows.

The past year taught me something I didn’t know I needed to learn.

That some storms don’t destroy—they clear the ground for something better. And the real courage isn’t in weathering them alone. It’s in letting someone stand by your side while you rebuild.

I found that person: my rock, my love, my grounding force, the one I can always fall apart with and know she’ll help put me back together. And I’m going to spend every day of the rest of my life making sure she knows I’m the one she can lean on, in clear weather and through the toughest storms, so she never has to carry the hard days alone. And so we get to enjoy all the good times coming our way.

And if I ever forget how lucky I am, she’ll spank the attitude right out of me.