That is not a happy ending.

It is something better than a happy ending, because it is real.

A happy ending is a place you arrive at.

What they have is a direction they are walking in, together, one honest day after another.

When I visit them now, and I see the three of them on the couch — Ethan on one side, Lauren on the other, and Grace between them, gnawing on somebody’s finger, entirely oblivious to the storm she was born into and helped, without knowing it, to end — I cannot tell you for certain what their future holds.

But I look at them there, together, in the light, with nothing hidden between them anymore, and I believe, with my whole heart, that they still have a chance to make it through.