Chapter 10 - Before We Had Everything
One year later, Claire stood outside the old cottage in Maine.
The same cottage from the photograph.
Richard had bought it.
Of course he had.
"You bought a house we rented thirty years ago?"
Claire stared at him.
"It was available."
"You are ridiculous."
"I prefer sentimental."
Emma stepped out of the SUV.
"I prefer clinically insane."
Richard ignored her.
The cottage had been restored without becoming luxurious.
Claire insisted.
No marble.
No staff quarters.
No heated driveway.
Just wood floors, a small kitchen, a porch, and the same view of the lake.
"This is where we were happy," Richard said.
Claire looked at him.
"We were also broke."
"Details."
Her health had improved dramatically over the year.
She was still thinner than before.
Some memories never returned.
But enough did.
More importantly, she had built new ones.
She volunteered twice a week at a women's shelter.
Richard funded it anonymously until Claire discovered what he'd done.
Then she made him put his name on the donation.
"Why?"
"Because rich men shouldn't get to hide when they do something decent either."
Emma had entered graduate school.
She visited constantly.
Too constantly, according to Richard.
Not constantly enough, according to Claire.
Thomas Mercer was serving a lengthy prison sentence.
The federal investigation had recovered millions for victims of the old financial schemes.
Marjorie Bell testified.
Evelyn donated much of the inheritance she had received because Claire had been presumed dead.
Richard and Claire remained cautiously connected to her.
Not healed.
Not destroyed.
Some relationships existed between those places.
On the anniversary of Claire's return, Richard invited no reporters.
No executives.
No wealthy friends.
Only family and a few people who had helped bring her home.
Samuel.
Rosa.
Dr. Lewis.
The mission volunteer who had remembered "Anna."
Dinner was simple.
Roast chicken.
Potatoes.
Apple pie.
Claire looked around the table.
"You know what's funny?"
Richard raised an eyebrow.
"Nothing when you start a sentence that way."
She ignored him.
"When I was living on the street, I used to imagine rich people's dinners."
Emma smiled.
"What did you imagine?"
"Crystal glasses. Tiny food. People saying things like 'the market.'"
Richard looked offended.
"I say that."
"Exactly."
Everyone laughed.
Claire's expression softened.
"I thought money meant safety."
Richard reached for her hand.
"And?"
"It doesn't."
The table quieted.
"People do."
After dinner, Emma disappeared into the cottage.
She returned holding the restored photograph.
"Okay."
Claire groaned.
"No."
"Yes."
Emma led them outside.
The evening sun turned the lake gold.
She positioned Richard and Claire exactly where they had stood decades earlier.
Richard wrapped an arm around Claire.
Emma looked through the camera.
"You're standing wrong."
Richard frowned.
"I've been photographed professionally thousands of times."
"Mom, move closer."
Claire leaned into him.
"Better."
Richard whispered, "Bossy."
Claire whispered back, "She gets it from you."
Emma shouted, "I can hear you."
They laughed.
The camera clicked.
Then Emma lowered it.
"One more."
Richard sighed.
"Why?"
"Because the first one looked too perfect."
Claire smiled.
"Take the imperfect one."
Emma raised the camera again.
At that exact moment, Richard said:
"Remember when you told me I had terrible hair?"
Claire burst out laughing.
The camera captured it.
Her head tilted back.
Richard looking at her.
Not at the camera.
Emma smiling behind it.
Later, they looked at the picture.
Claire went quiet.
Richard touched her shoulder.
"What?"
She placed the new photograph beside the old one.
In the first, two young people stood outside the cottage believing life was beginning.
In the second, two older people stood in the same place knowing life could begin more than once.
Claire turned the old photograph over.
Richard's handwriting remained:
Claire & Richard — before we had everything.
She picked up a pen.
Underneath it, she wrote:
We thought everything meant money.
Then she turned over the new photograph.
On its back, she wrote:
Claire & Richard — after we learned better.
Richard read it.
His eyes filled.
"I love you."
Claire looked at him.
There had been a time when those words belonged to a life she could not remember.
Now they belonged to this one.
"I love you too."
Emma stepped onto the porch.
"Are you two coming inside?"
"In a minute," Richard said.
Emma smiled knowingly and disappeared.
Claire leaned against him.
The lake was quiet.
No sirens.
No rain.
No hospital monitors.
No missing years demanding to be recovered.
Richard looked at the woman beside him.
Twenty years earlier, he had believed he'd lost the love of his life.
A year earlier, he'd found her collecting bottles in the rain.
Now she stood beside him beneath a warm summer sky.
Scarred.
Changed.
Alive.
"Richard?"
"Yes?"
"Do you ever think about the photograph I dropped?"
"Every day."
"What if Samuel hadn't found it?"
Richard was quiet for a moment.
Then he smiled.
"I would've found you another way."
Claire laughed softly.
"That's very confident."
"I'm a billionaire."
"That's not a personality."
"It helps."
She shook her head.
Then she took his hand.
"Come inside."
Richard followed.
At the doorway, Claire stopped and looked back once.
At the lake.
At the place where their story had once started.
She had spent twenty years believing she had no home.
Richard had spent twenty years believing his home had died.
They had both been wrong.
Home had never been the mansion.
Or the cottage.
Or the money.
It was the person waiting when you finally found your way back.
Claire squeezed Richard's hand.
Together, they stepped inside.
May you like
And this time, neither of them let go.
THE END
