Chapter 6 - The Life He Didn't Get to Take
My daughter was born on a Tuesday in November.
Seven pounds, two ounces, with Derek’s dark hair. I searched her face for anything else of his, then reminded myself she was a new person.
I named her Ivy.
I liked the thought of something growing toward the light. Mostly, I liked saying her name and hearing no expectation attached to it.
The civil case settled eleven months later.
I didn’t take Harlow Shipping. I hadn’t wanted to inherit responsibility for a company so closely tied to the man whose actions had nearly killed me.
I took what the accounting established belonged to me, plus damages.
Part funded a scholarship in Dr. Mercer’s name through Fairview Memorial’s forensic toxicology fellowship program.
Her work had happened in a room I never entered. It helped give me the chance to hold my daughter in one of the rooms I did.
I wanted other people to have that chance.
Allowing Constance into our lives took longer than resolving any document.
Deborah reminded me that surviving didn’t obligate me to forgive anyone. I could be grateful Constance lived and still decide she would not visit.
I knew that.
I also watched her choose to tell the truth about Derek rather than protect him again. Her apology at the hospital hadn’t been followed by a request that I make the consequences easier on her son.
Eventually, I allowed visits every other Sunday.
She holds Ivy carefully, as though she understands that being trusted with someone precious is a responsibility she can lose.
I watch her. I let her.
It isn’t a declaration that the previous six years no longer matter. It is a choice I continue making based on what she does now.
I moved to a smaller company.
There, I could be the woman who noticed an incorrect figure before it caused trouble. I didn’t have to walk past the desks where people remembered seeing me in handcuffs.
I still keep a private file.
Bank records, dates, documents worth saving. I hope most of it will remain ordinary information I never need to use.
Keeping it helps me feel that my own life is something I am entitled to examine.
Last month, around Ivy’s first Halloween, a coworker brought soup to an office potluck.
It was a dark, rich bisque in a thermos. Steam rose when the lid came off.
I stood in the break room longer than I meant to.
My throat tightened, and for a moment I could see my keyboard beneath the spilled soup. I could hear Constance accusing me.
Then I looked around.
This was another office, another thermos, and a coworker who liked cooking more than measuring salt. Ivy’s daycare pickup was half an hour away.
On my desk, an unfinished audit was waiting. Nothing else.
I picked up a spoon and tasted the soup.
It was ordinary. A little too salty.
I stood there with that small, unremarkable mouthful and understood that I didn’t have to remain in the room where Derek had tried to end my life.
I could be here, deciding what to eat, finishing my work, and going to collect my daughter.
He had wanted me to eat what he sent and disappear into the story he had prepared.
I hadn’t eaten it.
May you like
And the life waiting for me outside this break room was mine.
THE END.
