BUILT PLUMB. HELD TRUE.
MERCER HOMESTEAD // ESTABLISHED 1944
A slow, radiant, permanent smile broke across Adriana Mercer’s face—a smile that held zero fear, zero debts, zero lies, and zero graves.
I looked out over the forty miles of clean, sweet lake water where my grandfather’s memory and my daughter’s future had finally taken root upon solid rock:
“The line is plumb, Grandpa,” Adriana Mercer whispered into the morning breeze:
“The doors are locked from the inside.”
“The foundation stands upon solid stone.”
“The thieves are in their cages.”
“The house is clean.”
“The ledger is closed.”
“And around here…”
I stood up from the chair, holding my daughter’s hand toward the limitless blue sky as the distant chimes of the harbor chapel began to strike twelve times across the peaceful water:
“…nobody ever, ever… takes an auditor for granted again.”
Barnaby let out a soft, contented sigh on the porch rug, his tail thumping once against the cedar boards: thump.
The eagles climbed into the limitless blue sky.
The lake ran deep and clear.
The ledger was closed forever.
And the woman who had refused to sign the papers in the dark… was finally, beautifully, eternally free.
