Chapter 10

I gave birth on a Tuesday in March.

Beth drove me to the birth center in Concord. The labor was long and hard, and I screamed things I’d never said out loud. But at 6:13 in the morning, my daughter was born.

I named her Grace.

She had dark hair and blue eyes and a grip like a vise. She was perfect.

Beth held her while I slept. When I woke up, the room was full of light. The snow was melting outside. Spring was coming.

I called Doreen from the hospital. She cried. She said the church council had voted to remove Kyle as pastor. She said Vern Cutler had resigned from the selectboard. She said people in town were still talking, but they were talking about the truth now, not Kyle’s version of it.

Kyle’s trial was set for June. He hadn’t tried to contact me. His lawyer had sent a letter offering a divorce settlement. I told Marilyn to reject it. I didn’t want anything from him.

The carbon copy was still in evidence. After the trial, I planned to ask for it back. Not because I needed it. But because I wanted to remember.

I wanted to remember what it felt like to be trapped in that pantry. To feel the door slam on my fingers. To hear Eli’s alarm through the wall. To pull the bell rope and hear it ring.

I wanted to remember that I survived.

I brought Grace home to Beth’s house. Beth had set up a crib in the guest room. She’d painted the walls yellow. She’d bought a rocking chair from a thrift store.

I sat in that chair with Grace on my chest and looked out the window. The trees were budding. The birds were singing. A neighbor waved from across the street.

Grace stirred. I hummed a hymn. Not one of Kyle’s hymns. One my grandmother used to sing.

“This little light of mine,” I sang. “I’m gonna let it shine.”

Grace slept. I closed my eyes.

Somewhere in Vermont, in an evidence locker, a green ledger sat in a plastic bag. Its pages were filled with lies. But the carbon copy had told the truth.

And in a care facility not far from there, a man in a wheelchair watched the door every day, waiting for his sister-in-law and her baby to come back.

We would. As soon as I found us a place with a ramp.

I opened my eyes and looked at my daughter. “We’re going to be okay,” I whispered.

And this time, I believed it.