Chapter 15 - THE FIRST STEP HOME
Six months after the crash, I walked into my own kitchen without a wheelchair.
I used a cane.
I was slow.
Chloe had decorated the doorway with construction-paper stars.
"Don't cry yet," she ordered. "There's more."
Dad carried one grocery bag behind me.
The house no longer looked like Julian's house.
So was the enormous television he insisted made the room "balanced."
Chloe chose a bright yellow chair for the corner.
Julian was sentenced to a long prison term.
I did not take Chloe to sentencing.
"Daddy did something very dangerous," I told her. "A judge decided he has to stay somewhere secure for a long time."
"Does he still love me?"
"I believe he does. Loving someone doesn't always make them safe."
"Can I love him from far away?"
"Yes."
Truth keeps people safe.
Chloe eventually chose to send Julian one drawing through her therapist.
It showed the same purple house she had drawn in the hospital.
Dad was in the driveway holding a grocery bag.
Far away, at the edge of the page, Julian stood beneath a gray cloud again.
Dana completed her sentence and probation requirements.
Dr. Mallory lost his medical license after disciplinary proceedings.
Eric Baines went to prison too.
The first weekend I was strong enough to travel, Dad drove Chloe and me there.
Chloe ran to the dock and shouted that the lake was "too big to be real."
Dad stood beside me on the porch.
"Ruth would like this," he said.
"She'd tell you you're standing on the wrong side of the screen door."
"I got offered another consulting contract overseas."
"Are you going?"
"I don't know."
"You should go if you want to," I said. "Just don't disappear."
"I won't."
"And don't call classified work 'a conference.' That's ridiculous."
"Noted."
He looked toward Chloe.
"You know I didn't save you, right?"
"You opened a hospital door at a useful moment."
"That's about it."
"It mattered."
"But you did the rest."
I thought about the woman I had been in that hospital bed.
A school secretary refusing an unauthorized pickup.
A child telling the truth about a garage.
A father learning to stand behind me instead of in front of me.
On the last evening at the cabin, Chloe fell asleep on the couch with a book open on her chest.
Dad went outside to bring in firewood.
Outside, Chloe's purple drawing was taped to the glass.
I touched the words with two fingers.
Then I looked at my reflection.
The scars were still there.
May you like
So was I.
And this time, that was enough.
