Chapter 10 - The Castle We Built
Spring arrived in Virginia with an explosion of cherry blossoms and warm, golden sunshine, washing away the bitter cold of that unforgettable Christmas afternoon.
Our new life was entirely our own.
The transition of Blake Industrial into Meridian’s global infrastructure division was an unprecedented success, and my role as Managing Director gave me the freedom, flexibility, and financial security to spend every afternoon with my daughter.
On a bright Saturday morning in late April, Lily and I were out in the backyard of our new home in Arlington, planting rows of pink tulips along the white picket fence.
Lily was wearing her favorite yellow sundress, her dark curls tied back with a pink ribbon, cheerfully digging small holes in the rich soil with her bright blue plastic shovel.
“Mommy, look! A worm!” she cheered, holding up a wiggly creature on the end of her shovel with absolute fascination.
“That’s a very hardworking worm, Lily. Put him back in the dirt so he can help our flowers grow,” I laughed, kneeling on the grass in my gardening gloves.
As Lily carefully tucked the worm back into the soil, my cell phone buzzed in the pocket of my jeans.
I pulled it out and glanced at the screen. It was an unknown number with a Richmond area code.
I let it ring out.
It went to voicemail, stopped for five seconds, and then buzzed again.
I pressed the ignore button, silenced the phone, and tossed it onto the wooden patio bench. I didn't care who was calling. I didn't care if it was my father, my mother, or my sister begging for financial help.
The bridge was burned, the castle was built, and the moat was firmly in place.
“Mommy?” Lily called out, running over and wiping a smudge of dark dirt across her forehead, looking remarkably like a little princess in the sunshine.
“Yes, my love?” I asked, dropping my gardening tools and opening my arms.
Lily ran straight into my embrace, wrapping her small, warm arms tightly around my neck.
“Do you love me?” she whispered softly against my ear.
I pulled her closer, pressing a tender kiss to her cheek, feeling the profound, unbreakable love that my father had been too blind and arrogant to ever understand.
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“I love you more than all the flowers in the world, Lily,” I whispered, looking out over our bright, beautiful yard. “And you will always, always matter.”
Lily smiled, buried her face in my shoulder, and for the first time in her life, she didn't have to look back at the past at all.
