Chapter 11: The Quiet Days
The first few months after Gavin’s release were a careful dance between joy and adjustment.
Chloe started school again, this time without the constant fear that her father might not be there at the end of the day. She made friends easily, the same bright, solemn girl who had walked into a prison and changed everything. Gavin took a job at a local auto repair shop, the same trade his father had taught him before everything fell apart. The work was honest and steady, and the smell of oil and metal reminded him of simpler times.
Nights were the hardest.
Chloe would sometimes wake from nightmares about the prison or the courtroom. Gavin would sit beside her bed until she fell back asleep, telling her stories from when she was little. He had missed so many of those stories. Now he made up for lost time with every bedtime.
His own mother moved in for a while to help. She cooked the meals he had dreamed about on death row and never asked him to talk before he was ready. The three of them slowly rebuilt the family that Lila had tried to destroy.
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Gavin never missed a single visit with Chloe. He showed up early, stayed the full time, and left with the same promise he had made in the visitation room.
“I’m here now.”
