Franny confirmed the transfers to your other daughter.
“You’ve got nowhere to go, Delia.”
I stood my ground. He tried once more, using the voice he’d always used to reel me back in — patient, reasonable, the voice of a man who’d never once had to raise it to win.
That’s when Piper stepped into the hallway holding Iris, and pressed play.
His own voice filled the room. He stood there with his mouth hanging open, no comeback ready for it, none at all.
I took Piper’s hand and walked past him, out to Franny’s car waiting at the curb.
Epilogue: The Duplex
Months later, I rocked Iris in the duplex Piper, Tessa, and I rented together, my name on the lease beside both of theirs. The stolen funds moved slowly through the courts. My bookkeeping job went full-time. Tessa, once she’d recovered fully, started community college classes two nights a week, Piper watching Iris while she went.
Tessa started community college classes two nights a week.
I finally understood that the silence I’d spent years calling love had actually been control, dressed up carefully enough that I’d never once had to look directly at what it really was. Dalton called twice in the first month. I let both go to voicemail, the way he’d once let mine ring out for a full year without a second thought.
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