Epilogue

Seraphina

 (Seven Years Later)

The afternoon sun is warm on my back as I kneel in the garden pulling weeds from around the tomato plants. The soil is rich and dark under my fingers and I can already see tiny green tomatoes forming on the vines.

For seven years I’ve been tending this garden. Seven years of planting and harvesting and watching things grow in the yard of the small house that belonged to Dominic’s grandmother.

It’s peaceful here. Quiet. Safe.

Everything I needed after the world fell apart.

“Mum! Mum, look what Uncle Kael made for us!”

I turn to see my son running across the yard with a bright red balloon shaped like an airplane bobbing above his head. Behind him, my daughter follows with a blue balloon shaped like a bicycle.

Dominic Junior is seven now. He has his father’s eyes and his father’s smile and every time I look at him I see the man I loved.

Kiara is five. She has my dark hair but Dominic’s features. She never met her father but she carries him in her face.

“Careful so you don’t fall, Kiara,” I call out as she stumbles over a root in the grass.

She catches herself and keeps running. “Look, Mummy! Uncle Kael made me a bicycle balloon!”

“I see it, baby. It’s beautiful.”

They reach me, and DJ proudly holds his airplane balloon up. “Mine flies higher because airplanes are better than bicycles.”

“No they’re not!” Kiara protests. “Bicycles go on the ground. That’s better.”

“Is not.”

“Is too!”

“Alright, alright.” Kael appears from around the side of the house carrying a small cooler. “No fighting over the balloons. I made them both equally awesome.”

He sets the cooler down on the grass and pulls out juice boxes for the kids. Kael has been coming around every weekend for the past seven years. Helping with repairs on the house. Playing with the children. Making sure we’re okay.

I don’t know what I would have done without him.

“Uncle Kael, which one is your favorite?” DJ asks. “The airplane or the bicycle?”

Kael pretends to think very hard about this. He strokes his chin and looks at both balloons with exaggerated seriousness. “That’s a tough question, buddy. They’re both pretty great.”

“But you have to pick one,” Kiara insists.

“Okay, okay. If I have to pick…” He pauses for dramatic effect. “I’d say the airplane is the coolest looking, but the bicycle is more practical for everyday use.”

“That’s not picking one!” both children shout at the same time.

Kael laughs and ruffles DJ’s hair. “Fine. The airplane. But only because it’s red and red is the best color.”

“Yes!” DJ pumps his fist in the air. “I win!”

Kiara pouts. “That’s not fair. Blue is better than red.”

“How about this,” I say, pulling off my gardening gloves and standing up. “You both have amazing balloons and you both win. Now go play with them in the yard while Uncle Kael and I talk.”

The children run off toward the open space near the potato rows. Their balloons bob and weave in the breeze as they chase each other around.

Kael sits down on the grass and I join him. We watch the children play in comfortable silence for a moment.

“They’re getting big,” he says quietly.

“I know. DJ starts second grade in the fall. Kiara starts kindergarten.”

“Time moves fast.”

“Too fast sometimes.”

Another silence. Then Kael asks the question I know has been on his mind. “Have you heard from her? From Elena?”

I shake my head. “Not in five years. Not since I withdrew the case.”

“Do you ever regret that? Letting her get away with it?”

I watch DJ help Kiara untangle her balloon string from a tomato stake. Watch him be gentle and patient with his little sister the way his father would have been.

“Every day,” I admit. “Every single day I think about what she did, how she destroyed everything. How she took him from us.” My voice catches on the last words. “But I had to choose. Justice or safety. Revenge or my children’s lives.”

“You made the right choice.”

“Did I? She’s still out there living her perfect life in Paris. Living off money she stole from us. Living free while Dominic is…” I can’t finish the sentence.

Kael puts his hand on my shoulder. “He wouldn’t want you to risk the kids. You know that.”

“I know. But it doesn’t make it easier.”

We sit in silence and watch the children play. DJ is showing Kiara how to make her balloon dance in the wind. She’s laughing and clapping her hands.

“They’re happy,” Kael observes. “That counts for something.”

“It counts for everything.” I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “They don’t remember the bad parts. DJ was too young and Kiara never knew any of it. They just have this. The garden. The house. Uncle Kael visits on weekends. It’s enough for them.”

“Is it enough for you?”

The question hangs in the air. Is it enough? This quiet life in Dominic’s grandmother’s house? Growing vegetables and raising children and trying to forget that the woman who murdered their father is living unpunished in Paris?

