Chapter 9 - Roots and Rafters
Two years after the day the ledger closed, our business celebrated its tenth anniversary.
We didn't throw a lavish party or rent out a downtown venue. Instead, Saurin and I hosted a backyard barbecue at our own home—the very house Karina once dismissed, now expanded and improved with our own hands, featuring a sturdy wraparound porch and a garden overflowing with tomatoes and sunflowers.
My father was walking again, using a light quad-cane for balance, proudly planting a new row of rosebushes by the front steps. My mother had learned how to bake her own bread without a hired kitchen assistant, and her laughter—once tight and rehearsed—now rang out naturally across the lawn.
Karina arrived early, carrying a homemade peach cobbler baked from scratch. She wore a simple linen dress and flat leather sandals, her hair catching the golden afternoon sunlight.
She walked straight up to me in the kitchen, handing over the warm baking dish.
“It’s not fancy,” Karina said with a self-deprecating smile. “No gold ribbon. But I peeled every peach myself.”
“It’s perfect,” I said, setting it down beside the stove.
Later that afternoon, as the sun began to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of deep amber and violet, we all gathered on the wraparound porch.
Lumen, now eleven and taller, sat on the top step strumming a tune on a secondhand acoustic guitar Saurin had fixed up for her. Her little lightning-bolt charm—the one she had saved from the broken gift bag years ago—hung from a simple leather cord around her neck, catching the fading light.
Karina sat on a wooden bench nearby, leaning her head back against the newly stained cedar siding of our home, eyes closed, breathing in the scent of damp earth and blooming jasmine.
My father raised his glass of iced tea toward Saurin and me.
“To foundations,” my father said, his voice resonant and strong. “The kind you build with your own hands, and the kind you don't ever have to buy.”
May you like
We all raised our glasses in unison.
The evening breeze whispered through the oak trees, carrying the sound of laughter, music, and the quiet, unshakeable hum of a family finally standing on solid ground.
