Chapter 18 - The Greatest Gift
Five years passed in a blink of an eye.
Nana celebrated her eighty-sixth birthday surrounded by people who adored her.
She blew out her candles with surprising lung capacity and a mischievous glint in her eye.
She pulled me aside during the party and handed me a sealed envelope.
Inside was a single twenty-dollar bill and a handwritten note.
The note simply read, "To my fiercest protector, thank you for letting me live."
I finally let the tears fall, hugging her so tightly I thought she might break.
But she didn't break, because she was made of the same tough steel that I was.
News reached me later that week that my father had tried to appeal his sentence.
The appellate court threw it out immediately, citing overwhelming irrefutable evidence.
He was going to die in that concrete cell, surrounded by people just as rotten as he was.
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I felt a brief flash of pity, not for the man he was, but for the father he could have been.
Then I let it go, watching the wind blow the autumn leaves across the lawn.
