Chapter 9 - The Promise Kept
Summer bled into the golden hues of September, marking one full year since I had disguised myself as a gardener on my own estate.
On Sophie’s eighth birthday, we didn't throw a lavish society brunch for donors and politicians. There were no cameras, no foreign dignitaries, and no crystal flutes clinking in the background.
Instead, we hosted a backyard campout.
We pitched a heavy canvas tent right in the middle of the back lawn where the roses grew. Sophie and Caleb wore matching dinosaur pajamas, roasting marshmallows over a portable fire pit with Grace supervising every sticky, burnt marshmallow with exaggerated seriousness.
As dusk fell, painting the Connecticut sky in deep shades of indigo and amber, I sat beside the fire pit strumming an old acoustic guitar I hadn't touched in a decade.
“Daddy, tell the story about the gardener again!” Caleb demanded, waving a charred marshmallow in the air.
“Again? You’ve heard it ten times this week,” I laughed.
“Please, Daddy?” Sophie pleaded, her dark-blond hair catching the firelight.
I looked across the fire at Grace, who was smiling softly, her eyes reflecting the dancing flames.
“All right,” I relented, setting the guitar down and pulling both children close into my lap. “Once upon a time, there was a man who thought he could hide behind fake beards and muddy boots to find out what was happening in his own house. But he forgot that children always know who’s really protecting them.”
“And what happened to the wicked witch?” Caleb asked innocently.
“She went away to a very boring place where she doesn't get to bother anyone ever again,” I answered, kissing the top of his head.
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“And the gardener?” Sophie whispered.
“The gardener took off his cap,” I smiled, looking from my children to Grace, “and decided he was never going to leave his family again.”
