EPILOGUE: The Boss of Everything
Hazel was waiting in the family room down the hall with my friend Dana, a retired court clerk who had agreed to watch her. My daughter had fallen asleep on the couch under a borrowed blanket, one arm around a stuffed rabbit, her cheek squashed against a cushion.
I knelt beside her and put my hand on her back. She mumbled something about dinosaurs and settled deeper.
I lifted her, rabbit and all, and she curled against my shoulder with the easy trust only a sleeping child has.
When I walked out through the courthouse doors, the Kesslers were in the corridor behind me. Warren stood with his hands hanging at his sides. Lorraine had her arm through her husband’s, and neither of them spoke. Gerald’s eyes were wet.
Nobody said a word. There was nothing left for them to say, and I had nothing I needed to hear.
The March wind caught the edge of my coat as I stepped onto the courthouse steps. Philadelphia was gray and bright at the same time, with traffic humming below and a flag snapping above the doors. I paused at the top, shifted Hazel’s weight, and breathed in the cold air.
Behind me, I could feel them standing there in complete silence, the people who had laughed when I walked in alone.
I didn’t turn around.
I carried my daughter down the steps one at a time, past the pillars and the pigeons, toward the car.
Six months later, the valuation came back. The company was worth just over eleven million dollars. My share paid off the house and funded Hazel’s future with room to spare. Warren pleaded guilty to forgery and fraud. He received probation, a heavy fine, and a permanent bar from serving as an officer of any company in the state. He sold the boat, the club membership, and eventually the big house.
Lorraine wrote me a letter. It ran four pages, and the last line read, I misjudged you. I read it once and put it in a drawer. I’m not angry anymore. I just don’t need to answer.
I took the bar exam in a third jurisdiction, opened a small practice, and started representing service members and military spouses in family court. The office is a converted brownstone with a brass plaque by the door. The reception area has a small table of crayons, because I know what it is to bring a child to a place like that.
One evening, Hazel sat on the floor of my office coloring a picture. She held it up for me.
It showed a tall woman in a blue uniform standing on a staircase, holding a little girl. In the corner she had drawn a large, crooked sun.
“That’s you,” she said. “You’re the boss.”
“What am I the boss of?”
She thought it over very seriously.
“Everything,” she said. “But nicely.”
I laughed and pulled her into my lap. Outside the window, the streetlights were coming on over the old Philadelphia rooftops.
They had thought I had nothing left to fight for. They never understood that I had never stopped being a soldier. I had only been waiting for the right moment to stand up.
THE END
Note: This story is a work of fiction inspired by real events. Names, characters, and details have been altered. Any resemblance is coincidental. The author and publisher disclaim accuracy, liability, and responsibility for interpretations or reliance. All images are for illustration purposes only.
