Chapter 10
Five years later.
Sophia is fifteen.
She's a sophomore in high school.
She's captain of the soccer team.
She's in the student council.
She volunteers at Sophia's House every weekend.
She still makes glitter necklaces.
Now she teaches the little girls at the shelter how to make them, too.
Ethan is seventeen.
He's a senior.
He's applying to colleges.
He wants to be a lawyer.
A family law attorney.
He wants to help kids like him.
Kids whose parents made terrible choices.
Lila is a nurse practitioner.
She runs the pediatric clinic at the hospital.
She has two more kids now.
Twins.
A boy and a girl.
Three years old.
They call me Aunt Viv.
They call Sophia Sissy.
They call Ethan Bubba.
My brothers are all still here.
Marcus is now a U.S. Senator.
He's considering a run for president.
Julian runs the largest community bank in the northeast.
He's given out over a billion dollars in small business loans to women and minority owners.
Victor runs his own security firm now.
He protects women and kids who are in danger.
Pro bono.
No charge.
He says it's his way of paying it forward.
My mom is seventy-two.
She still lives in the estate.
She bakes cookies for every family dinner.
She spoils all the grandkids rotten.
And me?
I'm still running the Sterling Foundation.
We're now in all fifty states.
We help over a hundred thousand women and kids every year.
Sophia's House has expanded to twenty locations across the country.
I travel a lot.
I speak at conferences.
I tell my story.
I tell women they are not alone.
They are not to blame.
They are stronger than they think.
Last month, I got a letter.
From the prison upstate.
Not from Dominic.
From the warden.
Dominic Hale had died.
Heart attack.
In his sleep.
He was fifty-eight.
He'd served twelve years of his life sentence.
No one had claimed his body.
No one had visited him in all those years.
Not a single person.
I stared at the letter.
I felt... nothing.
No sadness.
No relief.
Just a quiet, final closing of a chapter I'd stopped reading a long time ago.
I told Sophia.
She was quiet for a minute.
Then she said, "I'm sorry he was so sad. That he made such bad choices. But I'm glad he can't hurt anyone else ever again."
That's my girl.
Kind.
Even to the man who didn't deserve it.
Strong.
Even when it's hard.
We didn't go to the funeral.
There was no funeral.
He was cremated.
Buried in an unmarked grave in the prison cemetery.
Just another forgotten man.
Who had thrown away a perfect life.
For nothing.
Last week, we had our annual family Thanksgiving.
Thirty people around the big table at the estate.
My brothers and their families.
Lila and her family.
Friends from the foundation.
Women and kids from Sophia's House who had nowhere else to go.
We ate.
We laughed.
We went around the table and said what we were thankful for.
When it was my turn, I looked at Sophia.
At Ethan.
At the twins.
At my brothers.
At Lila.
At all the people around me who loved me.
Who had stood by me.
Who had lifted me up when I couldn't stand on my own.
"I'm thankful for second chances," I said.
"For family. For the people who show up when it matters. For the strength to walk away from what hurts you. And for the courage to build something better out of the pieces."
Everyone cheered.
Sophia squeezed my hand under the table.
After dinner, I stepped outside.
The air was cold.
The sky was clear.
Thousands of stars.
I thought back to that night at the gala.
To Chloe's cold smile.
To Dominic's lies.
To the fear.
The anger.
The heartbreak.
I thought I'd lost everything that night.
My marriage.
My trust.
My idea of what love was supposed to be.
But I'd been wrong.
I hadn't lost anything.
I'd gained everything.
My family.
My voice.
My purpose.
A whole new family I never would have had if Dominic hadn't made the worst mistake of his life.
The door opened behind me.
Sophia walked out.
She wrapped her arms around my waist.
She rested her head on my shoulder.
"Are you okay, Mommy?" she said.
I smiled.
I kissed the top of her head.
"I'm perfect," I said.
"I have you. I have all of us. What more could I ever need?"
She smiled back.
She pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket.
A new necklace.
Glitter.
Markers.
Tiny heart stickers.
She'd made it for me.
For Thanksgiving.
She put it around my neck.
"I love you, Mommy," she said.
"I love you more than all the stars in the sky."
I held her tight.
The stars shone above us.
Bright.
Steady.
Unbreakable.
Just like us.
The past was gone.
But the future?
May you like
The future was ours.
And it was going to be beautiful.
