flash forward 30 years

Thirty years dissolve like morning mist, carrying you from that first night as an engaged woman to your pearl anniversary. The bedroom around you transforms from that modest Putney flat to the spacious master suite of the Reynolds Estate in Hampstead—a Victorian conversion you and David purchased fifteen years ago after your second child was born.

You stir beside your husband of three decades, his sleeping form still turned protectively toward you even after all these years. Silver threads now streak his once pure black hair, laugh lines deepening around his eyes. His chest rises and falls in the familiar rhythm that has lulled you to sleep for thirty years.

You slip from beneath Egyptian cotton sheets and pad across heated marble floors to the en-suite bathroom. The mirror reflects a woman still striking at sixty—your copper hair maintained with expert coloring, laugh lines that frame eyes still vibrantly green. Your figure remains trim from decades of yoga and Pilates, though softer now, marked by the years and the children you've carried.

"Mom?" A gentle knock at the bedroom door draws your attention. Emma, your eldest at twenty-eight, peeks her head in. She has your copper hair and David's height, dressed in tailored pajamas despite the late hour. "Just checking everything's ready for tomorrow. The caterers confirmed, and all the photo displays are set up downstairs."

"Thank you, sweetheart," you whisper, stepping into the hallway to avoid waking David. "You didn't need to stay up for that."

Emma rolls her eyes affectionately. "Please, like I'd trust anyone else with your pearl anniversary party. Dad would have a fit if anything went wrong."

You smile, memories cascading through decades—your intimate wedding at that converted barn in the Cotswolds, Emma's birth at St. Mary's, your son Michael's graduation from Oxford, the day your creative agency merged with an international firm making you both millionaires. The countless dinner parties, holidays, arguments and reconciliations that form the tapestry of a marriage.

"Your speech is hidden in my office drawer," Emma continues. "And Michael's flying in from New York first thing—his flight lands at seven."

"Perfect." You squeeze her hand. "Now go to bed. Creative Directors need their beauty sleep too."

Emma grins—she took over your position at the agency five years ago when you stepped back to focus on your charitable foundation. "Like mother, like daughter," she quips before kissing your cheek.

After she leaves, you wander to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking London's glittering skyline. On the dressing table sits your phone—not the same device from thirty years ago, of course, but still containing that innocuous-looking app that never deleted itself through dozens of upgrades.

You tap it open, and Becky appears—her cartoon avatar now sporting elegant gray streaks in her blonde hair, though her outfit remains youthfully provocative. "Happy anniversary, babe!" she chirps. "Thirty years as Mrs. Reynolds! Not bad for what started as a ten-minute download, huh?"

"The best decision I ever made," you reply truthfully, no longer questioning who you were before. Matt exists only as a faded photograph in your mind—someone else's life, someone else's choices.

"Thirty years of Perfect Wife Mode," Becky winks. "And it's still going strong! Want a special anniversary enhancement?"

You shake your head, smiling. "I'm perfect just as I am."

Behind you, David stirs. "Mia?" he murmurs sleepily. "Come back to bed, love."

You close the app and return to your husband's arms, where you've belonged for thirty years.

00:01 | Wednesday 6 August 2055 | Master Bedroom, Reynolds Estate