Chapter 10 - Where the Light Comes In
Six months later, the house at 412 Birch Street belonged to someone else.
I couldn't live there. Lumi couldn't live there. Every floorboard carried the ghost of Marcus Vance’s fall, and every doorway was haunted by the silent tears she had shed while waiting for me to die.
We used the proceeds from the sale of my old bachelor townhouse, combined with a victim restitution settlement released from Maris’s frozen assets, to buy a small, sun-drenched house three towns over, near the edge of the state forest.
It was a cedar-shingle cottage with a wrap-around porch that didn't creak, huge windows that let the morning light flood into every corner, and a backyard filled with ancient oak trees and wild blackberry bushes. There was no basement. Just a bright, open kitchen with yellow curtains and a wooden table where the only things sitting between us were bowls of fresh strawberries and stacks of drawing paper.
It was a warm Saturday morning in late May.
The front door was wide open, letting in the sweet, earthy breeze of spring. Outside, birds chirped in the high branches, and a golden retriever puppy named Barnaby—a gift from Dr. Evans and his wife—was chasing a butterfly through the tall grass.
I stood at the kitchen stove, flipping blueberry pancakes on a cast-iron skillet, wearing a faded gray t-shirt and sweatpants.
I looked toward the hallway doorway.
May you like
Lumi was standing there.
She wore a bright yellow sundress,
