Chapter 14 - THE LAND WADE FINALLY STOPPED TRYING TO BUY
Two years after the north parcel sold, the new owners put up a simple wooden sign.
BELL FAMILY FARM.
Wade drove past it every week on his way to work.
I knew because he told me during a parenting conference.
“Does it bother you?” I asked.
“Yes.”
Honest.
“Do you still want it?”
He thought for a moment.
“Sometimes.”
“And?”
“Then I remember what wanting it turned me into.”
I did not correct him.
Land did not turn him into anything.
He knew that too.
“That came out wrong.”
“Yes.”
“I remember what I chose because I couldn’t tolerate losing it.”
Better.
Wade had been gambling-free for almost eighteen months according to the documentation required in our parenting process.
He still attended support meetings.
He worked forty-five hours a week.
Rented a small house.
Paid support on time.
Boring.
Good.
Ruth changed more slowly.
She stopped calling through relatives.
Sold the last small piece of property she owned with emotional connection to Thomas.
Kept the duplex.
Started volunteering at a church food pantry.
Hannah rolled her eyes when she heard.
“Of course she did.”
“People are allowed to do good things after bad things.”
“You’re annoyingly mature.”
“Therapy is expensive. I’m getting my money’s worth.”
Ruth sent each girl one birthday card per year through Natalie’s office.
No cash.
No gifts.
No statements about the Harlan name.
Ava refused to read them.
Molly wanted me to.
Grace was too young to care.
One card to Ava said:
I helped create a home where you heard things no child should hear. You were never the wrong kind of grandchild.
I kept it in a file.
Ava did not want it.
That was her choice.
My divorce had been final for over a year by then.
I changed my last name back to Caroline Bennett, my birth name.
Ava asked whether she had to.
“No.”
“Can I someday?”
“Yes.”
“Do I have to?”
“No.”
She smiled.
“Good.”
A name finally became just a name.
My apartment began feeling too small as the girls grew.
I qualified for a mortgage on my own.
Not a mansion.
A three-bedroom brick house in Fort Worth with a tiny backyard and a pecan tree.
At closing, the lender put a stack of documents in front of me.
“These are standard.”
I smiled.
“Then we have time to read them.”
He blinked.
“Of course.”
I read every page.
The first night in the new house, Ava chose the bedroom facing the street.
Molly chose the one with the weird closet.
Grace toddled between both stealing socks.
The backyard had a covered porch.
I almost rejected the house because of it.
Then Ava ran outside and said:
“We can put a swing here.”
So we did.
The first time I stood beside the porch post, my body remembered before my mind did.
I touched the wood.
Breathed.
May you like
Then screwed in the hooks for the girls’ swing.
I refused to let Wade keep every porch in Texas.
