Chapter 19
Evelyn died when Grace was nineteen.
No dramatic ending.
No apology.
A stroke in her apartment.
Dominic called to tell me.
His voice was quiet.
“I don’t know what to feel.”
“That makes sense.”
“She was my mother.”
“Yes.”
“She was also dangerous.”
“Yes.”
He cried softly.
I let him.
Not as his wife.
As the mother of his children.
Grace did not attend the funeral.
Noah did, with Dominic, by choice.
When he came home, he said, “It was sad, but not for the reasons people think.”
I nodded.
He understood.
Dominic continued rebuilding his relationship with the children.
Never fully restored.
Never erased.
But honest.
He started working for a nonprofit that helped men leaving cycles of family violence.
I did not praise him publicly.
The work did not need my applause.
Grace graduated college in design.
Noah entered law school.
May you like
Vale & Co. became one of the most trusted independent jewelers in the country.
And I finally stopped touching my cheek when I walked through the flagship doors.
