Chapter 11 - The Winter in Chicago
The snow began falling over Lake Michigan on the third Tuesday of January, thick, silent flakes that covered the grey concrete of Chicago in a clean, pristine blanket of white.
My apartment in Lincoln Park was small—four rooms on the second floor of a brick three-flat built in 1912—with steam radiators that clanked with a warm, domestic rhythm and wide oak windowsills that looked out over the snow-covered branches of the park.
In the center of the living room, near the window, sat a child’s wooden desk, painted bright yellow, equipped with a thick, memory-foam cushion tied to the seat with green velvet ribbons.
Chloe sat at the desk, wearing a heavy wool sweater and a pair of blue corduroy overalls.
She was drawing.
There were no black shadows in this picture. There were no crescent moons.
The construction paper was filled with towering drifts of white crayon, a lopsided snowman with a carrot nose, and two figures holding hands—one very tall with messy brown hair and a journalist’s notebook sticking out of his coat, and one very small with a purple scarf and a stuffed rabbit tucked securely under her arm.
Across the bottom, written in bold, confident red letters that no longer shook:
“OUR HOUSE. CHLOE AND ANDREW.”
Behind her, Dr. Evelyn Vance sat at the kitchen table, reading the morning edition of the Chicago Tribune.
The front page featured a photograph of the United States District Court in Austin:
MICHAEL ASHFORD SENTENCED TO LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE PLUS 120 YEARS. FEDERAL JUDGE DENIES MEDICAL APPEAL, ORDERS IMMEDIATE TRANSFER TO ADX FLORENCE.
Michael would spend the rest of his life in an eight-by-ten concrete cell in the Colorado mountains, twenty-three hours a day in solitary confinement, surrounded by soundproof walls, with no access to digital networks, no visitors, and no legacy that didn't carry the stench of his crimes.
Victoria had entered her guilty plea three days earlier, sentenced to thirty-eight years at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville.
The house in Westlake Hills had been seized under federal asset forfeiture statutes, scheduled for public auction in March, with the entirety of the proceeds—an estimated twenty-two million dollars—placed into a court-administered irrevocable trust established for Chloe’s lifelong medical, psychological, and educational care.
The state of Texas had finalized the kinship adoption proceedings forty-eight hours ago.
She was no longer Chloe Doe. She was no longer an asset in an enterprise portfolio.
She was Chloe Kaufman.
She had taken our mother’s name—the name of the woman who had played hymns on the upright piano before the world grew cold.
"Andrew?"
I set down the teapot, walking into the living room, kneeling beside the yellow desk.
"What is it, Chloe?"
She pointed through the glass at the park across the street, where three children were dragging a red plastic sled up the small hill near the conservatory.
"The snow," she said, her voice clear, bell-like, and steady. "Does it hurt when you fall down in it?"
I looked at her—at the healthy pink returning to her cheeks, at the scar behind her left ear that was fading beneath her growing hair, at the small hand resting lightly on the arm of her padded chair without a trace of guarding.
"No, sweetheart," I said, smiling as I reached for her winter coat and her boots. "The snow doesn't hurt at all. It’s soft. It just catches you."
She stood up from the chair.
May you like
She didn't wince. She didn't hesitate. She didn't look back at the seat.
She took my hand with her warm, small fingers, grabbed her rabbit by the ear, and together, we walked out the front door into the bright, silent, beautiful winter.
