Chapter 20 - The Home I Chose
A year after the attack, I sold the townhouse at the Foundry.
I didn't leave because Diane had won anything. I left because I wanted a kitchen where the first thing I noticed was sunlight, not the place where someone had tried to hurt me.
My new house was small and yellow, with crooked lilac bushes, a porch wide enough for two chairs, and a kitchen door that opened onto a patch of grass. I installed a security system because I liked knowing it was there. Then I stopped checking it every time I heard a sound.
Imani and I kept Harbor Structural open. We rebuilt our controls, earned back paused projects, and began offering low-cost safety consultations with a local recovery nonprofit. I couldn't undo the flood or the fraud. I could make it a little harder for families to be deceived again.
Walter came for dinner and complained that my porch needed a better railing. Dad arrived with a bag of peaches and insisted on slicing them, slowly and badly. Teresa brought her children, who immediately found the lilac bushes and decided they were a secret jungle.
At one point, Becca stood beside me at the sink while Micah played with the dog outside.
"I still have nightmares about that porch," she admitted.
"Me too. About a different room."
She nodded. We didn't need to compare which fear had been worse.
Ryan's letter stayed unopened beside my wedding ring. I wasn't waiting for a dramatic moment. I simply didn't owe anyone a decision about either one.
After dinner, everyone went outside to watch the fireflies. I stayed behind to turn off the stove. My reflection appeared briefly in the black kitchen window: a woman with a faint scar near her collarbone, a dish towel over her shoulder, and no one standing behind her telling her to apologize.
I opened the door. Laughter came in with the cool evening air.
The old camera had recorded the worst morning of my life. It had also caught the moment I stopped begging people who hurt me to admit what they were doing.
May you like
I stepped onto the porch and joined the people who had come because they wanted to be there.
For once, there was nothing left I needed to prove before I could call a place home.
