Chapter 10
Three years after the day I lost my baby, I visited the little garden behind the church near my apartment.
I had planted a small white rose bush there.
No name was written on it.
Only a tiny plaque that said:
Forever loved.
I sat beside it in the morning sun.
For a long time, I said nothing.
Then I whispered, “I’m sorry I could not protect you.”
The wind moved through the leaves.
And I remembered something my therapist had told me.
You were hurt. You were not responsible.
I closed my eyes.
“I love you,” I whispered.
Then I stood.
When I returned home, a delivery waited outside my door.
It was from Ava.
Inside was a framed photo from the opening day of my studio.
I was standing beneath my sign, smiling.
Not the careful smile I used to wear at Linda’s dinner table.
A real one.
I hung the photo in my office.
Then I opened the blinds and let sunlight fill the room.
Linda had tried to make me small.
She had tried to make me feel weak.
She had tried to take my future from me.
But she failed.
I was not the frightened woman on the kitchen floor anymore.
I was not someone’s silent wife.
I was Emily Hart.
I was safe.
May you like
I was loved.
And I was finally free.