“It has to be,” I say finally. “Because it’s all I have.”

DJ runs over to us with his airplane balloon. “Mum, can we have the strawberries now? The ones we picked this morning?”

“Yes, baby. Go wash your hands at the outdoor spigot first. Both of you.”

The children run off toward the side of the house where the water spigot is. I hear them arguing about who gets to turn on the water first.

Kael stands and offers me his hand. I take it and he pulls me to my feet.

“You’re doing a good job with them,” he says. “Dominic would be proud.”

We walk toward the house together. The children are at the spigot splashing each other while they wash their hands. Their laughter fills the yard.

Inside, I pull the container of strawberries from the refrigerator. The children come running in with wet hands and bright faces.

“Can we have them with sugar?” Kiara asks.

“Just a little bit.”

I portion out strawberries into small bowls and sprinkle them with sugar. The children sit at the kitchen table and eat while Kael and I lean against the counter.

Dominic would have loved this. Would have loved watching his children grow. Would have loved teaching them to take chances and try new things and live without fear.

But he’s not here. He’s been gone for five years and the children are growing up without him.

Because of her. Because Elena couldn’t stand to lose. Couldn’t stand to face justice for what she did.

The case had been going well. Our lawyer said we were going to win. That we had a strong case.

Then Elena carelessly threw a threat at us about burning us both outside the courthouse.

And then the accident.

A truck ran a red light and hit Dominic’s car on his way to court. The truck driver claimed his brakes failed. The police ruled it an accident.

But I know. I know it wasn’t an accident. I know she did it.

I just can’t prove it.

And even if I could, what would be the point? Fighting her again? Putting my children in danger again?

So I withdrew the case. Took the children and came here to this house that Dominic inherited from his grandmother. Started over. Again.

“Mum, are you okay?” DJ’s voice pulls me back to the present.

I turn around and paste on a smile. “I’m fine, baby. Just thinking.”

“About Daddy?”

My smile falters. “Yes. About Daddy.”

DJ comes over and wraps his arms around my waist. He’s getting so tall. Soon he’ll be taller than me.

“I wish I remembered him better,” he says quietly.

I run my fingers through his hair. “He loved you so much. He was so happy when you were born. He held you and cried because he said you were perfect.”

“Tell me again about the last thing he said to you.”

I’ve told this story so many times but it never gets easier.

“The last thing he said was that he loved us. All of us. You and me and Kiara even though she wasn’t born yet.” My voice breaks. “He said he was going to win the case and come home and we were going to have the life we deserved. The life we fought for.”

“But he didn’t come home,” Kiara says softly. She’s climbed down from her chair and come to stand next to her brother.

“No, baby. He didn’t come home.”

“Because he went to heaven,” she says. This is how I’ve explained it to her.

“Yes. He is in heaven watching over us.”

She doesn’t need to know the truth. Doesn’t need to know that her aunt murdered her father. Doesn’t need to carry that weight.

Let her think it was just an accident. Let them both believe that sometimes bad things just happen for no reason.

It’s easier than the truth.

Kael clears his throat. “How about we go outside and play with those balloons some more? Maybe we can see whose flies higher.”

The children’s faces light up and they run for the door. Kael follows them but pauses and looks back at me.

“You’re doing okay,” he says gently.

“I’m surviving.”

“That’s all anyone can ask.”

He goes outside and I hear the children shrieking with laughter as they chase their balloons around the yard.

I walk to the kitchen window and watch them. My beautiful children. The pieces of Dominic I have left.

On the windowsill is a small framed photo. Dominic and I on our wedding day. It was a tiny ceremony. Just us and Kael and Nadia and baby DJ in my arms. We got married three months after DJ was born because Dominic wanted to make it official before the court case started.

He wanted me to be his wife. Wanted the children to have married parents.

I trace my finger over his face in the photo. He looks so happy. So hopeful. So certain that we were going to win.

“We were so close,” I whisper to the photo. “We were going to get justice. We were going to make her pay for everything she did.”

But then she took him from me. Took my children’s father from them. I was mourning him while pregnant with a daughter he never got to meet.

Elena may have won the battle. She may be living free while we’re here in this small house with nothing but each other.

But she didn’t win everything.

I won Dominic’s love, and she was going to live the rest of her life remembering he loved me and not her.

And someday, somehow, the truth will come out. Karma will find her. Justice will catch up.

I just won’t be there to see it.

Because I chose differently. I chose safety over revenge. I chose my children over justice.

And I would make the same choice again. Every single time.