Chapter 9 - The Final Reflection
Later that night, after our guests had left and Lily was fast asleep in her room, waiting for Santa to arrive, I stepped out onto my second-floor balcony with a warm cup of hot chocolate.
Snow was falling gently over Chicago, dusting the tree branches in Lincoln Park with a soft, clean layer of white.
My phone buzzed on the balcony railing.
It was an automated legal update from my attorney's office regarding Nathan’s formal sentencing hearing, which had concluded earlier that week.
Nathan had officially begun serving a three-year sentence at a minimum-security state facility in Illinois. Brooke Lawson was serving eighteen months of probation and five hundred hours of community service. Arthur and Eleanor Reed were living quietly in their small apartment, completely forgotten by the society crowds they had once obsessively tried to impress.
I deleted the notification.
I didn't need to read the details. Their choices had written their story, just as my choices had written mine.
I took a slow breath of the crisp, freezing winter air, feeling the steady, warm beat of my heart inside my chest.
A year ago tonight, I was standing in a hallway holding a telephone, listening to a man tell me there was no room for my daughter and me at his table.
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He had thought he was discarding us.
He didn't realize he was setting us free.
