(Oxford — New Year’s Eve, 2042–2043)

  The last night of the year came without ceremony.

  Oxford wasn’t a city that chased spectacle; even on New Year’s Eve, the streets held a kind of academic restraint. A few pubs spilled warm laughter onto the walkways, a handful of students lit sparklers in the quad, and someone nearby played an off-key trumpet that might have been an attempt at “Auld Lang Syne.”

  Isaac stood at the window of their living room, watching small clusters of lights drift across the evening sky — drones on scheduled routes, quiet, predictable arcs that had become as ordinary as migrating birds.

  Julie came up behind him, slipping her arms around his waist.

  “She’s asleep already,” she said softly.

  “Out cold?”

  “Out frozen.”

  He smiled, leaning back into her.

  Catherine had spent the entire day insisting they celebrate “New Year’s Eve-Eve-Eve,” which seemed to involve wearing mismatched socks, building a snow-crow with a cardboard crown, and demanding Isaac cook pancakes at two in the afternoon. By evening, she had fallen asleep on the sofa mid-sentence.

  “The house is quiet,” Julie murmured.

  “It feels strange when it is,” Isaac admitted. “Good strange.”

  Julie rested her chin on his shoulder.

  Outside, a few distant fireworks popped — small bursts of gold above the River Thames.

  “Do you remember how last New Year’s felt?” she asked.

  Isaac nodded.

  He remembered the tension.

  The unspoken fear.

  The endless alerts.

  The creeping dread that the anomaly at Sellafield might unravel into something worse.

  “It feels like a different lifetime,” he said.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “It was twelve months,” Julie replied. “Not twelve years.”

  “It feels like more.”

  She didn’t disagree.

  The Call

  The landline — an old-fashioned holdover Julie refused to part with — rang unexpectedly. Isaac moved to answer it before the second chime.

  “Isaac.”

  Howard’s voice crackled warmly on the other end.

  “Did I wake the kid?”

  “No,” Isaac said. “She crashed early.”

  “Good. How’re you holding up?”

  Isaac hesitated.

  “We’re stable,” he said. And he meant it.

  Howard hummed approvingly.

  “Good year?” he asked.

  “It ended well.”

  “That’s what matters.”

  There was a pause — not heavy, just patient.

  “You coming down again in the spring?” Howard asked.

  “We are,” Isaac said. “Catherine hasn’t stopped talking about Clementine.”

  Howard chuckled.

  “Well, the mare’s taken a liking to her. Don’t know why. She barely tolerated me for twenty years.”

  Isaac smiled.

  “We’ll be there.”

  A beat.

  “Happy New Year, Howard.”

  “Happy New Year, kid.”

  The Countdown

  When Isaac returned to the living room, Julie had set two glasses of sparkling cider on the coffee table. A candle flickered beside them.

  “You talked to Howard?” she asked.

  “Yeah. He’s… steady.”

  Julie nodded. “He always is.”

  They sat together on the sofa, watching the small muted glow of the countdown on the television. Julie leaned her head on Isaac’s shoulder.

  “Do you make resolutions?” she asked.

  “I never have.”

  “You should.”

  “What for?”

  She thought about that.

  “Not to change anything,” she said. “Just to… acknowledge things. Mark the moment.”

  Isaac considered that.

  “All right,” he said. “You first.”

  Julie smiled.

  “My resolution is to create more space for us. For Catherine. For the life we’re building.”

  “That’s a good one,” he said.

  “Your turn.”

  He looked out the window at the last sparks of fireworks drifting down like fading embers.

  “My resolution,” he said slowly, “is to let myself believe this is real.”

  Julie turned her face toward him, her expression soft and steady.

  “It is real,” she said. “And it’s ours.”

  The television murmured the final numbers of the countdown.

  5…

  4…

  3…

  Julie squeezed his hand.

  2…

  1…

  The year turned.

  Not with a bang, not with a storm, not with a disaster.

  Just a quiet shift into something gentler.

  After Midnight

  Catherine stirred in her room upstairs, mumbling in her sleep.

  Julie squeezed Isaac’s arm.

  “I’ll check on her,” she said.

  He nodded, watching her disappear into the hallway.

  The house settled again — walls soft with warm lamplight, the air calm and ordinary. The kind of ordinary he had never trusted until now.

  Isaac sat back on the sofa, listening to the faint sounds of his family — Julie’s careful footsteps, Catherine’s small sleepy sighs, the quiet rhythm of the house settling into a new year.

  For the first time in his life, the future didn’t feel heavy.

  It felt open.

  And that was enough.