Chapter 23
I was fifty years old when Megan died.
She was forty-eight.
Complications from her injuries.
She had spent twenty-four years in prison.
Twenty-four years of nothing.
No family.
No freedom.
No love.
No hope.
The prison sent a letter.
They needed to know what to do with her body.
I thought about it.
For a long time.
Then I wrote back.
"Cremate her. Scatter the ashes somewhere unmarked. I want no service. No memorial. No grave."
It was harsh.
But it was honest.
Megan had spent her whole life trying to erase me.
Trying to take everything from me.
And in the end, I was the one who got to decide how she would be remembered.
And the answer was: she wouldn't be.
She would be forgotten.
Just as she had tried to forget that she was a person with a conscience.
Just as she had tried to forget that my baby was a human being.
I told Nathan about my decision.
He didn't argue.
He just nodded.
"It's your choice. Whatever you need to do."
I didn't feel happy about her death.
But I didn't feel sad either.
I just felt... a strange sense of finality.
The last of the Collins family was gone.
The chapter was truly closed.
That night, I sat on the porch of our farm.
The stars were bright.
The air was crisp.
I thought about Megan.
About the little girl she had once been.
Before the jealousy consumed her.
Before my parents turned her into a monster.
I wondered what she could have been.
If she had been loved differently.
If she had been taught right from wrong.
If she had been given the tools to deal with her emotions instead of being taught to take them out on others.
But I didn't dwell on it.
Because the reality was what it was.
Megan had made her choices.
She had chosen cruelty over kindness.
She had chosen hate over love.
She had chosen destruction over creation.
And she had paid the ultimate price.
She had died alone.
Unloved.
Unmourned.
Forgotten.
While I was here.
Loved.
Cherished.
Surrounded by family.
Making a difference in the world.
She had thought she won.
But the truth was clear.
I had won.
Not because she was dead.
But because I was alive.
May you like
Fully, completely alive.
And that was the greatest victory of all.
