Chapter 13
Prison did not make Victor gentle.
It made him slower.
That helped.
He called Ellie twice a week under approved rules.
No promises he could not keep.
No blaming Celeste.
No blaming courts.
No asking whether she missed him.
Angela or Ellie’s therapist could end any call.
At first Ellie kept the calls short.
Three minutes.
Five.
Once only thirty seconds.
Then, one night, she asked him to hum “Harbor Lights.”
He did.
Badly.
She corrected him.
“You skipped the part that goes down.”
“I forgot.”
“I didn’t.”
“No.”
She had learned the melody from Audrey.
Victor had learned it from Audrey too.
For a while, that was their safest bridge.
A song neither of them owned alone.
Angela eventually became Ellie’s legal guardian.
Not adoptive mother, because Ellie was not ready to decide what legal permanence meant with Victor in her life.
The court allowed that uncertainty.
Children are allowed to need time.
Audrey’s remaining belongings were inventoried.
No hidden fortune.
No secret mansion.
A few notebooks.
Two scarves.
Three photographs.
A recipe card.
A worn sweater.
And sheet music for “Harbor Lights.”
Ellie kept the sheet music in a plastic sleeve.
Victor received a copy in prison.
He looked at Audrey’s handwritten notes in the margin and sat with them for an hour.
May you like
No one bothered him.
That was wise.
