Chapter 10 - Spring in Ontario
Ten months after the sentencing, the sun rose warm and golden over the rolling hills of the Niagara Escarpment in southern Ontario.
The apple orchard was in full, breathtaking bloom—acres of white and pale pink blossoms filling the morning air with a clean, sweet perfume. A gentle breeze rolled off Lake Ontario, carrying the distant chime of church bells from the village three miles down the road.
I stood on the wraparound cedar porch of the stone farmhouse we had purchased in November, holding a steaming mug of black coffee. The leg still ached when the weather changed—the titanium rod in my femur was a permanent reminder of the crane accident—but I walked without a cane now, my boots solid and heavy against the cedar planks.
The screen door creaked open.
Elena stepped out onto the porch, barefoot, wearing a soft cream-colored sweater and jeans. Her hair had grown past her shoulders now, dark and shining in the morning sun, tumbling in thick, natural curls around her radiant face.
She carried a sketchpad and a tin of charcoal pencils.
“The mist is clearing over the lower orchard,” she said, leaning against the railing beside me. She smelled of lavender soap and fresh air.
“It’s going to be seventy degrees today,” I said, wrapping my free arm around her waist, pulling her against my side.
She leaned her head against my shoulder. For months after the trial, she had still flinched at sudden noises, still hoarded bread rolls under her pillow in the hotel rooms, still woke up gasping for air in the dead of night, convinced she was back in the coal cellar.
But time, distance, and the absolute security of our new life had worked their quiet miracles. We had left the United States behind entirely. We sold the old suburban house to a young couple with two golden retrievers, sold every piece of furniture, and used the proceeds—along with the court-ordered restitution and my actual, legitimate Canadian worker’s compensation settlement—to buy seventy acres of fruit trees and peace.
“Mrs. Alden called this morning,” Elena murmured, watching a pair of bluebirds dart through the apple blossoms.
“How is she?”
“She loved the preserves we sent. She said Travis filed another appeal from Rockview last week. The appellate court rejected it in eleven seconds without a hearing.”
I took a sip of my coffee. “Travis can appeal until his teeth fall out. It won't change the locks.”
“And Margaret?”
“Marcus sent an email yesterday,” I said quietly. “She was transferred to the geriatric infirmary at the state prison in Cambridge. She’s confined to a wheelchair now. She told the prison chaplain that she doesn't have any sons.”
Elena fell silent for a long moment. She looked down at her hands—hands that were smooth now, the scars faded into faint, silvery lines, her nails painted a soft, clean rose.
“Good,” she whispered.
She set her sketchpad on the small wooden table beside our porch chairs and turned in my arms, resting her hands against the lapels of my fleece jacket. She looked up into my eyes with that same amber fire that had caught my heart when we were twenty years old in an airport terminal, but deeper now, forged through fire, unbroken, and entirely ours.
“Daniel?”
“Yeah, El?”
“Let’s go walk down by the creek,” she said, a real, radiant smile lighting up her face. “The water’s running clear today. And I want to feel the mud under my feet.”
I smiled back, setting my coffee mug down on the railing.
May you like
“Lead the way,” I said.
And together, side by side, we walked down the wooden steps, through the grass covered in dew, and out into the vast, bright morning of a world where nobody could ever cage her again.
