you sooner,’ he said.
I looked at my daughter in Iris’s arms, her tiny fist wrapped around the silver gull charm my mother had left behind.
‘So do I,’ I said. ‘But you found me in time.’
He nodded, eyes wet.
For a long while, neither of us spoke.
The lighthouse beam turned slowly behind us though daylight filled the shore. Mira yawned, unimpressed by wealth, scandal, justice, and the ocean that had failed to take her. I touched the scar on my cheek, then lowered my hand.
Julian had wanted me remembered as a tragedy.
Instead, I became a witness.
A daughter.
A mother.
And when I finally looked up at the cliff, I did not see the place where he ended my life.
I saw the place where my daughter and I began it again.
