It had taken five years.
But I had found it.
Daniel was led from the courtroom without speaking.
At the door, he stopped once and looked back — not at me, but at Ava.
“I gave you everything,” he said.
His voice was quiet.
Almost bewildered.
Ava looked at him steadily.
“You gave me a lie to carry,” she said.
“That’s not the same thing.”
The door closed behind him.
Outside the courthouse, the afternoon light was sharp and clean.
My sister was waiting on the steps.
She put her arms around me and I let her, and then I did cry — not for Daniel, not even entirely for Chloe, but for the five years of mornings I had made that pie and sat across from a man who had let me believe a story that was never true.
Ava stood a few feet away, her face turned up toward the sky.
