I felt awake.

Our Own Ending

Reporters came. Trials were held. Words like “conspiracy,” “fraud,” and “abuse of trust” appeared in headlines and legal documents. I attended when I could, but I didn’t let the courtroom become the center of our lives.

The verdicts were firm. The sentences long.

Afterward, the house felt too big. The city felt too loud. Chloe and I both needed space, and not the kind created by high ceilings and silent hallways.

We left Burlington a few months later, driving north until the air smelled like pine and salt. We rented a small cottage on a quiet stretch of coast where the waves were the only constant sound.

One evening, as the sun slid toward the water, turning it the color of melted copper, we walked out to the end of a weathered pier.

I held two silver lockets in my hand.

One carried a tiny photo of Chloe at eight years old, missing her front teeth and holding a soccer trophy half her size. The other held a picture of me and my father on the day I took over the company, both of us younger, both of us believing that hard work alone could protect a family from everything.

Chloe looked at them, then at me.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

I nodded.