“Garrett is home.”
“The uniform held true.”
“The ledger is closed.”
“And around here…”
We stood up from the chairs, holding Emily, Garrett, Thomas, and Uncle David’s hands toward the limitless blue sky as the distant chimes of the valley chapel began to strike twelve times across the peaceful water:
“…nobody ever, ever… audits an auditor again.”
Barnaby let out a soft, contented sigh on the porch rug, his tail thumping once against the cedar boards: *thump.*
Garrett laughed into the warm sunlight.
Emily smiled, watching the soaring eagles.
The white passenger ferries glided across the blue water.
The eagles climbed into the limitless blue sky.
The water ran deep and clear.
The ledger was closed forever.
And the mother whose fifteen-year-old daughter had been vomiting for three days while her husband called it dramatic had walked out the back door in the dark, listened to her child’s desperate scream in the emergency room, answered the cruelty with the full sovereign authority of the United States Armed Forces, shattered the shadow conspiracy, sent the dynasty to Leavenworth in chains, and reclaimed her daughter along with the defense bedrock of the Republic—finally, beautifully, and eternally free.
