Chapter 10 - The Echoes of Oak Cliff
Two years after the trial that locked Martha Carter away for the rest of her natural life, the physical and emotional landscape of our lives had shifted into something sacred.
Austin had become a true home. The old Victorian rental we had first moved into had been replaced by a sprawling, single-story ranch house surrounded by sprawling live oaks and a white wooden fence. There were no dark corners here, no secret rooms, and no locks on the outside of doors. Every room was bathed in natural light.
Yet, healing is never a straight line.
It was a crisp Saturday morning in November. The autumn air carried the sharp, earthy scent of fallen leaves, and Noah was out in the backyard practicing his soccer drills with Sean. I stood at the kitchen counter slicing apples when the landline phone mounted on the wall began to ring.
We rarely used the landline. Most people called my cell.
A cold prickle of dread brushed against the back of my neck. I paused, knife in hand, listening to the shrill electronic chime pierce the quiet morning air.
Sean must have heard it too, because the soccer ball stopped rolling against the grass outside. A moment later, the back door slid open, and Sean walked into the kitchen, his brow furrowed.
"You okay?" Sean asked softly, stepping up beside me and wiping a layer of sweat from his forehead with a gym towel.
"That's the landline," I whispered.
Sean reached out, his warm, calloused hand covering mine to steady the knife before taking it from my fingers and setting it down. He picked up the receiver.
"Vance residence," Sean said, his voice dropping into its firm, professional detective register.
I watched his face. For several long seconds, he didn't speak. His jaw muscles tightened, a small vein ticking near his temple. But instead of anger or alarm, his expression slowly melted into a strange, heavy confusion.
"Hold on," Sean said into the phone. He looked at me, covering the mouthpiece with his palm. "It's the chaplain from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Gatesville."
My breath hitched. Gatesville was the maximum-security facility where my mother was serving her life sentence.
"Put him on speaker," I managed to say.
Sean pressed the button on the cradle.
"Mrs. Vance?" a tired, gentle voice filtered through the small speaker. "My name is Chaplain Thomas. I'm calling from the Mountain View Unit."
"Is she dead?" I blurted out, the question escaping my lips before I could filter it.
A heavy sigh echoed from the other end of the line. "Not yet, ma’am. But she’s in the prison infirmary. Stage four pancreatic cancer. The medical board estimates she has less than forty-eight hours left. She requested to speak with you before... before she passes."
The kitchen seemed to tilt on its axis.
For two years, I had imagined this moment in a hundred different ways. I had imagined feeling triumphant, vindicated, or indifferent. But standing there in the sunlit kitchen with the smell of baking cinnamon rolls in the air, I felt only a hollow, vibrating numbness.
"Did she say what she wants?" I asked, my voice barely audible.
"She didn't specify," the chaplain replied quietly. "She only said that she has a final piece of paperwork regarding the Oak Cliff property—something involving your father's true estate that was never logged into evidence. She said it belongs to you and your son."
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Sean looked at me, his eyes searching my face for any sign of hesitation or pain. He didn't tell me what to do. He didn't try to make the decision for me. He simply wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me firmly against his side.
"Tell her," I whispered, staring out the window at Noah laughing as he chased the golden retriever across the lawn, "that I'll be there."
