Chapter 9
Vanessa was denied bail a second time.
No judge was letting her out after the knife incident.
She was locked up in the county jail, awaiting trial.
Daniel kept his word.
He signed every paper Elena gave him.
Full, sole legal and physical custody of Lila to me.
The house.
The cars.
All the bank accounts.
The entire family construction business, which he sold for seven million dollars and signed every penny over to Lila’s trust fund.
He kept only his small apartment and his clothes.
He went to rehab.
Alcoholism, he said.
And PTSD from Ethan’s death.
And guilt.
So much guilt.
He wrote me a letter every day.
Long, handwritten letters.
Apologizing.
Telling me about his days in rehab.
Telling me how much he loved Lila.
How much he wished he could go back and change everything.
I never opened them.
I put them in a box in the back of Lila’s closet.
Maybe one day, when she was older, she’d want to read them.
Maybe not.
That was her choice.
The preliminary hearing for Vanessa’s trial was three months later.
The courtroom was packed.
Reporters.
Family.
Curious onlookers.
Vanessa was brought in wearing shackles, her face blank, her eyes dead.
Her lawyer tried to argue that all the evidence was planted.
That Cole was a liar.
That I was a jealous wife.
That Daniel was a grieving brother who’d been manipulated.
No one bought it.
Cole testified.
He told the jury everything.
The texts were entered into evidence.
The photo of Vanessa buying the lighter fluid.
The pharmacy receipt for the Ambien.
The neighbor’s testimony.
The recording of her threatening me.
The security footage from a gas station near Ethan’s house, showing her car driving toward the garage ten minutes before the fire.
The knife she’d brought to my house.
My testimony.
Daniel’s testimony.
He told the court everything he knew.
How Vanessa had manipulated him.
How she’d played on his guilt over Ethan.
How he’d caught her kissing me—wait, no.
How he’d caught her kissing him in the hallway.
How he’d heard her confess to killing Ethan in the nursery.
How she’d tried to kill me and Lila.
When he finished testifying, the whole courtroom was quiet.
Vanessa’s lawyer didn’t even cross-examine him.
He knew there was no point.
Vanessa took the stand in her own defense.
She started out calm.
Denied everything.
Said she was the real victim.
Then the prosecutor started asking her questions.
About the texts.
About the lighter fluid.
About the Ambien.
About the knife.
About Ethan.
About me.
About Lila.
She snapped.
She stood up in the witness box, screaming, her face purple with rage.
“He was going to ruin me!” she shrieked. “Ethan was going to send me to jail! I had no choice! And Rachel—she was always there! Always perfect! Always in my way! I should have pushed her harder! I should have made sure she and that brat died! They deserved it! They all deserved it!”
The judge banged his gavel.
The jury stared at her, horrified.
Vanessa collapsed back into her chair, sobbing.
Her lawyer put his head in his hands.
The trial was over after that.
The jury deliberated for four hours.
They came back guilty on all counts.
First-degree murder of Ethan Carter.
Attempted murder of Rachel Carter.
Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
The judge sentenced her to thirty-five years to life.
No possibility of parole for thirty years.
She’d be seventy when she got out.
If she lived that long.
They led her out of the courtroom in shackles.
She didn’t look at Daniel.
She didn’t look at me.
She just stared straight ahead, her face empty.
It was over.
Truly over.
Daniel finished rehab two weeks later.
He got a job working construction for a friend, making fifteen dollars an hour.
He lived in a tiny studio apartment on the south side.
He came to every supervised visit with Lila.
He was never late.
He was never drunk.
He never mentioned Vanessa.
He just sat on the floor and played with his daughter for two hours, laughing and making faces, reading her books, singing her silly songs.
Lila loved him.
She’d light up the second he walked through the door.
It broke my heart a little.
But it also made me happy.
She deserved a dad who loved her.
Even if he was a man I could never love again.
Lila turned six months old in September.
She was sitting up on her own.
She had two little teeth on the bottom.
She said “mama” for the first time on a Tuesday.
I cried.
Mia cried.
Daniel, who’d been there for a visit, cried too.
Everything was getting better.
I was healing.
The scar on my face faded to a thin white line.
The bite mark on my shoulder was just a faint memory.
I started sleeping through the night again.
I stopped jumping every time a car drove past the window.
I stopped checking the backseat every time I got in my car.
I was okay.
We were okay.
Then, on a cold Tuesday in October, my phone rang at three in the morning.
It was the hospital.
“Rachel Carter?” the nurse said. “We have a Daniel Carter here. He was brought in by ambulance an hour ago. He took a whole bottle of sleeping pills. He left a note. It says he wants you and Lila to know he’s sorry. He asked for you. You’re listed as his next of kin.”
I sat straight up in bed.
My heart hammering.
“Is he alive?” I said.
“He’s stable,” the nurse said. “We pumped his stomach. He’s going to be okay. But he’s asking for you. He says he won’t talk to anyone else.”
I looked over at Lila’s crib.
She was fast asleep.
I thought of Daniel.
Of all the mistakes he’d made.
Of all the pain he’d caused.
Of the man he was trying to be now.
I threw on some clothes.
I woke Mia up and told her I’d be back.
I drove to the hospital.
Daniel was in a room on the psych ward.
He was pale.
Thinner than ever.
His eyes were hollow.
He looked up when I walked in.
Tears immediately ran down his face.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do it. I just… I couldn’t live with myself anymore. All the things I did. All the things I let happen. To Ethan. To you. To Lila. I’m a monster.”
I sat down in the chair next to his bed.
I didn’t hold his hand.
I didn’t comfort him.
I just looked at him.
“You are not a monster,” I said. “You made terrible choices. You hurt people you loved. But you’re not a monster. Monsters don’t feel guilty. Monsters don’t try to make things right. Monsters don’t show up every single visit and love their daughter like she’s the best thing that ever happened to them.”
He cried harder.
“I don’t deserve you,” he said. “I don’t deserve Lila.”
“You’re right,” I said. “You don’t. But she deserves you. She deserves a dad who loves her. Who shows up. Who tries to be better every single day. So you’re going to get better. You’re going to keep going to therapy. You’re going to keep going to AA. You’re going to be the dad she deserves. Because if you ever try to do something like this again, if you ever leave her alone in this world without a father, I will never forgive you. Not ever. Do you understand me?”
He nodded, sobbing so hard he could barely breathe.
“I understand,” he said. “I promise. I’ll be better. For her. For you. For all of us.”
I stood up to leave.
“Get some sleep,” I said. “I’ll bring Lila to see you tomorrow. She misses her dad.”
I walked out of the room.
The cold October air hit my face when I stepped outside.
I took a deep breath.
I didn’t love Daniel anymore.
I probably never would.
But I didn’t hate him either.
Hate was too heavy.
It took too much energy.
I was tired of carrying it.
I got in my car and drove home.
May you like
Tomorrow was a new day.
And for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t scared of it.
