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Epilogue
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Uncovered Issues Taken
One Lydia thought she’d never been so lonely in her life. She glanced out the window next to her work desk and watched the rain swirling, a light mist that went wherever the wind told it to go. Her story was almost finished- a reporting piece for the Emerald Daily that revealed details about a local fertility doctor, now biological father to over a hundred children. She’d had trouble keeping the tone of the story neutral, reporting the facts and not her opinion on the facts. Her editor sent the story back twice already, kindly but firmly reminding her that her job was not to convey outrage, no matter how warranted. Lydia must stick to the facts. These women were her age. They were raising toddlers and children. The oldest of what the media deemed the Huntington Hundred- many thanks to Doctor Jared Huntington for having such a convenient name- was only seven, and already he had 99 siblings to contend with. Lydia thought of her own two sisters, the complicated re
Uncovered Issues The Mansion
The winding road led to a winding driveway. Lydia didn’t even realize it was a driveway at first. When Ethan paused outside of the imposing gilded gate and entered a code into the box beside the road, she assumed they were entering a gated community. The mature woods on either side of the narrow path were shadows, and Lydia couldn’t tell how deep they went, but understated and classic streetlamps threw gentle arcs of light onto the road. The light mist that had captivated her earlier-in her old life, before all of this- turned into a steady rain, and Lydia watched the light captured in the drops that fell across her window. When the road ended in a circular drive with only one home centered behind it, Lydia gasped. The home looked like a monument to the past, brick and colonial in the front with perfectly symmetrical narrow windows outlined in white shutters on the first and second floors. Two wings angled off of the main house, however- add ons, but done so well that they
Uncovered Issues Be Descriptive
She awoke to the sound of too much quiet, and before she opened her eyes, she took a moment to process her surroundings. She remembered all too well the events of the night before, and she wanted a moment to brace herself for the coming day. Sunlight framed the curtains, but otherwise the room was barely lit. The four poster bed seemed to swallow her, and she wanted nothing more than to sleep for far too long and face her problems later. But Angela- poor Angela. The barbaric people who attacked her were so beyond Lydia’s comprehension that she couldn’t imagine being capable of such actions, and she took a moment to be thankful, for once, for her lack of understanding. A knock sounded at the door, and Lydia pulled herself from the bed. Wrapping the robe around herself tightly, acutely aware that she was wearing nothing underneath, she unlocked the door and pulled it open. Ethan stared at her, his eyes moving quickly down the length of her
Uncovered Issues Nothing Wrong, Either
The plan was simple, or as simple as it could get, given the very complicated circumstances. Huntington was gone, somewhere in hiding. The dead men found in Lydia’s bedroom floor were identified fairly quickly as known acquaintances of the Huntington family, and questioning among the family would be ongoing for several days as authorities tried to narrow down the location of the missing doctor. The appropriate law enforcement were appraised of Lydia’s position, if not her exact location, and they were familiar with Sandra’s company and asked no more questions. Lydia’s job was, simply, to lay low. “So I just stay here, then?” she asked. “And do what?” “We have a huge theater downstairs,” one of the men across the kitchen called out. “And there’s a tennis court out back, and a two lane bowling alley and a pool table.” “You want me to play pool? Just… stay here and play pool?” The man shrugged. “I’ll take you on,” he
Uncovered Issues Invested in Your Dreams
“Get your hands off of me,” Olivia said through gritted teeth as one of Ethan’s brothers- Nate, Lydia had heard him called- gently put his hand on her back to guide her through the front door. He held his hands up in a sorry motion, and she pushed past him, pulling oversized sunglasses off of her face. She took in the room around her, the grandiose chandelier and the grand staircase and the artwork, her hands on her hips as if she weren’t impressed with the place. Her gaze finally landed on her sister, standing at the foot of the steps. “Oh, God, Lydia,” she said, rushing forward and wrapping Lydia in a hug. Lydia sagged with relief. After so many months- years, really- of not truly speaking to each other beyond the bare minimum, she wasn’t sure what this first meeting would be like. She kept up with Olivia’s life through their older sister, but Maddie refused to play go-between with the two of them and only told her the smallest tidbits. Lydia was
Uncovered Issues Favorite Place
The days passed slowly. Lydia loved having her sister here with her, and understood the reasoning: they did, indeed, look identical. Anyone who didn’t know them well could easily confuse the two. She might even be worried for her older sister if Maddie didn’t live two hours north of them, in Illinois. Thankfully, she was too far away to be mistaken for Lydia, despite her somewhat similar familial appearance. She also had two children and a husband and a completely disconnected life, disinterested in social media and quietly existing outside of the city life. Maddie was the kind of person who took great joy in spending all day baking. She saw her children as gifts and had no qualms about her choices in regards to them. Because of the tangled web that was her own familial background, she pushed herself entirely into her husband’s family events, disappearing into Thanksgiving meal prepping, Black Friday shopping, and Christmas visits with her sisters-in-law and her cherished mother in la
Uncovered Issues Never Again
The cabin was tiny, indeed. The front door opened into a living space with a small sectional facing a small television, a kitchenette and a two person dining table behind it. Just off of this room was a hallway that had three doors, which Lydia found to be a small bedroom to the left, a small bathroom in the middle, and a slightly larger bedroom to the right. Small, yes, but mighty- the home had stainless steel appliances and a clean, sleek vibe. While the outer appearance gave off a rugged cabin feel, the interior was awash in modernism with pale gray walls, white cabinetry, and matching white finishes in the form of end tables and doors. Everything coordinated and matched in a crisp but welcoming way. “Did you do all of this yourself?” she asked. “Hardly,” he scoffed. “I designed the layout and got Michael and a couple of others to help me build it, but the interior was mostly Mom’s doing. I trust her opinion on these things so I just told her my favorite col
Uncovered Issues Such an Escape as This
She wasn’t sure what time it was, and she wasn’t overly interested in finding out. Lying awake in the middle of the night in Ethan’s bed- the guest bed he’d offered her untouched across the hall- she felt content and rested, despite the overall life events that led to her being here. They’d finished their shower and, like an old 90’s romcom, made their way to the kitchen, him in nothing but comfortable flannel pajama pants and she in panties and one of his shirts. There were strawberries and delicious misshapen pancakes and late night coffee, but mostly there was a lot of conversation and laughter. It was the kind of night she’d shared with girlfriends in middle school, staying up late in a quiet house, trying not to wake others while she told her secrets and reveled in the stories that her friends told. It was cozy and safe. And Ethan felt very much like a friend: someone who was becoming her confidant and a person to whom she could glance and share a smile when
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