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Ruby reached into the bag of duck food and took some in her hand, then gave the rest to Olivia.
“Here you go,” she said. “Throw it in, just like this.”
Ruby tossed the duck food and Olivia squealed with delight as the ducks paddled over to pluck it out of the water.
“Your turn,” Ruby said.
Olivia tossed some in the water, then grinned as the ducks ate it. “They like it!”
“Easy pickings,” Ruby said with a laugh.
She sat on an iron bench near the water and inhaled the warm air. It was the first mild day in April and Ruby was more than ready for spring.
It had been a long dark winter.
Now the sun was shining and Ruby felt the glimmer of hope that had been stirring in her chest flare to life.
She’d given up her apartment for good to move in with Roman. Her dad and Brooke didn’t get it, but she’d done it anyway. Maybe Ruby was wrong. Maybe it was a bad decision, one she’d regret.
But she didn’t think so.
She and Roman and Olivia had settled into something of a routine. Some days Ruby walked Olivia to her new private school — one with plenty of hidden security. Other days Roman let her sleep, happy to take Olivia himself, the two of them like peas in a pod, Roman’s big hand around Olivia’s as they walked, Uncle Max never far behind.
Ruby hadn’t gone back to the coffee shop. She didn’t know what her future held, but for once she had the time and freedom to figure it out.
Roman had surprised her with a bunch of new art supplies and carte blanche to turn one of the guest bedrooms into a studio and Ruby was back at work on her collages, using them both to reconcile the past and to dream about the future.
She was still dealing with the fact that she’d killed Adam. In the moment, it had seemed unavoidable — Adam was going to kill her, she’d seen it in his eyes — but that didn’t stop her from replaying the scene over and over, wondering if she should have given him a chance to be different.
To be better.
But it was done, and she was finally starting to understand that the world wasn’t as black and white as she’d once believed. Life was messy and complicated. Sometimes bad people did bad things.
But sometimes, well, sometimes good people just did the best they could with the choices they’d made.
Ruby had stared death in the eye and made her choice. Some people didn’t understand it — those people made themselves heard on social media — but Ruby had finally figured out that it didn’t matter what anyone else thought of her.
She had to live in her skin. Looking at Olivia — knowing her daughter was safe, knowing Ruby was alive to be her mother — she knew she’d done the right thing, however it looked to someone on the outside.
She’d been arrested, had spent a few hours in jail before Roman bailed her out, but the DA had ultimately chosen not to press charges. It looked bad for the city — a rogue cop, a wife beater, forcing his way into someone’s home and hunting his wife down with a gun while his five-year-old daughter cowered in a nearby bedroom.
The city didn’t want the publicity, especially after the violence of the past months.
Ruby was free. The reality of it still took her breath away. She and Olivia were both in therapy, probably could be for a long time, but they were free.
“Look, Mommy!” Olivia said, bending close to the water and letting one of the ducks eat from her hand.
“Wow, they really like you!” Ruby said. “Be careful not to fall in.”
She closed her eyes and tipped her face to the sun, breathed deep.
I am safe in my body.
This time, a declaration instead of a plea.
When she opened her eyes, Roman was there in a flare of sunlight, walking toward her. At first, she though it was a dream — that he was a dream.
But it was really him, coming toward her and Olivia, looking sexy and delicious and wonderful in jeans, a T-shirt, and a jacket that fit him like a glove.
