So many things are broken inside me. But there’s also something else happening beneath the agony. A loosening. Like a fist I’ve been clenching for thirty-five years finally uncurling.
Darkness creeps in at the edges of my vision. I don’t fight it.
Whatever comes next, I’m finally free.
EPILOGUE: ELIANA
TWELVE MONTHS LATER
farm to table /färm to?o 'tab?l/: adjective
1: sourced directly, without intermediaries; honest and whole.
2: a life built from scratch on Texas dirt, served exactly as it was grown.
Twelve months later, I sit on the back porch of a modest farmhouse outside Austin, Texas. Bastian built me a swing and I promptly embedded the imprint of my ass on it. Every night, he finds me out here, rocking to my heart’s content. The evening air carries cicada music and the scent of honeysuckle and fresh-cut grass. It’s thick and syrupy-sweet, the kind of summer smell that settles into your skin and stays there.
In my arms, my daughter sleeps. Seven pounds, four ounces when she arrived screaming into this world. She’s closer to twenty-five pounds now, a biscuit dough beauty made up of chunky thighs, auburn hair, and the bluest eyes the world has ever seen.
Or so they tell me.
I don’t need to see to know my baby girl is beautiful.
From inside the house, Sage laughs at something. I’m assuming it’s his girlfriend Kenna, who has a gift for putting a smile on his face. That’s less rare than it used to be, and we have her in large part to thank for that. The two of them met at UT Austin, where Sage is studying computer science. Kenna is pre-med, brilliant, and quite possibly the only person on earth who can match Sage’s stubbornness. I like her. More importantly, Bastian likes her, which is saying something, given his track record with anyone who gets within ten feet of his brother.
The sound of dishes suggests someone is cleaning up after dinner. Music plays softly through the screen door, some country station Bastian discovered three months ago and now refuses to change. He thinks he’s a cowboy, apparently. Last week, I caught him humming along to a song about pickup trucks and dirt roads while he made breakfast. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that wearing boots doesn’t make you Texan.
These sounds are the guiding posts of my new life, and I’ve memorized every note. It’s so different from Chicago, but I don’t miss the city that raised me. We left it behind with smoke in the air and blood crusted under our fingernails, and that’s been the best thing that ever happened to any of us.
Mom called last week. She does that now—calls just to talk, not to ask for money or unload her latest crisis onto my shoulders. She’s in San Diego at the moment, catching a tan with her new boyfriend. Sobriety looks good on her, and she’s decided that things have settled down enough for her to take a little weekend trip with the beau. I’m happy for her.
Unlike the others, though, this call had a purpose: She wanted to press me again about the experimental procedure my new doctor mentioned. The one that might restore partial vision.
I said no. Same answer I gave three months ago. Same answer I gave six months before that.
She didn’t push. That’s new, too—Georgia Hunter learning when to let things lie. She just said, “Okay, baby. I trust you,” and moved on to talking about how funny the seals at the beach are.
I’ve been struggling to articulate why I’m refusing the procedure, even to myself. It’s not that I don’t want to see my daughter’s face. God knows I’ve traced every curve of it with my fingertips. It’s that I’ve spent the last year building a life that doesn’t require sight. And somewhere along the way, I discovered something unexpected.
I’m happy.
The darkness isn’t a prison anymore. It’s just where I live. And I livewellthere.
The screen door creaks open. Bastian’s offered to fix it a million times, but I’ve asked him not to, because I like knowing when someone’s coming. Not that he could ever take me by surprise—some days, I swear I smell him from miles away. Wintergreen on the breeze riffling through the hills.
It’s strong in my nose now as he crosses the porch and settles next to me. His hand finds my knee and squeezes once. Neither of us speaks right away.
We’ve learned to be comfortable in silence. Back in the early days, every conversation felt like a fencing match, all parry and thrust, neither of us willing to yield an inch of ground. Now, wecan sit here and listen to the grasshoppers without needing to fill the space between us with anything other than breath.
Our daughter stirs against my chest, makes a snuffling sound, then settles again. Bastian’s hand goes from my knee to her back. I feel the swing move as he leans closer and presses a kiss to the top of her head.
“She asleep?” His voice is low, careful not to wake her.
“Finally. Took three lullabies and a minor hostage negotiation.”
“Good thing I taught you how to sing.”
I laugh. “You sing like a dying goat, Mr. Egotistical. No one’s mistaking you for Frank Sinatra anytime soon.”
