Chapter 10
We left Nashville two weeks later.
Packed everything we owned into a moving truck.
Left the keys to the house with the realtor.
And drove east.
We didn't have a destination.
Not really.
We just knew we wanted mountains.
And trees.
And space.
Somewhere quiet.
Somewhere no one knew our names.
Somewhere Teresa could never find us, even if she ever got out.
Which she wouldn't.
We drove for three days.
Stopped at small towns.
Ate at diners.
Let Frederick run around in rest stop playgrounds.
On the fourth day, we found it.
A small town in western North Carolina.
Population twelve hundred.
Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Surrounded by national forest.
There was an old farmhouse for sale on the edge of town.
Forty acres.
A creek running through the property.
A big front porch.
A barn.
An apple orchard.
It needed work.
A lot of work.
But it was perfect.
We paid cash.
From the settlement money.
No mortgage.
No banks.
No one could ever take it from us.
We moved in in February.
The first few months were hard.
The house was cold.
The well needed work.
The roof leaked.
But we fixed it together.
Every weekend.
Every evening after work.
I found a job with a small construction company in the next town over.
They didn't care about my past.
They just cared that I knew how to frame a wall and pour a foundation.
Amy worked remotely still.
Her boss didn't care where she lived as long as the work got done.
Frederick loved it.
He had forty acres to run on.
Chickens we bought him for his second birthday.
A dog.
A big golden retriever we rescued from the shelter.
He called her Sunny.
They were inseparable.
Life was simple.
Quiet.
Peaceful.
The kind of peace we'd never known.
But the ghosts didn't leave right away.
For months, Amy would wake up screaming.
Nightmares about Teresa.
About the threats.
About losing Frederick.
I would hold her until she stopped shaking.
Until she remembered where she was.
That she was safe.
That Teresa was in prison.
Six states away.
Never getting out.
I had my own demons.
I'd flinch when the phone rang.
I'd check the locks three times every night.
I'd drive around the block twice before pulling into the driveway.
Just to make sure no one was following.
We went to therapy.
Together.
Separately.
It helped.
Slowly.
The nightmares came less often.
The flinching stopped.
The locks only got checked once.
Time heals.
But it never forgets.
That summer, we got a letter in the mail.
From the Tennessee Department of Corrections.
Teresa was dead.
Heart attack.
In her sleep.
She'd lasted six months.
Seventy-two years old.
No one claimed the body.
Not her sisters.
Not Mason.
Not any of the relatives who'd once eaten at our table and watched Amy suffer.
They'd all disowned her the moment the verdicts were read.
The state was going to bury her in a pauper's grave.
I held the letter in my hands.
I should have felt something.
Relief.
Sadness.
Anger.
Anything.
But I felt nothing.
Just a strange, hollow emptiness.
Like a chapter of a book I'd never wanted to read had finally been closed.
I showed the letter to Amy.
She read it.
Folded it.
Put it on the counter.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I nodded.
“I think so. It's just... weird. She's really gone. Forever.”
She took my hand.
“Good riddance. She made our lives hell for two years. She destroyed your father. She tried to destroy us. She doesn't deserve tears. She doesn't deserve anything from us.”
She was right.
We didn't go to the funeral.
There wasn't one.
The state buried her in an unmarked grave somewhere outside Nashville.
No headstone.
No service.
No one to mourn.
The only thing she left behind was a trail of broken lives.
And a warning.
That the people who hurt you the most are almost always the ones who are supposed to love you.
That fall, we got another letter.
From a lawyer in Memphis.
My father's sister.
My aunt Carol.
I hadn't seen her since I was five.
Teresa had told me she'd moved to Europe and never wanted to speak to us again.
Another lie.
She'd been trying to find me for thirty years.
Teresa had moved us repeatedly.
Left no forwarding addresses.
Told everyone I didn't want to be found.
Aunt Carol had never stopped looking.
And when the news coverage of the trial had gone national, she'd seen my name.
And found me.
She came to visit that October.
A tiny woman in her seventies.
White hair in a bun.
The same eyes as my father.
She brought photos.
Hundreds of them.
My father.
Young.
Happy.
Holding me as a baby.
She told me the truth about him.
He'd been a good man.
A carpenter.
Quiet.
Kind.
He'd loved me more than anything.
After Teresa cleaned him out, he'd spent every penny he had trying to find me.
Trying to get custody.
Teresa had fought him every step.
Lied to the courts.
Said he was abusive.
Said he was an alcoholic.
Said he was a danger to me.
All lies.
He'd died never knowing what had happened to his little boy.
Never knowing I'd grown up.
Gotten married.
Had a son of his own.
Aunt Carol gave me his old toolbox.
Dented.
Scratched.
Full of his old tools.
His name was carved into the handle.
“Thomas Bradley.”
That night, I sat on the porch with the toolbox.
Cried for the father I'd lost.
Cried for the years we'd missed.
Cried because he'd died thinking I didn't love him.
Amy sat beside me.
Held my hand.
Didn't say anything.
She didn't have to.
The next day, I took Frederick out to the barn.
Opened the toolbox.
Showed him the tools.
Told him about his grandfather.
About the kind of man he'd been.
About how much he would have loved him.
Frederick was only two.
He didn't understand.
But he held the hammer.
And banged it on a piece of wood.
And smiled.
And for the first time in a long time, I felt my father there.
Watching.
Proud.
That Christmas was the best we'd ever had.
Just the three of us.
And Sunny.
We cut down a tree from our property.
Decorated it with lights and homemade ornaments.
Frederick opened his presents.
Laughed.
Screamed with joy.
That night, after he was asleep, Amy and I sat by the fireplace.
Drinking hot chocolate.
Watching the flames.
“Remember that day?” she said quietly. “Frederick's first birthday. When you came home early. When everything fell apart.”
I nodded.
“I think about it every day. How close I came to not leaving early. How close I came to losing everything. To losing you. To losing him.”
She leaned her head on my shoulder.
“You didn't though. You left early. You saw. You believed me. That's what matters. Everything that happened after that... the court cases, the lawyers, the money... none of it matters as much as that one moment. When you chose us. Over her. Over everything you'd ever known.”
I kissed the top of her head.
“I'd choose you a thousand times. A million. In every life. In every version of this story. It's always you. Always him. Always us.”
We sat in silence for a long time.
Watching the fire.
Listening to the wind in the trees.
May you like
Happy.
Truly happy.
