Chapter 10 - Clear Skies in Colorado
Six months later, spring had returned to Denver.
The snow had melted from the foothills, leaving the valleys washed in vibrant, pale green grass. The lilacs along our back fence were beginning to bud, their sweet, sharp fragrance drifting through the open kitchen windows.
I sat at the oak dining table with Robert Hayes, reviewing the final decree of dissolution of marriage.
Judge Eleanor Vance had shown Melissa zero leniency. The forensic evidence had been so overwhelming that Melissa’s attorney had practically begged for a plea agreement before criminal charges could proceed to a grand jury indictment.
Under the terms of the settlement, Melissa surrendered all claims to our residence, waived all rights to spousal support, and was forced to sign over the title of her vehicle and liquidate her private investment accounts to repay every single penny of the sixty-four thousand dollars stolen from Claire’s education trust, plus ten percent statutory interest.
She had moved back to Phoenix to live in a small apartment near her sister, working as an administrative assistant at a logistics firm. Zoe remained in Salt Lake City with Greg, thriving in a new school, playing on the track team, and sending Mia occasional friendly postcards from Utah that Mia kept pinned to her corkboard.
"It’s over, Scott," Robert said, sliding the stamped court order across the table. "You have sole legal custody of all marital assets, the trust is fully replenished, and the protective order is permanent. Melissa is officially out of your lives forever."
"Thank you, Robert," I said, shaking his hand firmly. "For everything."
After Robert left, I walked through the house.
Over the winter, Mia and I had completely transformed it. We had repainted the living room in a warm, sunny cream, replacing Melissa’s sterile gray aesthetic with colorful landscape paintings Mia had done in her weekend art classes. The kitchen was full of life—flour on the counter from homemade cookies, soccer cleats by the back door, and framed photographs of Claire, Mia, and me smiling from the mantelpiece without apology.
The doorbell rang.
It wasn't a tentative, fearful knock. It was the loud, aggressive double-ring of a best friend who knew she didn't need an invitation.
Lily burst through the front door without waiting, holding a pair of hiking boots in one hand and a bag of trail mix in the other.
"Mr. Reynolds! Tell Mia to hurry up! The trailhead at Red Rocks is going to be packed if we don't leave in twenty minutes!"
From upstairs, the sound of running sneakers pounded against the floorboards. Mia came flying down the stairs, wearing faded jeans, a fleece jacket, and a baseball cap pulled backward.
"I’m ready, I’m ready!" Mia shouted, grabbing her backpack from the bench. "Dad, did you pack the canteen?"
"Right here," I laughed, tossing the stainless-steel bottle to her. She caught it cleanly with one hand.
Jessica pulled up in the driveway, leaning on the horn of her sedan with a friendly tap.
"Go on," I said, waving them toward the door. "I’ll meet you guys at the parking lot with the trail map."
Lily sprinted down the steps toward the car, but Mia paused on the threshold.
She stopped right where she had stood six months ago, on that freezing afternoon when the door had been held halfway shut, when she had held six silver place cards in her pocket and wondered if she was unlovable.
She looked at the wide-open front door. She looked at the sunlight streaming across the hardwood floor, unobstructed, bright, and warm.
Then she looked back at me, her eyes crinkling with an effortless, brilliant smile.
May you like
"Ready, Dad?" she asked.
"Always, Mia," I said, stepping across the threshold beside her into the clear Colorado sun. "Always."
