Chapter 10 - The House by the Sound
A year and three months after the party, the salt air off Block Island Sound smelled like pine needles and clean, cold water.
The cottage wasn't large—a small, two-bedroom shingled house in a fishing village three hours north of the city, perched on a low bluff overlooking a gray pebble beach. There were no vinyl sidings, no four-thousand-dollar grills, and no decorative birdbaths.
On the small front porch, Linda sat in a wicker rocker, knitting a green wool blanket for the daughter of one of the women at the local community center. Her hair had turned completely silver, but her face had smoothed out, the tight, terrified lines around her mouth replaced by the soft, easy creases of a woman who hadn't heard a boot strike a floorboard in fourteen months.
"Tea’s ready, El," she called through the screen door.
"Coming, Mom," I answered from the kitchen.
I walked out onto the porch carrying two thick ceramic mugs, the steam rising into the crisp October breeze. I handed one to my mother, then leaned my hip against the railing, looking out toward the horizon where the ferry to New London was cutting a white scar across the dark blue water.
The legal aid clinic had offered me a full-time directorship in their new family advocacy program two weeks ago. I had accepted. My salary wasn't huge—it was less than Charles used to spend on scotch and cigars in a single summer—but every dollar had my name on the check, and none of it came from an envelope hidden under a floorboard.
My burner phone was gone, buried in a federal evidence locker somewhere in Brooklyn. In its place, my regular phone sat on the outdoor table, quiet except for an occasional message from Vance, who checked in every three months like clockwork just to make sure the local police blotter remained boring.
"It’s going to freeze tonight," Linda said, her needles clicking together with a soft, steady rhythm that had become the soundtrack to our new life.
"Let it," I said, taking a sip of the warm tea, feeling the heat settle deep into my chest. "We have plenty of wood."
She looked up at me, her eyes clear, bright, and completely unafraid. She reached out and patted my hand where it rested on the cedar rail—the same hand that had bled onto the curb, the same hand that had held the flash drive, the same hand that had brought down the entire rotten empire with four words.
"You have your father’s chin, you know," she said quietly, without malice.
May you like
I touched the small, pale scar on my cheek with the tip of my finger. The skin was smooth now, firm, completely healed.
"No, Mom," I said, looking out at the endless, open water where no one was hiding in the shadows, where no one had to be afraid of the footsteps on the stairs. "I have my own."
