Ruby frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”
He laughed. He pulled her into his lap and kissed her forehead. “I know. But it will. One day.”
Evelyn appeared in the doorway of the greenhouse. She was holding a watering can. She looked at Alessio and Ruby, sitting together in the dirt, surrounded by flowers, and she smiled.
“Can I help?” she asked.
Alessio nodded. “Always.”
She sat down beside them. She picked up a trowel and started to dig. And for the first time in a long time, the greenhouse felt like what it was always meant to be.
A home.
The final image: Alessio, Ruby, and Evelyn sitting in the garden, the sun setting behind them, the flowers blooming around them. The memorial garden was gone. The secrets were gone. The pain was still there, but it was no longer in control. Alessio looked at the two girls, the two daughters he had been given, and he felt something he had not felt in years. He felt peace.
He was not Marco’s victim. He was not Claudia’s fool. He was not the man who had lost everything.
He was Alessio Ventresca. He was a father. He was a survivor. He was home.
The Garden That Kept Its Secrets
