Chapter 8 - Breathing Again
For the first time in six months, I slept through the night.
The next morning, I woke up, walked into the kitchen, and finally picked up Ethan’s coffee mug.
I didn't wash it, but I packed it gently into a box with tissue paper.
I packed Lily's jacket.
I packed Noah's little sideways sneakers.
I was moving.
Aunt Ruth and Ethan's parents helped me pack up the house over the next week.
We sold the property and I bought a smaller, quiet cabin near the lake where Ethan and I had planned to spend that tragic weekend.
The foundation launched in the spring.
Our first major initiative was funding mandatory fatigue-monitoring systems for commercial trucking fleets across the state.
The law passed the state legislature in May, and the governor signed it with a pen that I got to keep.
It sits on my desk, right next to a framed photo of my family.
As for my blood relatives, they tried to fight the cease and desist.
My father tried to claim I was mentally unfit to manage my affairs.
My lawyers crushed him in court in less than ten minutes, and the judge ordered him to pay my legal fees.
I heard through the grapevine that Melissa had to cancel her fancy country club wedding.
She got married in a local park, and my parents had to take out a second mortgage to pay for the catering because they had leveraged themselves, assuming they were getting my millions.
I didn't care.
I didn't feel joy at their failure, nor did I feel pity.
I felt absolutely nothing for them.
They were strangers.
Today is the anniversary of the accident.
I am sitting on the porch of my lake house.
Margaret and David are inside, making lunch. Aunt Ruth is out on the dock, fishing and loudly complaining about the sun.
I close my eyes and listen to the water lapping against the shore.
The grief is still there. It will always be there, a heavy stone in my pocket.
But the air is clean.
May you like
I am finally breathing again.
And my family—my true, real family—is exactly where they belong: right beside me.
