Chapter 16
Ethan refused to go near a pool for four months.
I never forced him.
Thomas would have.
Vanessa would have mocked him.
Marcus would have called fear useful.
I waited.
Bianca did too.
She moved into the east guest house.
Not mine.
Not yet.
Twelve years needed space.
Sometimes Ethan visited her.
Sometimes he didn’t.
She never demanded it.
That mattered.
One afternoon he found the old tablet case.
He froze.
I saw the memory.
The pool.
Marcus crawling.
The recording.
I crouched.
“Want me to put it away?”
He thought.
“No.”
“What do you want?”
He opened it.
The tablet had been wiped of everything except copies secured elsewhere.
Ethan touched the screen.
“Can I draw?”
“Yes.”
He drew three stick figures.
One tall green dress.
One little blue shirt.
One gray-haired woman.
Bianca looked over my shoulder.
“That’s me?”
Ethan nodded.
“You need more hair.”
She laughed.
Real.
It startled all of us.
Later, he asked:
“Why did Grandpa not like Grandma?”
Bianca looked at me.
I let her answer.
“He wanted me to obey him.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Ethan thought.
“Then he got mad.”
“Yes.”
He nodded as if adults were simple.
Sometimes we are.
“What happened to Vanessa?”
He asked.
“Far away.”
“Marcus?”
“Same.”
“Grandpa?”
I paused.
“Somewhere he can’t order anyone around.”
Ethan smiled.
“Good.”
No vengeance.
Just relief.
That was enough.
At night, Bianca told me about Arizona.
Cheap apartments.
Different names.
Watching photographs of me from afar.
Never knowing when Thomas might reach me through her.
I listened.
Sometimes angry.
Sometimes numb.
Healing did not arrive as forgiveness.
It arrived as information no longer hidden.
Before bed, Ethan called from the hallway.
“Mommy?”
I went immediately.
Bianca smiled.
“You always run.”
“Yes.”
Thomas had called that weakness.
Bianca shook her head.
“No.”
“What?”
“That’s how children learn home is real.”
I looked at Ethan.
May you like
Then at the woman I had believed dead for twelve years.
For once, nobody needed fear to keep us in the same house.
