Chapter 14: One Year Later
The following Easter arrived beneath a bright blue sky.
No event tents.
No champagne towers.
No politicians.
Lily invited twelve people to her apartment courtyard.
Evelyn came from Oregon, where she had begun rebuilding a relationship with her sister.
Natalie brought her teenage son.
Agent Brooks arrived carrying a pie she admitted she had purchased.
Samuel brought coffee.
Dr. Shaw came after her hospital shift.
Children from the neighboring apartments hunted for painted eggs across the grass.
For several minutes, the sound transported me back to Richard’s estate.
Pastel shells.
Children laughing.
Glasses clinking.
But this time, no one was bleeding inside the house.
Lily moved between tables wearing a simple blue dress.
There was a faint scar near her lip.
Most people would never notice it.
I always would.
She had completed two semesters of graduate school.
Her focus was trauma counseling and victim advocacy.
She volunteered twice a month at a support center funded through seized Whitmore assets.
The mansion had been sold.
The money supported emergency housing, legal assistance, and medical care for survivors.
Rosehaven had been demolished.
A memorial garden stood where the underground rooms had once been.
Thirty-seven names were engraved into the central stone.
Not all had survived.
But none were hidden anymore.
I spent most of the afternoon near the barbecue.
Lily caught me checking the courtyard entrance.
“You are doing it again.”
“I am cooking.”
“You have looked at the gate fourteen times.”
“Thirteen.”
“Dad.”
I turned away from the entrance.
“Old habits.”
“I know.”
She handed me a plate.
“Samuel told me you refused a permanent position.”
“He talks too much.”
“He said they offered you national command.”
“I declined.”
“Why?”
I looked around the courtyard.
Evelyn was laughing at something Natalie said.
Children chased one another between the tables.
Lily’s apartment window stood open.
Music drifted outside.
“Because I already had a position.”
“As my father?”
“It is demanding work.”
“The pay is terrible.”
“The coffee is better.”
She smiled.
Later, after the guests left, we sat on the courtyard steps.
The sun lowered behind the buildings.
Lily turned an Easter egg between her hands.
“I used to hate this holiday.”
“You are allowed to.”
“I thought I always would.”
“And now?”
“Now it feels like something I took back.”
She cracked the shell gently against the step.
“I visited Richard last month.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
Lily noticed.
“It was through reinforced glass. Two guards. Samuel knew.”
“I did not.”
“I know.”
“Why did you go?”
“He kept sending letters. I never opened them. Then I decided I wanted him to see me.”
I waited.
“He looked older.”
“Prison does that.”
“He asked whether I missed him.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him I do not think about him every day anymore.”
That answer probably hurt Richard more than hatred ever could.
“He tried to apologize,” she continued. “But every apology began with what his mother had done to him.”
“He wanted understanding.”
“He wanted permission to remain the center of the story.”
She looked toward the darkening courtyard.
“I told him his childhood explained his choices. It did not erase them.”
“What happened then?”
“He became angry.”
“Of course.”
“He said you turned me against him.”
I almost laughed.
“What did you say?”
“I told him you tried to warn me about several things after we became engaged, but I defended him.”
“I should have warned you more clearly.”
“Maybe.”
She touched my arm.
“But I needed to make my own decisions then too.”
We sat quietly.
After a while, she asked, “Do you miss the work?”
“Sometimes.”
“The power?”
“No.”
“That answer came too quickly.”
I considered it again.
“Perhaps I miss knowing exactly what to do.”
“And now?”
“Now I ask more questions.”
“That must be painful.”
“Terrible.”
She laughed.
The courtyard lights came on automatically.
For years, I believed protecting Lily meant standing between her and every dangerous thing.
Now I understood something harder.
May you like
A father cannot remove every darkness from his child’s path.
Sometimes love means walking beside her while she learns she can carry her own light.
