Chapter 10 - The Sound of Sunlight
The wedding was small, held on the sun-drenched lawn of the Southampton estate as the sun dipped toward the horizon, painting the Atlantic in shades of gold and amber.
There were no mobsters, no politicians with secret agendas, no armed guards standing in the shadows.
Just a few trusted friends, a federal judge who owed Grace a favor, and three little girls wearing matching white dresses with blue sashes.
Olivia stood as the maid of honor, holding a small bouquet of white roses. Sophie and Nora carried the rings on a velvet cushion.
When the judge pronounced us husband and wife, I kissed Grace—not with the desperate urgency of a man running from his past, but with the quiet, unshakable certainty of a man who had finally found his home.
As the small gathering began to clap, Nora tugged on the hem of my suit jacket.
I knelt down. "What is it, sweetheart?"
Nora didn't whisper this time. Her voice rang out clear, loud, and full of pure, unadulterated joy across the lawn.
"Can we sing the song now, Daddy?"
I looked up at Grace, whose eyes were shining with happy tears, and then back at my daughters.
"Sing it," I said, my voice thick with emotion.
And as the sun sank into the ocean, three little girls, their mother’s memory alive in their hearts and a new mother standing by their side, raised their voices together in the warm evening air.
“You are my sunshine, My only sunshine, You make me happy When skies are gray…”
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I pulled Grace close against my side, resting my chin on her hair as the music carried across the water. The shadows of the past were gone, locked away forever behind iron gates that would never open again.
We were home.
