Fourteen months later, Grant received two life sentences.
Celeste received four years.
A judgment against them covered the stolen property, damage, and money obtained through fraud.
On the day the sheriff restored my home, I found Dad’s watch hidden behind a drawer in his study.
It had stopped.
I had it repaired.
Now it ticks beside my bed.
On Sunday mornings, sunlight fills the kitchen where my mother once taught me to make pancakes.
Friends come over.
Someone always burns the first batch.
I planted a magnolia beside the driveway.
Beneath it rests the little urn, repaired with gold along the cracks.
Sometimes I sit there after everyone leaves.
I miss them without an audience.
Then I go inside, switch on Dad’s reading lamp, and leave my keys on the table.
Nobody can make me leave again.
