Chapter Fifty-Two #2
“They’re already building places where people can take classes, meet tutors, get help with college applications, learn practical skills.
The buildings will exist. The staff will exist. If you’re grassroots trying to make a positive change, that seems like a good place to start.
What you’re essentially building is a community. ”
“That’s what you do.”
“What?”
“You make people believe they can try.”
“Sometimes.”
“All the time.”
She looked out over the pond again, but I could tell she was no longer seeing the water.
She was seeing rooms full of people. Lessons.
Networks. Possibilities. “I know how to build systems,” she said.
“I know how to decide what people need to understand and how one skill should lead to another. But I don’t know how to make them trust me enough to begin. ”
“I do.”
Her eyes came back to mine.
“You could teach the people teaching the classes,” I said. “I could make sure they speak to people instead of at them.”
“You would be exceptionally good at that.” She smiled. “This could be ours. We could build it together.”
The words landed quietly.
I sat up straighter. “Ours?”
She glanced around the pond, then toward the valley beyond the trees. “Here.”
I didn’t trust myself to speak.
“In Firebrook Valley,” she continued. “Together. Me and you.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
I laughed.
She took my face between her hands.
“But I’m sure that’s the direction I want to go.”
“That’s enough.”
I pulled her into my lap and kissed her.
Slowly at first.
Then deeper, full of everything I didn’t have words for yet.
When we broke apart, she was smiling.
“You know what’s strange?” she asked.
“Hmm?”
“I feel free.”
She stretched her arms overhead, utterly unselfconscious.
I couldn’t look away.
She didn’t cover herself.
Didn’t check the tree line.
Didn’t glance toward the house.
She simply tipped her face toward the sun.
“You look free,” I said.
She lowered her arms.
“I could never do this back home. I could never simply be me.”
“I’m glad you can be that here.”
She bent and kissed me. Then she settled beside me again, one hand resting on my stomach.
“We would need safeguards,” she said after a moment.
“For the program?”
“For everything. If we build something public, we need to know we aren’t exposing either family. We need to understand what happened to Evan.”
The peace inside me shifted.
She felt it.
Her hand stilled. “What?”
I looked toward the pond.
“I keep thinking that if I hadn’t gone searching for your father, Evan might never have been attacked.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
“But you believe it.”
“I don’t think it’s your family, but I wonder if I disturbed something that had been quiet for a long time.”
“That is possible.”
I looked at her.
“Evan was home,” I said. “Safe. Then I went west. I came back with you. Now he’s been attacked, and nobody knows who did it.”
“Correlation does not prove causation.” Elise propped herself up on one elbow.
“I know, but I need to fix this.” I closed my eyes. “And I need a plan.”
For most of my life, hope had felt simple.
Not easy.
But solid.
Since seeing Evan injured, it had begun to feel thinner. Less like faith and more like something I had used to excuse not knowing enough.
Elise moved closer. “Okay, then let’s make one.”
“We move carefully,” I said.
“Yes.”
“We protect both families.”
“Yes.”
“We find out what happened to Evan.”
“Also, yes.”
“And we do it our way. We blend our methods. The best of both of us.”
She traced her finger over my chest again. “So we have a plan.”
“We have the beginning of one.”
“That’s all we need.” She looked open and more courageous than anyone I had ever known.
“I don’t need every answer yet,” she said. “I only need to know which direction I’m choosing.”
“And?”
Her fingers tightened around mine. “I need you.”
I kissed her again, gently this time. “I love that we’re on the same page. I have no idea how we’ll work this out, but I know if you’re with me, we will.”
We stayed on the blanket until the sun climbed higher and the shade began retreating toward the trees.
Eventually, Elise dressed, although not with any urgency. She pulled on her shirt and left several buttons undone, then stood barefoot beside the pond while I gathered our clothes.
Watching her there, hair tousled, lips swollen from kissing me, I felt more at peace with the world than I had in a long time.
We walked back to the guest house hand in hand.
A note was taped to the door.
DON’T WORRY. MR. DAVIS IS TAKING DOWN THE OUTSIDE CAMERAS TODAY.
—MRS. DAVIS
Elise went very still.
I read the second line over her shoulder.
THE ONE BY THE POND HASN’T WORKED IN MONTHS.
—MR. DAVIS
She turned to me slowly, her mouth twitched. “We were naked. In full sunlight.”
“I remember. Vividly.”
Her face flushed. “I’m hacking into their entire security system.”
“So much for teaching them to protect themselves.”
“We will, but after I ensure there’s no recordings of us.”
“Fair enough.”
She buried her face in my chest, laughing.
“This does not ruin the most psychologically healthy nudity of my life.”
I held her tighter, grinning into her hair.
“That sentence alone made the entire morning worth it.”
The world was still dangerous. Evan’s attacker was still out there. Our fathers’ history was still a shadow.
But Elise had chosen me.
Chosen hope.
Chosen a future we would build together, opening doors instead of locking them.
I couldn’t wait to help her throw them wide.