Chapter 10
The wedding was small, held in the backyard of Ethan’s house, under the big oak tree.
Mabel baked the cake.
Claire was my maid of honor.
Jake was the ring bearer, Emma and Leo the flower children, scattering daisies down the makeshift aisle.
Nathan came, bringing a gift for Emma and a card for me. He shook Ethan’s hand, wished us well, and left before the reception started. He didn’t want to intrude. He knew his place now.
I wore a simple white dress, no veil, no fancy jewelry.
Ethan wore a new flannel shirt and jeans.
We said our vows in front of twenty of our closest friends, the sun setting behind the trees, the kids laughing and running around the yard.
When Ethan kissed me, the crowd cheered.
For the first time in my life, I felt truly, deeply happy.
No lies.
No secrets.
No fear.
Just love.
Family.
Home.
A year later, we had a baby boy.
We named him Liam.
He had Ethan’s brown eyes and my nose.
Emma loved being a big sister. She helped me change his diapers, sang him lullabies, told him every night that she’d always protect him. Leo loved him too, calling him “my baby brother” and bringing him his favorite stuffed animals.
Jake was the best big brother of all.
He taught Liam how to throw a ball.
How to build block towers.
How to make silly faces that made the baby laugh so hard he snort-laughed, just like his big sister.
Richard Whitmore was convicted on all counts six months after our wedding.
He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
He died two years later, alone in his cell, of a heart attack.
No one went to his funeral.
Not Margaret.
Not Nathan.
Not a single person who’d ever worked for him.
He’d spent his whole life chasing money and power, thinking they’d make him happy. He’d died with nothing. No friends. No family. No love.
I thought about him sometimes, when I was sitting on the porch watching the kids play.
I didn’t hate him anymore.
I just felt sorry for him.
He’d never known what it was like to hold your newborn baby and feel like your heart was going to burst.
He’d never known what it was like to come home to someone who loved you for you, not for your money or your name.
He’d never known real happiness.
And that was a worse punishment than any prison sentence.
Nathan got engaged a year after Richard died, to a woman he’d met at the nonprofit where he worked. She was a social worker, kind and smart, with a son of her own from a previous marriage. They got married in a small ceremony in Austin, Emma and Leo in the wedding party.
I went to the wedding.
Claire went too.
We sat in the back, holding hands, smiling as Nathan said his vows.
He looked happy.
Peaceful.
Like he’d finally forgiven himself for all the mistakes he’d made.
Life wasn’t perfect.
We had bad days.
Sick kids.
Fights about money.
Days when I was so tired I could barely get out of bed.
But it was ours.
Every messy, beautiful, perfect bit of it.
One night, when Liam was six months old, I was sitting on the porch after everyone else had gone to bed, drinking a glass of wine, looking up at the stars.
Ethan came out, wrapping a blanket around my shoulders, sitting down next to me.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked, kissing the top of my head.
I thought back to that terrible day in the hospital.
To Nathan’s cold voice saying he already had a son with another woman.
To the fear I’d felt when I ran away with Emma, not knowing if we’d survive the week.
To the chase in Austin.
The shootout in the motel.
The trial.
The media circus.
And then I thought about now.
About our four kids asleep in the house.
About Claire bringing over cookies tomorrow.
About Nathan coming to visit on Sunday.
About our life, messy and complicated and perfect.
“I’m thinking,” I said, leaning my head on Ethan’s shoulder, “that sometimes the worst day of your life turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to you.”
Ethan squeezed my hand.
We sat there in silence for a long time, watching the stars, listening to the crickets chirp in the grass.
Somewhere in the house, Liam made a small noise, then settled back to sleep.
I smiled.
I’d walked into that hospital room four years earlier as Grace Whitmore, a wife who thought she had everything.
I’d walked out as Grace Parker, a mother with nothing but a baby and a plan.
And I’d built something better than anything Richard Whitmore could have ever bought with his stolen millions.
A family.
A home.
May you like
A life worth fighting for.
And for the first time in my life, I was truly free.
