Chapter 20 - The Woman Who Came Home
I didn't open Juliette's letter alone. Marcus and my attorney photographed it first, and then we read it together at a table in the courthouse.
Juliette had written that she hadn't expected me to survive. She said she'd wanted the land, wanted Dad's approval, wanted everything I seemed to receive without trying. She called the fire a terrible mistake, as if the locked door had turned its own bolt. At the bottom she asked me to tell Dad she still loved him.
"Will you answer?" Marcus asked.
"Not today."
The case took months. Bernard testified about the forged records and confinement. Pike described the locked door; Ruth described my years at Ravenwood. Juliette pleaded guilty to fraud and unlawful imprisonment and received a prison sentence. The arson case brought additional penalties. None of it returned my four lost years.
The court corrected my death record and voided the fraudulent land transfers. A settlement funded repairs to the cottages. On the first warm day of spring, Mrs. Alvarez called to say Noah had planted tomatoes outside her window.
Dad asked before visiting. Sometimes I said yes; sometimes no. We began with short walks and coffee. He listened while I told him how angry I was. That was new.
Ruth helped me turn the old storage building into a small studio. I made bowls with uneven rims because my fingers still stiffened in cold weather. Some days I couldn't stand the smell of a wood stove. Some nights I dreamed of the bolt sliding shut. Healing wasn't a door I opened once. It was a choice I made again when morning came.
One afternoon Dad arrived carrying the broken player piano's little brass key. "I found it in Mom's desk," he said. "Thought you might want it."
I closed my hand around the key. Beyond the studio window, children were running between the cottages, laughing in the sun.
"Cricket," Dad said softly, "I'm glad you're here."
I looked at the scar across my hand and at the bright world beyond it.
May you like
"Me too," I told him.
They had buried a name, stolen a home, and tried to write my ending. But the life that followed belonged to me.
