Chapter 10 - The Well
Three years later.
Spring had arrived in Concord. The lemon trees in my small greenhouse were blooming, filling the backyard with a sweet, sharp scent that reminded me of fresh light after a long winter storm.
Leo was three and a half years old. He had his father’s thick, wavy dark hair, but his eyes were pure Graham Voss—gray, sharp, full of an endless, restless curiosity about how everything in the world worked.
He was currently running across the grass behind the farmhouse, wearing yellow rubber boots, chasing a golden retriever puppy that my father had bought him for his third birthday despite my mild, token protests.
“Grandpa! Look!” Leo shouted, pointing toward the edge of the woods where three wild turkeys were strutting through the tall grass. “They’re huge!”
My father was sitting in a wooden rocking chair on the wrap-around porch, a cup of tea in his hand, watching his grandson with an expression of total, undisturbed peace.
I stepped out onto the porch, carrying a tray with fresh lemonade, two glasses, and the morning mail.
I sat down in the chair beside him, setting the tray on the low table between us.
Among the local newspapers and utility bills was a small, white envelope addressed to me in thin, shaky handwriting. It had no return address, but the postmark was from Providence, Rhode Island.
I picked it up, staring at the blue ink for a long moment.
I didn't open it.
I didn't need to read what was inside. I knew what it contained—another late, pathetic attempt at an apology, another plea for forgiveness, another weak man asking for a crumb from a table he had willingly walked away from.
I held the envelope over the small ceramic dish resting on the porch table, pulled a wooden match from my apron pocket, struck it against the side, and touched the flame to the paper corner.
The white envelope caught fire instantly, curling into gray ash that drifted harmlessly off the edge of the porch, carried away by the spring breeze toward the river.
My father watched the ash vanish into the grass, taking a slow sip of his tea.
“Are you going back to teaching in the fall?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” I smiled, looking out at Leo, who was currently trying to convince the golden retriever to wear his small yellow rain hat. “The elementary school in Concord offered me the third-grade science position. I start in September.”
“Good,” my father nodded, leaning back against his rocking chair. “Third graders need to know how cells work. And how to spot a bad deal.”
I laughed—a real, rich sound that echoed across the green lawn, mixing with the laughter of my son and the quiet, steady murmur of the Concord River flowing past the bottom of the ridge.
I reached into my pocket, my fingers wrapping around the smooth, heavy silver pocket watch my grandfather had carried fifty years ago.
May you like
I didn't carry eighteen dollars in my palm anymore.
I carried an empire behind me, a future before me, and the absolute, unbreakable knowledge that no matter how dark the road ever became, I would never again be a woman who had to ask a coward for a ride home.
