Epilogue
Eight Years Later
I stand by the living room window, watching as Drew ambles up our cracked drive, his arms hooked around his suspender belt in typical Drew fashion.
I told him last night I had some news for him. Drew probably knows what it is. That I'm about to leave Henderson for good. There's not much tying me to this town anymore.
It's been four weeks since Mom's funeral, and she was the reason I moved back in the first place.
Drew can be difficult, so I can only pray Drew takes the news well. I'm the only family he has, and I can't afford to part on sour terms. Still, whatever his opinion on where I'm going, my bags are packed. My ticket printed. My flight leaves in four hours.
Although I've printed a copy out for Drew, I opened the email app just to read through the job offer again. It came through a week ago.
Congratulations, Ms. Wells. We are pleased to offer you the position of Lead Curator at the prestigious Century Gallery at Hudson Valley...
New York.
I suppress the quiver of anxiety in my belly.
I can do this. I'm a grown woman. A successful art curator with a career I built with my own hands. It's been almost a decade. And time, as they say, heals all—
Bullshit.
Actually, time doesn’t heal wounds. Time only teaches you how to carry pain without letting it crush you.
Still, I've carried mine well, considering.
For a long time, I believed the worst thing that ever happened to me was Jordan walking out on me on the day my life collapsed.
I was wrong. The worst thing was what that came after.
After Dad's arrest, the legal nightmare dragged on for another six months.
Six months of neighbors whispering behind curtains.
Six months of Mom aging a decade every time we had another court date.
Six months of bail hearings and pre-trial motions and meetings with lawyers who kept telling us to "be realistic. "
The prosecution had evidence. Bank statements. Digital signatures. Timestamped transfers. Mountains of documentation that would be impossible to fight in front of a jury.
Dad was advised to plead guilty in exchange for a light sentence than if he went to trial and lost. I begged him not to, but he took the deal.
The judge sentenced him to five years without parole.
Five years. Five years for something he didn't do. Daddy wouldn't look at me. Likely because he was ashamed. He knew he should have fought hard for his innocence instead of trusting a corrupt system.
I swallowed my rage and disappointment and visited him a month into his sentence.
Waited for him across the glass partition.
Dad shuffled in, his orange overalls hanging off his frame.
He'd lost a shocking amount of weight. But it was the bruises that made my stomach drop.
One eye was swollen shut, the purple-green spreading down his cheekbone.
His knuckles were split and scabbed over.
"It's going to be okay," I said, forcing brightness into my voice. "You're going to get through this. I've been talking to a union lawyer who takes pro bono cases. The plea bargain was coerced, the sentence was excessive—"
"Bree," he sighed, the sound rattling in his chest. "Don't waste your life on a lost cause."
My hand fisted. "What do you mean a lost cause Daddy? Can't you see your defence team botched—"
"I don't want to appeal."
"Daddy—"
"Listen to me, Sabrina." He leaned forward, forearms on the table. His voice dropped low enough that I had to strain to hear over the murmur of other conversations. "Let things be."
I slammed my fist on the table. "Like hell I will!" My voice cracked. "How selfish can you be, Daddy?"
His jaw tightened. "Selfish? Selfish, you say?"
"Mom needs you. I need you!" Tears burned my eyes. "And you just let yourself get railroaded into this… this prison. I don't know who you pissed off, but can't you see you were targeted?"
Something shifted in his expression. "Finally, Sabrina. You're starting to open your eyes."
I blinked, thrown. "What?"
Dad glanced at the guard, then back to me. "You're right. I was set up. Brendan Farrington made me an offer."
My stomach clenched. "Jordan's father? When?"
"Last summer. The day after you went to the Spring Fling dance with Jordan."
The room seemed to tilt. I'd lied to my parents that night—told them I had a late shift. I was shocked my Dad knew where I went that night. But more surprising was the fact that Brendan Farrington came to Henderson.
"His father came here?" I whispered. "I didn't know he ever visited."
"Oh, he did. Now and then." Dad's mouth twisted. "Checking on his investment, I suppose."
Jordan had never said a word about his father being in town.
The realization settled like a stone in my gut. I was Jordan's dirty little secret kept from his powerful father.
I shook off the dark thoughts and pressed on. "What did Brendan Farrington want?"
