“Then I suggest you clear out the garage, Dad,” I whispered. “I hear it’s a very clarifying place to sleep.”
General Sterling gestured to the heavy steel elevator doors. “Dinner is concluded. Grace, please escort our former guests to the lobby.”
My mother wept openly, reaching a trembling hand out toward me. “Clara, please. You’re pregnant. We’re your baby’s grandparents. Don’t throw us away.”
“You threw me away first, Mom,” I said, turning my back on them. “I just changed the locks so you couldn’t come back.”
As the elevator doors closed on their sobbing, broken faces, sealing them off from my world forever, I felt the heavy, rusted tumbler in my chest finally click open.
Six months later, the sprawling city skyline looked fundamentally different to me.
I stood on the glass balcony of my penthouse, the warm spring breeze rustling my hair. In my arms, I held my newborn son, David Jr. He had his father’s dark eyes and a peaceful, quiet strength.
