Chapter 11
The months after the trial were a blur of healing.
We sold the big house Margaret had picked out for us.
The one with too many bad memories.
We bought a small, cozy farmhouse an hour outside the city.
It had a big yard.
A porch swing.
A treehouse James built for the girls.
No security gates.
No cameras.
No neighbors staring.
Just peace.
We got a dog.
A big, goofy golden retriever the girls named Sunshine.
He slept at the foot of their bed every night.
Lily blossomed.
The nightmares stopped.
She stopped flinching when someone raised their voice.
She made the soccer team.
She got straight A’s.
She was voted class president in third grade.
She was loud.
She was funny.
She was confident.
She was our brave, beautiful Lily.
Grace took longer.
She still had nightmares.
She still woke up screaming some nights.
She still flinched if we moved too fast.
But slowly, surely, she came out of her shell.
We got her into therapy.
A wonderful woman named Dr. Maya who specialized in childhood trauma.
She helped Grace talk about what she’d been through.
Helped her understand it wasn’t her fault.
Helped her learn that she was safe now.
That she was loved.
That she would never be abandoned again.
Darlene came to visit every other weekend.
She stayed in the guest room.
She baked cookies with the girls.
She told Grace stories about when she was a baby.
Grace loved her.
And we loved Darlene too.
She was family now.
Sarah Henderson became a close friend.
Her oldest daughter’s heart surgery was a success.
Clara paid for it, of course.
Sarah brought her kids to visit often.
Lily and Grace loved playing with them.
James and I went to couples therapy too.
We had a lot to work through.
The years of him not believing me.
The guilt we both felt over losing our son.
The guilt over Grace.
We learned to talk to each other.
Really talk.
To listen.
To trust each other again.
Our marriage grew stronger than it had ever been.
We didn’t have the Carter Group anymore.
But James didn’t care.
He started a small construction company.
He built houses for low-income families.
Houses for people like Darlene and Sarah.
People who needed a break.
He loved it.
He came home every night dirty and tired and happy.
I went back to school.
I got my degree in social work.
I started working with kids who’d been through trauma.
Kids like Grace.
Kids who needed someone to fight for them.
It was hard work.
Heartbreaking work.
But it was the most rewarding thing I’d ever done.
Clara moved into a small house ten minutes away.
She was the best aunt in the world.
She took the girls shopping.
To the zoo.
To the movies.
She spoiled them rotten.
And we let her.
She’d earned it.
Detective Rao came to our house for dinner once a month.
He brought his wife and two kids.
The kids all played together.
We laughed.
We ate too much.
We talked about everything except Margaret.
Because Margaret was gone.
She’d been convicted on all twelve criminal counts.
The jury had deliberated for three days.
They’d found her guilty of first-degree murder.
Guilty of kidnapping.
Guilty of everything.
The judge had sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
She’d appealed twice.
Both appeals had been denied.
She would die in prison.
Alone.
Forgotten.
She’d tried to send the girls letters from prison.
Hundreds of them.
Full of lies.
Full of promises.
Full of hate.
We never opened them.
We never let the girls see them.
We just threw them away.
She didn’t exist anymore.
On the one-year anniversary of the verdict, we had a party.
All our friends and family came.
Clara.
Sarah and her family.
Darlene.
Detective Rao and his family.
Dr. Maya.
Ben, our lawyer.
All the people who’d stood by us.
Who’d fought for us.
Who’d loved us when we couldn’t love ourselves.
We sat on the porch swing, watching the girls play in the yard with Sunshine.
Lily was chasing Grace, screaming with laughter.
Grace was holding the unicorn Lily had given her the day we met her.
It was ragged now.
Missing an eye.
But she still slept with it every night.
James put his arm around me.
“Can you believe it?” he said. “A year ago, we were fighting for our lives. For our girls. And now… look at them.”
I leaned my head on his shoulder.
“I know. Some days I still wake up scared it’s all a dream. That I’ll open my eyes and we’ll be back in that big, cold house. That Margaret will be standing over us.”
James squeezed me tight.
“It’s not a dream. It’s real. We’re safe. The girls are safe. It’s over.”
I looked at our girls.
At our beautiful, perfect daughters.
Lily, brave and fierce and kind.
Grace, quiet and sweet and getting stronger every day.
I thought of our son.
The little boy we’d lost.
We’d named him Daniel.
We had a small stone with his name on it under the big oak tree in the yard.
The girls visited it every day.
They talked to him.
Told him about their day.
Told him they loved him.
He was part of our family.
Always.
I closed my eyes, listening to the girls laugh.
The sun was warm on my face.
The air smelled like grass and flowers and James’ cologne.
For the first time in my life, I felt completely at peace.
Completely safe.
Completely loved.
We’d been through hell.
We’d lost so much.
But we’d found each other.
We’d found our family.
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And that was enough.
That was more than enough.
