Chapter 10
One year to the day after Charles was sentenced, we held a small ceremony at the cemetery.
Just me, Ava, Sarah, and a few close friends.
We brought flowers.
We told stories.
We laughed and we cried.
Ava placed a drawing she'd made on Elena's grave.
It was a picture of our family.
Me, Sarah, Ava, and Elena, standing in the sun, holding hands.
Elena had wings.
"She's an angel now," Ava had explained when she showed it to me. "She watches over us."
I'd held her tight and told her she was right.
After the ceremony, we went back to the house.
Sarah had organized a small party.
Our friends were there.
The prosecutor from the trial.
Detective Alvarez.
Parents of the workers who'd died in the collapse, who'd become like family to us over the past year.
There was food and laughter and music.
Ava ran around with the other kids, her face lit up with joy.
I watched her, my heart full.
She was safe.
She was loved.
She was happy.
Everything Charles had tried to destroy, we'd rebuilt.
Stronger.
Better.
Full of hope.
Sarah came over and stood beside me, slipping her hand into mine.
"Penny for your thoughts?" she asked.
I looked at her, then at Ava, then at the jasmine vine blooming in the corner of the yard.
"I was just thinking," I said. "About how far we've come. About how everything seemed so impossible a year ago. And now..."
I gestured around the yard, at all the people laughing and talking and celebrating.
"Now we have this," I said.
Sarah squeezed my hand. "We earned it."
"We did," I agreed.
Ava ran over to us, breathless.
"Daddy! Sarah! Come see! I made a new friend!"
She grabbed both our hands and pulled us toward the swing set where a little girl about her age was waiting.
We went with her, laughing.
Later that night, after everyone had left and Ava was asleep in her bed, Sarah and I sat on the patio swing, just like we had that night six months before.
The stars were bright.
The jasmine scent was strong.
"Lucien," Sarah said softly.
"Yeah?"
"Do you ever think about the future?"
I thought about it.
About Ava growing up.
About graduating, falling in love, having kids of her own.
About growing old with Sarah.
About visiting Elena's grave and telling her all about it.
"All the time," I said.
"What do you see?"
I looked at her, and I smiled.
"I see us," I said. "I see Ava, happy and healthy and brave. I see us growing old together. I see peace. Real peace."
Sarah leaned her head on my shoulder.
"That sounds perfect," she said.
"It is," I said.
And for the first time in my life, I truly believed it.
The darkness was behind us.
The pain was fading.
The scars would always be there, of course.
You don't go through something like that and come out unchanged.
But the scars were proof that we'd survived.
Proof that we'd fought.
Proof that love and courage and truth could overcome even the darkest evil.
I thought about Elena.
About her letter.
About her wish for us to be happy.
I closed my eyes and breathed in the jasmine scent.
Somewhere, she was watching.
Somewhere, she was smiling.
And we were okay.
May you like
We were finally, truly okay.
The end.
