He Deceived Me So I Destroyed His Family’s Legacy Chapter 21
The doctor came out too, holding the chart he had just filled out.
“This child has a persistent high fever and old bruises on his body.”
“If you take him back today and he dies, will you take responsibility for that?”
The man faltered, but his tone was still belligerent.
“How I discipline my wife is none of your business.”
Lily pulled a folded paper from her pocket.
“I’ve already written down her police statement.”
“The county sheriff is on his way.”
The man’s eyes flew wide.
“You dare call the police?”
Lily looked at him and said, word by word, “I do.”
“I didn’t used to.”
“But I do now.”
A siren sounded from the end of the street.
The man finally panicked and turned to run, but the neighbors blocked his way.
By the time the Putnam County officers arrived, the woman was clutching her child, shaking with tears.
She asked Lily, “I really don’t have to go back?”
Lily knelt in front of her and wiped the rain from her face.
“No.”
“You can stay.”
“When your child gets better, you can go anywhere you want.”
The woman stared at her, as if she could hardly believe anyone in the world would say those words to her.
Standing behind them, I felt my eyes sting.
I had once done everything I could to shelter Lily—afraid she would break, afraid she would get hurt, afraid the wind itself might knock her down.
But now she was standing in the storm, holding an umbrella for someone else.
Later, the federal bankruptcy court for the Southern District of New York sent documents releasing the Blackwood Group’s lien on the old Hale house.
I asked Lily, “Do you want to go back?”
She was bandaging a little girl’s scraped knee.
At my question, she looked up and smiled.
“Yes.”
“We’ll turn the old Hale house into a clinic, too.”
“So more people with nowhere to go will have a door they can knock on.”
I looked at her.
“Lily, aren’t you afraid anymore?”
She thought for a moment, then shook her head.
“It’s not that I’m not afraid.”
“It’s that even when I’m afraid, I can still keep going.”
A ripe apple dropped from the branch above and landed in her palm.
She handed it to me.
“Nora.”
“It’s sweet.”
I took a bite.
It really was sweet.
Sweet enough that all those endless nights finally felt very, very far away.
But the next morning, a summons from Manhattan Criminal Court arrived at the clinic.
The case of Adrian Blackwood was finally going to trial.