Dad took a breath. "He offered me a job.
Manager position at a refinery in Algeria.
Five times my current salary. Your mother's medical bills would be covered.
You wouldn't have to work yourself to the bone supporting us anymore.
" He paused. "But there was a condition. The whole family would relocate."
My mouth went dry. "All of us? To Algeria?"
"I turned it down, of course."
"Why did you?." I cried.
"Because it wasn't about giving me a job, Bree. He was getting rid of you.
"Me? How?"
Dad scoffs. "When I declined his offer, he told me in very unpleasant terms, of his son's interest in my underage daughter."
Heat flooded my face. "Jordan—we didn't—" I stumbled over the words. "Not until I turned eighteen."
Dad waved me off, as if it didn't matter. "At first, I thought the man was just being a controlling rich asshole. And I believed Jordan to be very different from his father. So I watched. Waited to see how he would treat you."
He rubbed his face with both hands. "But the more time you spent with him, the happier you seemed to be, and the more I worried that you could fall for his charms. That's when I warned you to leave him."
My voice broke. "Daddy, I—I'm sorry I didn't listen."
"I know, Bree. I know." His eyes, too, were wet. "And I don't blame you. God help us, your mother and I fell for him too. That boy had a way about him."
There was a beat of silence. Then I whispered. "Is that why you didn't fight the charges? You blamed yourself?"
His eyes grew hard. "No. I didn't fight it because of what happened on the day they arrested me. Tim Hadfield pulled me aside. Said they had your finger prints and hair and had marked one of your friends. Molly—from the Pizzeria?"
I nod, my panic escalating.
Well, they’d taken her somehow, and that if I didn't cooperate with the defense, they'd have her killed and pin her murder on you. You would be tried as an adult."
My hands started to shake as Dad continued. "I was given the choice was between having my daughter do life in prison for murder, or for me to confess to fraud and do a fraction of the time. I chose the option that guaranteed your freedom."
"No." I shook my head, tears of rage and disbelief streaming down my face. "No, Dad, you should have said something. Jordan would have done something—"
"The same man who turned his back and let Tim Hadfield clean up his mess?" His voice broke. "He fooled us all, Bree. He's worse than his father."
Between that visit and the long drive home, I buried the last of my stupid, dangerous crush for Jordan Farrington. Just as I did his engagement ring. It remains deep in the earth in our backyard, never to be found.
I put myself through Nevada State and graduated with honors, then took up interning jobs in Reno and Las Vegas. Mom wanted me to stay in Henderson with her and Drew but I couldn't bear any reminder of that summer I still haven't forgiven myself for.
Dad returned home at the end of five years. He was smaller. Not physically—though his clothes hung off him—but inside.
Something happened to him in prison. Something he refused to talk about. He drank too much and never held down a job for more than a month. After a while, he just stopped trying, choosing instead to sit on the porch, staring into space.
Drew tried to snap him out of it.
I tried, too.
Mom tried harder than any of us.
But prison hadn’t just taken five years from him. It had taken him.
One night, Mom found him on the porch, half-folded over, whiskey bottle shattered beside him.
We buried him in a cheap Henderson plot. The same neighbors who whispered behind curtains lined up at the funeral acting like they’d always believed in him.
Mom squeezed my hand as we stood over his gravesite, and I felt her trembling all the way to her bones.
“Your father was a good man,” she whispered. “Please believe that.”
"I know, Mom."
Her grip tightens on mine. "And it wasn't your fault."
That, I had no answer for. Because it was my fault. I brought Jordan Farrington into our lives—a transgression we paid too dear a price for.
I've since dated. Casually, mostly, because I'm no longer prepared to give anyone more than I can afford to lose. And that part of me that was stomped half to death by Jordan? It's never ever seeing the light of day again.
The men I choose are kind and attentive, and my relationships begin and end the same way. With no fireworks or explosions, thank you very much.
Although sometimes my body would betray me. I’d wake up trembling, my back bowed, my fists gripping sheets, my body, my very soul craving something earth shattering. Something it used to have.
But Bree in the daylight? She doesn’t dwell. She gets up, shows up and does her job. And ends her relationships before the men can ask for more.
Weeks after Dad's funeral, we were dealt another blow. Mom got sick. Cancer. Again. She tried to fight it, and she did, for two years.