Chapter 5 - A Christmas New Year
Six months later,
the Vermont spring had turned the world green.
I stood on the balcony of my new dorm room at Hawthorne Preparatory Academy.
The campus was beautiful,
filled with the sound of violins and the smell of old parchment.
I had been accepted into the advanced composition program.
My grandmother had offered to buy the school,
but I told her no.
I wanted to earn this on my own.
I had spent the last few months healing,
not just physically,
but mentally.
I had a bank account that could buy the world,
but my greatest treasure was the silence.
The absence of fear.
The absence of his voice.
My father had recently been sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion and embezzlement of trust funds.
Karen had left him the moment the money ran out,
and was now working at a diner in a town where no one knew her name.
They were gone.
On this afternoon,
a small package arrived for me.
It was from Eleanor.
Inside was a small,
framed photograph of my mother when she was eighteen.
She was standing in front of the same fountain I could see from my balcony.
She was smiling,
her eyes full of dreams.
There was a note attached.
"She would be proud of the woman you became,"
"not because of the money,"
"but because you didn't let the cold change your heart."
"Build something beautiful,
Emily."
I walked over to my piano and sat down.
I placed the silver key on the music stand.
I began to play.
The notes were sharp at first,
like the wind on that Christmas Eve.
But then,
they became warmer.
They became a story of a girl who survived the dark.
The music flowed out of the window,
across the campus,
and into the bright,
open sky.
I was Emily Carter no longer.
I was the architect of my own life.
And as the sun set over the mountains of Vermont,
I knew that the demolition was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Because before you can build a palace,
you have to clear away the ruins.
I closed my eyes,
took a deep breath,
and played the final,
May you like
triumphant chord.
The end.
