Later that night, I carried Amelia upstairs.
She fell asleep with her cheek against my shoulder.
I paused outside the nursery.
Lucas’s photograph hung beside the door.
I looked at him.
“We made it,” I whispered.
The house was quiet.
Safe.
Ours.
As I laid Amelia in her crib, she opened her sleepy eyes.
“Mama?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Home?”
I brushed the hair away from her forehead.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
I smiled through my tears.
“We’re home.”
And in that moment, I remembered my father standing above me on the porch, telling me to call whoever I wanted.
He had believed I was powerless.
He had believed that without Lucas, I had nothing.
He had believed my silence meant surrender.
But he had been wrong about all three.
Because the morning he dragged me out of my own house, he thought he was throwing away a helpless widow.
Instead, he was throwing away the last person who might have forgiven him before he destroyed himself.
