“No.” I grab her hand, squeezing. “Let’s take the elevator.”
She whips her head around, frowning. “You sure?”
“Positive, darling.”
We wait at the appropriate gate, and even though I’ve put my family’s woes behind me, I’m still on pins and needles. The dumbwaiter had been sealed up shortly after I took control over the estate. It helped soothe some of my anxiety over my claustrophobia, but not all of it.
When Cecilia gave me a call and asked if she could come and see Baby Nicola, I said yes. She wasn’t, after all, my mother nor my father. She never tried to kill me. When I asked Belle if I should offer to pay for Cecilia’s flight and accommodations, she said, “Absolutely not. Let her show you that she’s changed.”
And she has. Cecilia paid for everything for this trip with the money she makes working at a library near the university she goes to. She’s a changed woman.
When I see my sister coming out of the terminal’s gate, I rush toward her, my heart feeling lighter. She looks the same—perhaps she lost a couple pounds—but her smile is different. Genuine. Carefree.
We meet halfway, share a bone-crushing hug, and she cries into my shoulder. I let her. I know she feels it too. Orphaned. After all, when it was all done and dealt with, Ursula turned her back on her too and went to live in London with a friend.
“Thank you for giving me another chance,” Cecilia murmurs into my shoulder.
“Thank you for wanting one.”
I feel my wife’s hand on my back, supporting me, hugging me from behind, making sure I’m never out of balance.
“Come on,” Belle says softly. “Let’s go make some new family memories.”
So we do.
The End