Only clean air.
Only the relief of poison finally cut out.
A letter from Garrett arrived that morning.
Begging. Regret. Fatherhood. Second chance.
Meline dropped it straight into the shredder without reading a line.
Part 6: Independence Day
One year later, the Fourth of July came back around.
Bright sky. Warm air. A yard full of noise and food and people who actually belonged there.
Leo turned one.
Meline hosted the party at her new house. Real friends. Real neighbors. Colleen in the grass with the kids, laughing so hard she had to stop and catch her breath. Music. Cake. Sprinklers. Smoke from the grill. A loud, ordinary, good life.
Meline stood at the edge of the patio in a simple summer dress with a glass of lemonade in her hand and watched her son laugh.
A year earlier, she had stood in another yard with a navy tote bag and a husband who thought he controlled the script.
He thought he was the family man. The king of the grill. The center of the scene.
He never understood that she had already ended the play before he picked up the spatula.
That day had not been the day her life fell apart.
It had been her Independence Day.
The day she stopped confusing endurance with love.
The day she stopped trying to build a family with a ghost.
Colleen scooped Leo up and spun him while he squealed.
“Happy birthday, little man!”
Meline smiled and looked out over the yard. The house. The people. The noise. The life that no longer had any lies in the walls.
