“Your father made choices he had to answer for.”
“Did Mom hate him?”
I thought about Lily’s final letter.
Then I shook my head.
“No.”
Noah looked confused.
“Why not?”
“Because your mother didn’t want anger to become the thing that defined her life.”
He looked at the letter.
“What did she want?”
I smiled.
“She wanted you.”
The wind moved softly through the oak leaves.
For a moment, I could almost imagine Lily sitting beside us.
Laughing.
Holding her son.
Living the life she should have had.
I closed my eyes.
And remembered the words she had left behind.
You were always my safe place.
I finally understood what she meant.
She had spent her last days preparing to protect everyone she loved.
But she had also trusted us to finish what she started.
And we did.
Jason lost the fortune he had tried to steal.
He lost the company he had claimed as his own.
