Chapter 10
One year after Clara arrived at my porch in the rain, she came back to my house.
This time, she was wearing sneakers.
Hope slept against her chest.
Clara carried a pie she had baked herself.
“I wanted to bring dessert,” she said.
I smiled.
“You never have to bring anything.”
“I know,” she said. “I wanted to.”
We sat in my kitchen while rain tapped lightly against the windows.
The same rain that had fallen the night she escaped.
Clara looked toward the porch.
“I thought that night was the end of my life.”
“It was the beginning of a different one.”
She smiled.
Hope stirred in her arms.
Then Clara looked at me with tears in her eyes.
“You saved me.”
I reached across the table and held her hand.
“No, sweetheart. You called. You ran. You told the truth.”
She squeezed my fingers.
“But you came.”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I came.”
Outside, the storm moved farther away.
Inside, my daughter laughed softly as her baby opened her eyes.
And I knew Dominic had been wrong about everything.
He did not own the police.
He did not own my daughter.
He did not own fear.
May you like
Because Clara was free.
And this time, she was never going back.
