The rolls are a little dense. Did they proof long enough?

By early January, our lives had stabilized into a rhythm that felt so foreign, yet so profoundly right, it took weeks to fully adjust.

We sold our cramped Columbus townhouse in a single weekend, the closing going through without a hitch. With the proceeds, combined with a modest down payment and a clean slate, Lucas and I purchased a charming, four-bedroom colonial home right here in New Albany, just five minutes away from my mother’s house.

It wasn't a sprawling estate like the one in Westerville. There were no imported marble countertops, no hidden wall safes, and no dark history buried in the floorboards. But it had a wide, sunlit kitchen with a deep white farmhouse sink, a backyard big enough for Poppy to build snow forts, and a front porch that invited neighbors to stop by and wave.

Lucas had thrown himself into his work as a structural engineer with a renewed focus, shedding the corporate anxiety that had plagued him while trying to live up to his mother’s impossible, toxic standards. He didn't wear a tie to dinner anymore; he wore flannel shirts and flour-dusted jeans from helping me test out new bread recipes on Sunday afternoons.

On a crisp Saturday morning, as we unloaded the final boxes into our new living room, Lucas walked up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his chin on my shoulder.

“You know,” he murmured into my hair, watching Poppy chase our neighbor’s golden retriever through the frosted backyard, “I was terrified of what would happen if my mother’s world fell apart. I thought the sky would cave in.”

I turned around in his embrace, looking up into his eyes, tracing the lines of peace that had finally settled across his face.

“And?” I asked softly.