Daniel pulled a small lock from his pocket and hooked it through the metal loop. The click of it snapping shut was sharp. He replaced the plastic cover and sealed it again. “I’ll close off the pantry door permanently later today,” he added as we started walking back toward the fork. “We have bricks and concrete in the garden shed.”
Then he stopped. I did too.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
His eyes stayed on the hallway ahead—the place where his father’s body still lay.
“I’m going to take his remains and put them in the ocean,” he said.
I nodded. The day had been brutal for all of us. I still felt betrayed. Still sad. Still angry. However, I also felt something else: a quiet and complicated gratitude.
“Can I come?” I asked.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know,” I said. “But I want to. I want to be there with you.Foryou.”
His expression softened. A small, tired smile touched the corners of his lips. Then he nodded.
Together, we walked down the dark hallway. Daniel had brought a flashlight, and its narrow beam bounced ahead of us as we went.
We’d carry out what was left of his father.
Maybe, just maybe, that would be the beginning of a real end to this nightmare. Or at least a first step in the right direction.
Chapter 28
The ocean was nothing like it had been hours ago, when the wind had battled to bend it to its will.
We were standing on the small pier at the Breakers. Waves slapped against the rocks where the small boat had once been anchored. It now lay capsized, bobbing gently against the concrete platform, empty and useless.
Daniel stood by the edge, cradling the bundle wrapped in an old velvet curtain. His father’s bones. Carefully, he placed the remains into the water and let them go.
I stood back and watched the man who looked so much like his father, yet carried none of his cruelty. My chest ached with the kind of love that didn’t make sense anymore. A quiet, hollow pain told me what I didn’t want to hear.
We couldn’t be.
As the bones sank beneath the surface, swallowed by the slow pull of the tide, Daniel turned and looked at me. His eyes held mine. For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
His hand started to rise, like he meant to brush away a tear from my cheek. Halfway there, he let it drop again.
“You’ll leave today, won’t you?” he asked.
I nodded.
So did he.
We turned toward the horizon. The sky was opening now. The clouds had started to break apart, streaked with soft bands of pink and orange light. Sunset was coming.
“I’d better go,” I said, as tears slipped soundlessly down my cheeks.
I loved this man. But how could that possibly work now? After all this?
We needed space. Time. Healing.
And I needed to rethink everything. My whole life had been built on stories that weren’t real.
“What are you going to do?” Daniel asked.
