Chapter 9
The first year in the cottage was the happiest year of my life since the boys were small.
Small, innocent, before the greed took root.
Marnie was right—everyone on that street took care of each other.
There were potlucks every Saturday.
Book club every third Tuesday.
People brought soup when you were sick and helped you fix your fence when it fell down.
It was the kind of community Robert and I had always dreamed of but never found in the big city.
Will was a constant, gentle presence.
He fixed my faucet.
He helped me build raised beds for my vegetable garden.
He taught me how to fish off the pier at the end of the street, laughing when I caught nothing but seaweed for the first three months.
He never pushed.
Never rushed me.
He knew about Robert.
Knew about the boys.
Knew everything, because I told him one night over a bottle of wine on my porch, when the memories got too heavy to carry alone.
He didn’t flinch.
Didn’t judge.
Just reached across the small table and covered my hand with his.
“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met,” he said.
“And if you’ll let me, I’d like to be the person who reminds you that you don’t always have to be.”
That was the night I let him kiss me.
Soft.
Slow.
Nothing like the desperate, hungry kisses of my youth.
This was warm.
Safe.
Like coming home.
Life wasn’t perfect, of course.
There were hard days.
Anniversaries.
Birthdays.
The day the letter came from the state prison—Mark had tried to appeal his sentence, lost, and was writing to me one last time.
I almost didn’t open it.
But I did.
Sitting on my porch swing, ocean breeze in my hair.
Mom,
The appeal didn’t work.
I’m going to be in here for a long time.
Maybe forever.
I’ve had a lot of time to think.
About Dad.
About you.
About everything we did.
I don’t expect you to forgive me.
I don’t think I could forgive me either.
We were wrong.
All of it.
The money, the lies, the way we talked to Dad that last day.
I replay it every night.
Every single night.
He looked so tired.
So sad.
And I just kept yelling.
Lucas is different in here.
Harder.
Angrier.
He still blames you.
Still blames everyone but himself.
But me?
I know who’s to blame.
Me.
I led him.
I was the oldest.
I should’ve protected him.
Protected all of us.
Instead I destroyed everything.
I’m not writing to ask for anything.
No money.
No lawyers.
No second chances.
I just wanted you to know.
I’m sorry.
For Dad.
For you.
For the little boys we used to be and the men we turned into.
Tell Dad I’m sorry too.
If you ever talk to him again.
—Mark
I folded the letter and put it in the same box with Robert’s letters.
I didn’t cry.
I didn’t feel triumphant.
I just felt… empty.
Sad for the waste of it all.
Two lives thrown away.
A family shattered.
Will found me there an hour later, still holding the empty envelope.
He didn’t say anything.
He just sat down next to me, pulled me into his arms, and held me while the sun went down.
Sometimes that’s all you need.
The second year was softer.
Easier.
Will moved in.
Slowly.
First a drawer.
Then a closet.
Then one day he just… never went home.
Marnie pretended to be scandalized but brought over champagne to celebrate anyway.
We planted more roses in the backyard.
Red ones this time.
Will’s favorite.
We took long walks on the beach at sunrise.
We traveled—Italy, Greece, all the places Robert and I had planned to see.
I talked to Robert in my head everywhere we went.
Told him about the Colosseum.
About the sunsets in Santorini.
I hoped he could see them too.
I got another letter from Lucas that year.
Angrier.
Bitter.
Demanding money.
Threatening to “ruin everything” when he got out.
I threw that one away without finishing it.
Some people never change.
And that’s okay.
They don’t get to live in my head rent-free anymore.
Arthur came to visit that fall.
He and his wife stayed for a week.
He and Will got along like they’d known each other forever—two men who loved the same woman in different ways, at different times, both wanting only her happiness.
Sitting on the porch one night, drinking whiskey, Arthur looked at me.
“Robert would be so proud of you, you know. He told me once that you were the best decision he ever made. I didn’t really get it then. But I do now.”
I looked at Will, laughing at something Marnie had said, the firelight dancing on his face.
I thought of Robert.
Of the letter he’d left me.
*If you ever meet someone new who makes you smile? You smile back.*
May you like
“I’m proud of me too,” I said quietly.
“Took me a long time. But I got there.”
