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“Under one condition,” I add.
He looks confused.
I turn to Sarah. “I know I’m not your mom and can’t fill her shoes, but I hope you’ll let me be someone you can always count on in your life, just like your dad. Before I say yes to him, I want to make sure you’re okay with this.”
She hugs my waist tightly, burying her head in my stomach. Eddie joins in.
A couple standing nearby, watching the scene unfold, start clapping.
Sarah sneaks out from beneath us and starts running toward the ocean. Eddie and I chase after her.
The three of us stand in the water, wet sand between our toes, waves crashing around our ankles, as the neon pink sky swallows the orange sun above us.
PART IVCoping aka Living
Everything can be taken from a man, but one thing:
the last of the human freedoms—
to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one’s own way.
—Viktor Frankl,Man’s Search for Meaning
CHAPTER58
Six Months Later
BILLY TURNED HIMSELFin to the authorities like Mom said he would do. He agreed to provide them with evidence in their case against TriCPharma in return for a plea agreement to lessen his sentence and to secure protection for himself and Cristina from Quentin and his partners, who he identified as responsible for Maria’s murder and framing Cristina for her death. Quentin was arrested shortly after.
TriCPharma stock nosedived after Billy left as CEO. With an avalanche of impending litigation and many top employees facing charges, it’s not likely the company will survive.
After the evidence bore out as Detective Thompson and Special Agent Jason said it would, Cristina was cleared of all charges. A couple of weeks ago, she invited me to her baby shower, an outdoor brunch at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. We all sat at a long table in the backdrop of the hotel’s iconic pink and green colors and banana leaf motif.
As everyone ate and congratulated her, I could tell her joy was tempered by her mother’s absence. She left an empty seat at the table to honor her. Maybe that’s part of why shewanted me there, someone who understood the particular pain of being a motherless daughter.
As for me, soon after Eddie proposed, I moved in with Sarah and him and quickly adjusted to the daily mom routine of lunch prep and school carpool lines. Eddie and I alternate drop-offs and pick-ups, but sometimes we get her together after school and go to the library to read her books or take her to Starbucks to get her a Foamaccino.
About a month ago, we had a low-key wedding with close friends and family in his parents’ backyard. I invited the women from my recovery group because when I said my vows to Eddie, swearing my commitment to him and Sarah, I also wanted a symbol of my commitment to my recovery.
We’re now on our honeymoon with Sarah, sitting on the Spanish Steps in Rome, waiting for her to come back with gelato. We gave her some euros to get us a triple scoop from a street vendor nearby for all of us to share.
I look around, thinking about how this place was the last trip Mom, Dad, and I went on before she had to leave us. I think about the picture she always carried in her wallet of the three of us sitting together on these steps, eating gelato. I imagine her looking at it now and the joy and pain it must bring her.
Sarah walks back to us, trying to tame a triple scoop cone in her hand that looks like it could topple over at any second. I remember doing the same thing with Mom and Dad.
She’s standing before us and lifts her other hand, the one without the gelato, holding up the money we gave her.
“A lady paid for the ice cream,” she tells us.
“That was nice of her,” Eddie says.
“She also gave me this bracelet,” Sarah says.
There’s a lima bean charm dangling from her wrist.
I gasp, recognizing it’sMom’sbracelet.
