Chapter 121 Years Apart

Chapter 121 Years Apart
The garden was in full bloom.

Tomatoes hung heavy on their vines. Sunflowers towered over the fence. Lily's herb garden her latest project filled the air with the scent of basil and mint.

I knelt in the dirt, Ethan beside me in his little rubber boots, "helping" me weed. He was three and a half now, all energy and curiosity and endless questions.

"Mama, why do weeds grow?" he asked, pulling up a dandelion with great effort.

"Because that's what they do. They're very good at growing where they're not supposed to be."

"Like me in Lily's room?"

I laughed. "Exactly like that."

Lily appeared in the back door, now eight years old and full of opinions. "Mama! Ethan got into my art supplies again. He drew on my homework!"

"Ethan, did you draw on your sister's homework?"

"I was making it pretty," Ethan said, completely unrepentant.

"Inside. Both of you. We'll fix the homework and have a talk about respecting other people's things."

As the kids trudged inside, still bickering, I sat back on my heels and smiled.

This. This was my life now. Gardening and sibling squabbles and homework emergencies.

It was perfect.

I'd graduated last month with my bachelor's degree in psychology. It had taken three years balancing classes with raising two kids, but I'd done it. Top of my class.

Now I was starting my internship at a trauma counseling center, working with survivors of violence. It was hard work, emotionally exhausting, but deeply fulfilling.

Every time I helped someone find their voice, find their strength, find their way through the darkness I remembered what it felt like to be in that warehouse. To survive. To fight my way back to life.

And I knew this was what I was meant to do.

Dr. Sandra had been right. Helping others helped me heal too.

\---

Adrian came home early that evening, as he often did now. He'd stepped back from Wolfe Industries, brought in a CEO to handle daily operations while he focused on strategy and big-picture decisions.

It gave him more time at home. More time with the kids. More time to actually live instead of just work.

"How was your day?" he asked, kissing me hello.

"Good. Ethan 'helped' in the garden, which means I'll be finding dirt in strange places for days. Lily's upset because Ethan drew on her homework. The usual chaos."

"I love the usual chaos." Adrian pulled me close. "I have news. Katherine called."

"Oh?"

"She wants to take Lily to visit Sophia's grave next week. For Sophia's birthday. She asked if that was okay with us."

Lily and Katherine had grown close over the past three years. They saw each other twice a month now lunch dates, museum trips, grandmother-granddaughter time. It had been healing for both of them.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"I think it's good. Lily should know her mother. Should visit her grave. Should have that connection to Sophia."

"Even though it might be hard for you?"

"It's not hard anymore. Not like it used to be." Adrian looked at me. "Sophia will always be Lily's mother. But Emma you're her Mama. The one she comes to when she's scared. The one who helps with homework and bandages scraped knees and listens to endless stories about her friends. Sophia gave Lily life, but you're raising her. Both things can be true."

"You've been doing therapy homework again."

"Dr. says I'm making excellent progress."

We both paused, then laughed. Adrian had switched therapists two years ago.

That night, after dinner and homework battles and bedtime stories, Adrian and I sat on the back porch with wine and quiet.

"Jordan called today," I said. "She's engaged."

"To the parrot shirt guy?"

"No, someone new. A teacher she met at a bookstore. She says he's perfect."

"That's great. When's the wedding?"

"Next summer. She wants Lily to be a junior bridesmaid and Ethan to be the ring bearer."

"Ethan will probably eat the rings."

"Probably." I laughed, imagining it. "But he'll be cute doing it."

We sat in comfortable silence, listening to crickets and the distant sound of the city.

"Emma?" Adrian said after a while.

"Yeah?"

"Are you happy? Really, truly happy?"

"Yes. Are you?"

"More than I ever thought I'd be again." He took my hand. "After Sophia died, I thought that was it. That I'd had my one chance at happiness and lost it. That the rest of my life would just be going through the motions."

"And now?"

"Now I wake up every morning grateful. For you. For the kids. For this life we've built. I never thought I'd feel this way again. This whole."

"Me neither. When I was working three jobs, drowning in debt, watching my mom die I couldn't have imagined this. Any of this."

"Do you ever think about how we started? The contract? The two million dollars?"

"Sometimes. It seems like a lifetime ago. Like that was a different person."

"In a way, it was. We're both different now than we were then."

"Better different?"

"Definitely better." Adrian squeezed my hand. "Emma, if you could go back if you could tell that scared woman in the coffee shop what was coming what would you say?"

I thought about it. About everything we'd been through. The contract. Falling in love. The kidnapping. The trial. The terror and trauma and slow, painful healing.

"I'd tell her to say yes. I'd tell her it's going to be hard. Harder than anything she's ever done. But that on the other side of that hardness there's this. There's a family. There's love. There's a life worth living."

"You wouldn't warn her? About the kidnapping? About Patricia?"

"No. Because warning her might mean she'd say no. Might mean she'd walk away. And then she'd never have Lily or Ethan. Never have you. Never have" I gestured to the house, the garden, the life we'd built. "Never have any of this."

"Even knowing what Patricia did?"

"Even knowing that." I turned to face him. "Adrian, Patricia  tried to destroy us. But she didn't. We're still here. We're happy. We're raising our children. We're living the life she tried to steal. That's the best revenge being happy despite everything she did."

Adrian pulled me close. "Have you heard anything about her? About how she's doing?"

I shook my head. "Not in over two years. Last I heard, she was in the prison medical unit. Some kind of illness. I don't know the details."

"Do you want to know?"

"No. That part of my life is over. Patricia is she's the past. And I'm focused on the present now."