Chapter 9
Mom died three months later.
Alone in the prison infirmary.
The prison called to tell me.
I said “thank you” and hung up.
Didn’t go to the funeral.
Didn’t claim the ashes.
She was gone.
And I was done with her.
Forever.
Life went back to normal.
Better than normal.
Tommy started preschool.
Made friends.
Came home every day with a new story, a new drawing, a new rock he’d found on the playground that he insisted was “magic.”
Olivia went back to work part time, at the local children’s hospital, doing art therapy with sick kids.
She loved it.
Said it made her feel like she was turning all the bad things that had happened to her into something good.
Something that helped people.
I got promoted at work.
We bought a bigger house, on a quiet street with a big backyard, the oak tree from our old house carefully dug up and transplanted by the patio.
It was taller now, strong enough to climb, its branches thick and full.
Tommy spent hours under it, playing with his trucks, chasing the cat we’d adopted, a fluffy orange thing he’d named Tiger.
We started a foundation in Dad’s name.
Used some of the money from the estate to fund domestic violence shelters across Texas.
To pay for advocates like Ryan, who’d helped us when we had no one else.
To give women like Olivia a safe place to go, someone to believe them, someone to fight for them.
Ryan ran it for us.
Said it was the most important work he’d ever done.
Every year, on Tommy’s birthday, we had a big party.
Family.
Friends.
The people who’d stood by us.
We’d eat cake, open presents, and then, when all the guests were gone, we’d sit under the oak tree, Tommy between us, and talk about Dad.
Tell him stories about what a good man his grandpa was.
How much he would have loved him.
Tommy was five when he asked about Grandma Martha.
He’d found an old photo in a box in the attic, Mom holding me at my high school graduation, smiling that fake smile I knew so well.
“Who’s this, Daddy?” he said, holding up the photo.
Olivia and I looked at each other.
We’d talked about this moment.
Knew it would come eventually.
I sat down on the floor beside Tommy, taking the photo from his hand.
“That’s my mom,” I said.
“Your grandma Martha.”
Tommy’s eyes went wide.
“I have a grandma?” he said.
“Where is she?
Can I meet her?”
I took a deep breath.
Kept it simple.
Honest.
Age appropriate.
“She was a very sick woman, buddy,” I said.
“Not sick like when you have a cold.
Sick in her head.
She made some very bad choices.
Hurt people she should have loved.
So she couldn’t be in our lives anymore.
She died a long time ago.”
Tommy frowned, his little brow furrowed.
“That’s sad,” he said.
Then he shrugged, already bored with the photo, and ran off to play with Tiger.
Olivia sat down beside me, leaning her head on my shoulder.
“You did good,” she said.
“Better than good.”
I nodded, tossing the photo in the trash can by the desk.
No need to keep it.
No need to hold onto the past.
Our future was right here.
In this house.
In this yard.
In our son.
That night, after Tommy was asleep, Olivia and I sat on the patio, drinking wine, watching the stars come out over the oak tree.
“Remember when we thought we’d never be happy again?” she said, swirling the wine in her glass.
I laughed, taking her hand, lacing our fingers together.
“I remember.
Feels like a lifetime ago.”
“It was a lifetime ago,” she said.
“Before Tommy.
Before the foundation.
Before all of this.
We went through hell, Ethan.
But we came out the other side.
Stronger.
Better.
Together.”
I kissed her.
Soft.
Slow.
Under the stars, under the oak tree, in the home we’d built together out of all the broken pieces.
She was right.
We’d been through hell.
May you like
But we’d made it.
All of us.
