Victoria stood at the kitchen window. Coffee mug in her hand. The coffee had gone cold.
Nathaniel knelt in the flower bed outside. His shirt untucked. Dirt under his fingernails. He pulled a weed. Then another.
Six months since the courtroom. Six months since the wedding.
"Let's leave," he'd said.
"Leave where?"
"Everywhere."
They bought a small house outside Burlington. No security. No boardrooms. A garden. A porch. Silence.
"Are you going to help?" Nathaniel called out.
"I'm supervising."
He stopped pulling weeds. Looked at her. One corner of his mouth lifted.
She stepped outside. Morning air. Spring running late.
"I got a call yesterday."
Nathaniel sat back on his heels. "From who?"
"Olivia. She finished her book. She wants me to write the foreword."
He waited.
Victoria looked at the mountains. "I don't know what to do."
"What's stopping you?"
"Ten years. That story. Writing it down feels like going back."
Nathaniel stood. Brushed dirt from his knees. "Maybe going back isn't the same as being stuck."
She didn't answer.
He went inside.
Victoria stayed in the garden. She thought about Richard. About Sarah. About Catherine on television, still fighting. About Vinson's letters from prison.
Her father's house on Maple Street came to her.
The memory didn't sting anymore.
---
That night, Victoria opened her laptop.
The screen was white. Blank.
She stared at it.
Then she typed:
For Richard.
Her fingers moved.
---
End of Book One.