Page 93 of Scarlet Chains
He lifts our joined hands to his lips, pressing a kiss to my knuckles that feels like a blessing.
“Then you walked into my life with your stubborn independence and your fierce loyalty and your way of seeing goodness in places where everyone else sees only danger. You made me want to be better than I was, cleaner than my past, worthy of the trust you placed in me even when you didn’t fully understand what you were trusting.”
His voice roughens with emotion, but he doesn’t look away from my eyes.
“You gave me Slava, who taught me that fatherhood is about fighting, about showing up every day and choosing to love without conditions. You gave me Eszter, who is perfect and ours and proof that beautiful things can grow from complicated soil.”
He pauses, swallows hard, and I can see him gathering himself for the words that matter most.
“You gave me forgiveness I didn’t earn and love I didn’t deserve. You saw the worst parts of me and decided they weren’t the whole story. You taught me that redemption isn’t about erasing the past— it’s about choosing to build something better with the time you’re given.”
Now it’s his turn to cry, tears that he makes no effort to hide or apologize for.
Oh God, I love that he cries for me.
I fight back a little sob.
“I promise to spend the rest of my life earning the gift you’ve given me. To protect what we’ve built, to love our children like they’re the most precious things in the world, to be the man you see when you look at me. To choose you every day,malen’kiy, even when the days are hard. Especially when the days are hard.”
By the time he finishes, there isn’t a dry eye in the garden. Even Melor, who I’ve never seen display emotion more complex than amused irritation, is wiping his eyes with his pocket square.
The ring exchange happens in a blur of trembling fingers and whispered “I do”s and the officiant’s joyful declaration that by the power vested in him by the Republic of Hungary, we are now husband and wife.
“You may kiss your bride,” he says, stepping back with the satisfied smile of someone who’s just witnessed something genuinely beautiful.
And then Osip’s hands are framing my face, his thumbs stroking over my cheekbones as he leans down to claim mymouth in a kiss that’s nothing like the careful, public kiss we shared last time. This kiss is claiming and celebrating and completely shameless, the kind of kiss that makes the small audience cheer and whistle and generally behave like people who’ve had access to open bars during wedding preparations.
When we finally break apart, breathless and grinning and officially married for the second time, the garden erupts in applause and celebration and the sound of champagne corks popping.
Slava toddles over, his ring pillow abandoned, his small arms reaching up to be included in our celebration. Osip scoops him up without hesitation, and suddenly we’re a family portrait— husband, wife, son, baby daughter sleeping peacefully in her uncle’s arms, surrounded by fairy lights and roses and the kind of happiness that feels too good to be real.
But itisreal. We made it real, choice by choice, forgiveness by forgiveness, until something beautiful grew from the ashes of our separate tragedies.
The reception unfolds like a dream painted in gold and ivory and the deep green of ancient Hungarian gardens. Dinner is served at tables that gleam with crystal and silver, courses that showcase the best of both Russian and Hungarian cuisine— stroganoff and goulash, blini and schnitzel, flavors that represent the fusion of our families and cultures.
The speeches are perfect. Melor, usually so controlled and dangerous, speaks about brotherhood and second chances with the eloquence of someone who’s survived enough darkness to recognize light when he sees it. Radimir, awkward with public speaking but determined to participate, talks about family being the people who stay when staying is hard, who love you not despite your flaws but because of your capacity to grow beyond them.
Mom, still fragile but radiant, speaks about watching her daughter find the kind of love that transforms both people, about the joy of gaining not just a son-in-law but an entire family of fierce, protective hearts.
As the sun sets and the fairy lights transform the garden into something magical, Osip pulls me onto the improvised dance floor for our first dance as husband and wife. The string quartet plays something slow and romantic, but I barely hear the music over the sound of my own heartbeat and the whispered endearments he breathes against my ear.
“Happy?” he asks, spinning me in a turn that makes my dress flare like scattered moonbeams.
“Impossibly happy,” I say, and it’s the truest thing I’ve ever spoken.
Later, after the last guest has departed and the caterers have performed their efficient magic to restore our garden to its usual state, we sit on the terrace with champagne flutes and the comfortable exhaustion that follows perfect days.
Slava sleeps in Osip’s lap, completely worn out by the excitement of being ring bearer and center of attention and professional charmer of wedding guests. Eszter rests in my arms, making the soft snuffling sounds that babies make in deep sleep.
“No regrets?” Osip asks, his free hand finding mine across the space between our chairs.
I consider the question, thinking about everything that brought us here. The pain and loss, the lies and revelations, the convoluted logistics of loving someone whose past intersects with your own in ways that should be impossible to forgive.
“Only one,” I say, and he tenses slightly until I continue. “I regret that it took us so long to find each other. All those years we could have been building this, being happy, raising these beautiful children together.”
His smile is soft and private, meant only for me. “Maybe we needed those years apart to become people who could handle this. People who were ready for something real.”
“Maybe,” I agree, though part of me will always wonder about the alternate timeline where we found each other sooner, where less pain was required to bring us to this place of joy.
