Chapter 8
Three months later.
The divorce was final.
The restraining order was permanent, filed in three counties, so Daniel could never come within 500 feet of me, the kids, Lila, or Clara, ever again.
I’d been working as the full-time 2nd grade teacher for six weeks, and I loved it more than I’d ever loved anything except my kids.
My class was full of 7 and 8 year olds, messy and loud and brilliant, who called me Ms. Ellie and brought me dandelions from the playground and drew me pictures of rainbows and cats.
The parents loved me.
Mrs. Henderson said I was the best hire she’d ever made.
Jake and Lily were thriving.
They’d joined the school soccer team, had weekly sleepovers with their best friends, had stopped asking when Daddy was coming home.
They still talked about him sometimes, soft, sad little questions, but they were healing.
They knew they were safe.
They knew they were loved.
Lila was 6 months pregnant now, her belly round and tight, glowing.
She’d quit her real estate job, gotten a new one as a property manager with flexible hours, and moved into a small house three blocks from mine.
We saw each other every day.
She came over for dinner most nights, helped the kids with their homework, taught Lily how to braid hair, played video games with Jake until he beat her every time.
The kids adored her.
Called her Aunt Lila.
Rubbed her belly every chance they got, talking to the baby, telling her how much they loved her already.
Clara was around too, of course.
The subway stranger who’d started it all.
She worked as a nurse at the local hospital, had a wicked sense of humor, and brought the kids lollipops every time she visited, even when I told her not to.
She and Mia had become best friends, which was equal parts hilarious and terrifying—two of the fiercest women I knew, teaming up to make sure no one ever hurt me or the people I loved again.
Daniel was in a minimum-security prison upstate.
He’d sent me one letter, a month after he was sentenced, full of apologies and promises to change, begging me to let the kids write to him.
I’d thrown it away without reading it all the way through.
He’d had his chance.
He’d chosen his lies.
Now he had to live with them.
The DA said the restitution money would start coming in within six months, taken directly from his prison wages, with the rest paid in monthly installments once he was released.
I didn’t care about the money, not really.
I had a good job.
We had the house.
We had enough.
But I wanted him to pay.
Wanted him to feel the weight of what he’d stolen, every month, for the next ten years, until every cent was paid back.
One night, after the kids were asleep, Lila and I sat on the porch drinking iced tea, watching the fireflies blink in the backyard, her hand resting on her belly.
“Thank you,” she said, soft, breaking the silence. “For not hating me. For letting me be part of your family. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
I smiled, reached over, and squeezed her hand.
“Thank you,” I said. “For choosing the truth. For helping me take him down. For being my friend. We’re family now, Lila. For good. No matter what.”
She smiled, tears in her eyes, and nodded.
My phone pinged.
A text from Clara.
A photo of her and Mia at a bar, holding up beers, grinning like idiots.
“Your favorite bodyguards are on duty,” the text said. “Love you both. Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do.”
I laughed, showed Lila, and typed back a reply.
I looked out at the backyard, the fireflies dancing, the house warm and bright behind me, full of people I loved, full of laughter and life, and I realized something.
I hadn’t thought about Daniel all day.
Not once.
The pain was still there, a faint scar, but it didn’t hurt anymore.
It just was.
A reminder of how strong I was.
May you like
How much I’d survived.
How much I had to look forward to.
