Chapter 10
The first annual Mia Carter Foundation Gala was held on what would’ve been Mia’s 9th birthday.
The ballroom was packed—over 300 people, all there to support the foundation.
We’d raised $750,000 that night alone.
Enough to open three new free asthma clinics across the state.
Enough to help 500 more kids in the next year.
I stood on the stage, looking out at the crowd, Mia’s teddy tucked in the pocket of my dress.
Ray was in the front row, smiling up at me, his eyes shiny.
I told the crowd about Mia.
About her teddy, her love of sprinkles, the way she’d laugh so hard she snort.
I told them about the foundation, the kids we’d helped, the little girl who’d gotten an inhaler we’d paid for and was now able to play soccer for the first time in her life.
When I finished, the crowd stood up, clapping so loud the walls shook.
After the gala, a little girl with pigtails and an asthma inhaler clipped to her belt came up to me.
She couldn’t have been more than 7.
“Are you Mia’s mommy?” she asked.
I nodded, kneeling down so I was eye level with her.
“I am,” I said.
She held out a drawing she’d made.
It was a little girl with wings, holding a teddy bear, surrounded by rainbow hearts.
“I drew this for her,” she said.
“My mommy says Mia helps me breathe better. I wanted to say thank you.”
I took the drawing, my throat tight.
“Thank you, baby,” I said, hugging her.
“Mia loves it.”
That night, Ray and I drove home to the small house we’d bought together on the edge of town.
We had a golden retriever named Biscuit, a garden full of sunflowers (Mia’s favorite), and a guest room we were turning into a nursery.
We were adopting a little girl named Lila—no, not my sister, a 5-year-old who’d lost her mom to cancer, who loved rainbows and teddy bears just like Mia.
I sat on the porch swing after Ray went inside, holding Mia’s teddy and the little girl’s drawing.
The stars were bright that night.
I looked up, and for a second, I swore I saw Mia.
She was 7 again, wearing her favorite sparkly shoes, laughing, holding her teddy’s hand.
She waved at me.
I waved back, tears spilling down my face.
They were happy tears.
For the first time since she died, I didn’t feel like I’d lost her.
She was in the kids we helped.
In the drawing in my hand.
In the little girl we were bringing home next month.
In Ray’s love, in the foundation, in every breath of every kid who got to live because of her.
Justice had been served.
Lila would die in prison, alone, with nothing but her greed to keep her company.
Jake would rot in his cell, knowing he’d thrown his life away for nothing.
And me?
I was safe.
I was loved.
I was finally, completely at peace.
I held the teddy to my chest, breathing in the faint lavender scent that still lingered after all this time.
“Goodnight, baby,” I whispered to the stars.
“I love you. I’ll see you again someday.”
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Somewhere, a little girl laughed.
And I knew, without a doubt, that everything was going to be okay.
