Chapter 10
Six months later, we moved to Oregon.
A small town outside Portland, surrounded by trees and mountains, where no one knew our names.
We bought a small blue house with a big front porch and a backyard big enough for a swing set and a garden.
Emma started third grade at the local elementary school.
She joined the art club and the soccer team.
She made best friends with a girl named Zoe who lived two doors down.
She still has bad dreams sometimes.
She still gets scared when someone raises their voice too loud.
But she’s happy.
She laughs more now.
She runs and plays and sings in the shower, just like a seven-year-old should.
Lucas is almost two now.
He’s a wild, happy little boy, always running, always climbing, always getting into trouble.
He loves trucks and dogs and ice cream.
He calls me “Mama” and Emma “Emmy” and follows us everywhere we go.
His brain bleed is completely healed.
The doctor says he’ll have no long-term effects.
I got a job at the local bookstore downtown.
I work three days a week, and Mia watches the kids for me.
She moved to Oregon too, bought a small cottage ten minutes from our house.
She opened her own plant shop, and it’s doing great.
We’re closer now than we’ve ever been.
The trust fund is safe.
Mr. Henderson helped us move it to a new bank, with a new trustee, with strict rules about how the money can be used.
It will pay for Emma and Lucas’s college, for their first cars, for weddings, for houses, for whatever they need in life.
No one can touch it ever again.
Last month, I met someone.
His name is Ethan.
He’s a single dad, with a little boy named Jax who’s the same age as Emma.
We met at the bookstore.
He came in looking for a book for Jax, and we started talking.
He’s kind.
He’s patient.
He listens.
He never raises his voice.
He knows everything that happened to us.
All of it.
And he doesn’t look at me like I’m broken.
He looks at me like I’m strong.
Like I’m brave.
We take the kids to the park on weekends.
We have barbecues in the backyard.
We watch movies on the couch, all five of us squished together.
It’s slow.
It’s new.
But it’s good.
Tonight, we’re sitting on the front porch.
The sun is setting over the mountains, painting the sky pink and orange and purple.
Emma and Jax are drawing with chalk on the sidewalk.
Lucas is playing in the grass, chasing a butterfly, laughing so hard he can barely breathe.
Ethan is sitting next to me, his hand resting lightly on mine.
Mia is in the kitchen, making lemonade.
I watch my kids play.
I think about that night in Phoenix, six months ago.
I think about Ryan throwing Lucas on the floor.
I think about Carol’s smug face.
I think about the empty bank account, the hate messages, the fear that I would lose my babies forever.
I think about how close I came to losing everything.
How close I came to dying.
But I didn’t.
I fought.
I fought for my kids.
I fought for myself.
And I won.
The scars are still there.
They’ll always be there.
Emma will always have the memory of her father and grandmother hurting her.
Lucas will always have the faint scar on his cheek from the fall.
I will always have the memory of being choked against that wall, of thinking I would never see my kids grow up.
But scars don’t have to define you.
They can remind you of how strong you are.
Of how much you survived.
Of how far you’ve come.
Lucas trips over a rock and falls down.
I start to get up, but he pops right back up, grinning, and keeps running.
Emma looks up from her drawing and waves at me.
I wave back.
Ethan squeezes my hand.
“You okay?” he asks.
I smile.
“I’m perfect,” I say.
And for the first time in my life, I mean it.
We are safe.
We are together.
May you like
We are home.
And nothing, and no one, will ever take that away from us again.
