Ava stood a few feet away, her face turned up toward the sky.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“Now,” I said, “we go home.”
She looked at me.
“Is it still home?
After all of this?”
I thought about the kitchen table.
The lavender in the garden.
The jacket, now carefully folded in a box with Chloe’s other things.
The photograph, which would be returned to me after sentencing.
“It’s our home,” I said.
“Yours and mine.”
She was quiet for a moment.
Then she said: “Chloe would have liked this ending.”
“She would have wanted it sooner,” I said.
Ava laughed — a short, surprised sound, like she’d forgotten she was allowed to.
“Yeah.
She would have.”
We walked to the car together.
The lavender was still blooming when we got home.
I noticed it as I turned the key in the lock — the purple along the fence, catching the late afternoon light, exactly where Chloe had planted it.
I left the front door open behind us.
—
Some truths take years to surface.
But the people who love us — even when they’re gone — have a way of making sure we find them eventually.
Have you ever held onto a secret because you were afraid no one would believe you, or stood by someone when the whole world said you were wrong?
