Chapter 8
The next year was the best year of our lives.
Margaret was in prison, then in a halfway house, then in treatment. She didn’t try to contact us. Not once. Her probation officer checked in with us every three months, to make sure. She was complying with everything, he said. Going to therapy, taking her meds, working a small job at a thrift store. She was building a new life, far away from us.
We didn’t talk about her much. Not anymore. She was a chapter of our lives that was over. We were too busy living the new one.
Lily was thriving. She’d won the state spelling bee two months after the trial, beating 200 kids from all over Texas. We’d all been there, screaming so loud our throats were sore for days. Her state certificate hung right next to her taped-up first one, in the hallway. She was already practicing for the national competition the next year.
Mia was 15 now, a freshman in high school. She’d started an art club at school, for kids who liked to draw and paint. She’d won a city-wide art contest, with a drawing of our family, the same one she’d hung on the fridge. She was talking about going to art school, maybe in New York, when she graduated. We told her we’d support her no matter what.
James loved his new job. He was home every night for dinner, every weekend for the girls’ events. He coached Lily’s soccer team. He helped Mia build a portfolio for her art applications. He was the dad he’d always wanted to be, the dad the girls deserved.
I went back to school, too. I’d always wanted to be a social worker, to help kids going through the same things Lily and Mia had gone through. I was taking classes part-time, working at a women’s shelter on the weekends. It was hard, busy, exhausting. But it was the most fulfilling thing I’d ever done.
Clara was still our rock. She came over every Sunday for dinner, still brought her famous lasagna. She’d taken a step back from the estate, letting the lawyers handle most of it, so she could spend more time with us. She’d even started dating a nice man, a vet from the animal shelter she volunteered at. We’d met him a few times. He was kind, funny, perfect for her.
We used the money from the estate wisely. We paid off the house, paid off my student loans, set up college funds for the girls. We donated a big chunk to the women’s shelter I worked at, to the children’s hospital, to the art program at Mia’s school. We didn’t need fancy cars or big houses. We had everything we needed right here.
One Sunday, a few days before Lily’s ninth birthday, we were all sitting around the dining table, eating Clara’s lasagna. The same table where everything had fallen apart, a year and a half before.
Lily was talking a mile a minute about the national spelling bee, about the words she was practicing. Mia was showing Clara her latest drawing, a big colorful painting of a sunflower field. James was laughing, telling a story about something stupid that had happened at work.
I looked around the table, at the people I loved most in the world. At the way the sun was coming through the window, hitting their faces, making everything glow.
I thought about that Sunday dinner, about Margaret ripping up the certificate, about the fear, the pain, the months of not knowing if we’d ever be safe again.
I thought about how far we’d come. How we’d held each other through the worst of it. How we’d come out stronger, closer, better than we’d ever been before.
Lily stopped talking mid-sentence. She looked at me, her head tilted.
“Mom, why are you crying?” she said.
I wiped my eyes, smiling.
“These are happy tears, bug,” I said. “I’m just so grateful for all of you.”
James reached across the table and took my hand. He squeezed it, his eyes warm.
“Me too,” he said. “Me too.”
Clara raised her glass of iced tea.
“To family,” she said, smiling. “The kind you choose. The kind that stays.”
We all raised our glasses.
“To family,” we said, together.
May you like
Outside, the sun was setting over the Dallas skyline, painting the sky pink and orange. Inside, the girls were laughing, loud and bright, no fear, no pain, just joy.
For the first time in my life, I felt completely, totally safe.
