Chapter 10 - The Garden We Planted
Saturday, October 17, 2027.
Exactly one year later.
The afternoon sun filtered through the high branches of the sugar maples in our backyard, casting golden, dappled light across the emerald green lawn.
The old wooden sliding door on the sunroom had been replaced months ago with a triple-pane, reinforced steel-frame French door system with internal deadbolts and smart sensors. But today, the doors were thrown wide open to the crisp autumn air.
In the center of the yard, sitting on a soft patchwork quilt spread over the grass, was Isaac.
He was thirteen months old now. A sturdy, barrel-chested little boy with a shock of thick, sandy hair and bright, curious hazel eyes that took in the world with absolute confidence. He was wearing miniature denim overalls and a striped flannel shirt, banging two plastic stacking cups together with delighted, wet giggles.
"Look at him go," Trudy said, sitting in an Adirondack chair beside the flower beds, a glass of fresh apple cider resting on the flat wooden arm.
She looked rested. Her silver hair was loose around her shoulders, caught by the gentle October breeze.
"He's trying to figure out how to climb that oak root," I said, leaning back in the chair beside her, my legs stretched out in front of me.
I was wearing a soft beige sweater and jeans. Underneath the waistband, the six-inch scar across my pelvis was flat, silver, and completely painless—a quiet historical marker of a battle that had been won twelve months ago.
The side gate clicked open.
Nathan walked into the backyard, carrying a large wicker basket full of crisp Honeycrisp apples from the orchard down the road.
He looked younger than he had at thirty-six. The tension lines that had etched deep grooves around his mouth and between his eyebrows had smoothed away. He had left the civil engineering firm in April, using a fraction of his father’s restored estate to launch an independent structural design consultancy with two partners from Chicago. He worked thirty hours a week. He coached toddler soccer on Tuesday afternoons. He was home for dinner every night at five-thirty.
He set the basket on the picnic table, walked across the lawn, and scooped Isaac up off the quilt with one smooth, powerful motion.
Isaac squealed with pure joy, grabbing Nathan’s nose with his sticky, apple-scented fingers.
"Gotcha, buddy!" Nathan laughed, lifting the boy high above his head, spinning him around in the golden leaves that were drifting down from the trees. "Did you tell Mama that we picked enough apples to make six pies?"
"Pie!" Isaac shouted, his newest and most favorite word. "Pie! Da-da!"
"That's right. Pie," Nathan said, kissing Isaac’s belly until the boy dissolved into helpless, breathless giggles.
My phone chimed on the small wooden table between Trudy and me.
It was an email notification from Sarah Vance’s office.
I opened the preview.
*Catherine & Nathan - Final administrative update: The state parole board has denied inmate Judith Vance’s petition for early conditional release. The board cited a total lack of rehabilitative insight and repeated disciplinary infractions regarding unauthorized communication attempts with third-party church members. Her next review is scheduled for October 2029. All property deeds and trust releases are fully registered with the state comptroller. Enjoy your weekend.*
I read the words once.
A year ago, an email like that would have sent my heart hammering into my ribs, triggering a cold sweat and a desperate check of the window locks.
Today, it didn't even cause a ripple.
It was just news from another world—a small, decaying world of concrete walls, metal trays, and bitter old women who had traded their families for cages of their own making.
I swiped the notification away and closed the screen.
"Everything alright?" Nathan asked, walking over with Isaac perched securely on his hip, resting his other hand on the back of my chair.
"Everything is perfect," I said, reaching up to take his hand.
Trudy looked at the two of us, then down at Isaac, who was currently attempting to chew on the collar of Nathan’s flannel shirt.
"You know, Catherine," Trudy murmured, taking a slow sip of her cider, "forty years ago, when I let my mother-in-law run my house, I thought that keeping the peace meant letting people walk over you until there was nothing left of your pride."
She set her glass down and looked out over the yard—over the sturdy fence Nathan had built with his own hands, over the flower beds that were being put to bed for the winter, over the solid, beautiful home that had finally become a sanctuary.
"Peace isn't something that happens when you surrender, Catherine," Trudy said softly. "Peace is something you defend with a locked door, a clear ledger, and a spine made of cold steel."
Nathan smiled—a quiet, grounded, adult smile that belonged to a man who had survived his own exorcism.
"Hostesses serve first, right Cat?" Nathan teased gently, nodding toward the kitchen.
I laughed—a real, full, belly laugh that bubbled up from the center of my healed chest and echoed out into the clear October air.
May you like
"Not today, Nathan," I said, standing up from the chair and reaching out to take my son into my arms, feeling his warm, solid weight settle perfectly against my heart. "Today, the family eats first."
And as Nathan wrapped his arms around both of us, holding us tight against the crisp autumn chill, we turned together and walked through the wide-open doors into the warmth of our home.
