Tucked into the tiny space behind the photographs was a small folded piece of paper.
I unfolded it carefully.
It was a strip of notebook paper, cut very small. In Nolan’s careful second-grade handwriting, it said:
Mom loves me more than all the stars. That’s the truth. I checked.
I read it three times. Then I folded it back up and tucked it behind the photographs, and I closed the locket and put it around my neck.
I haven’t taken it off since.
It’s been a year now.
I went
back to the cleaning contract at Riverview Tower, but only three nights a week. With the support Grant pays now, I don’t need the rest. I’m taking night classes at Pellissippi State to become a paralegal. Monica Reyes says she’ll hire me when I graduate.
“Anybody who can survive what you survived,” she said, “can survive a law office.”
We moved out of the apartment above the bakery in the summer. Not because there was anything wrong with it, but because Nolan needed his own room and my mother needed
a real bed. We rent a small house now with a backyard and a big oak tree.
Mrs. Kessler from the bakery still sends us a box of cinnamon rolls every Saturday. She says the apartment’s too quiet without us.
Grant still sees Nolan every other Saturday. The visits aren’t supervised anymore. The criminal case ended with a plea agreement, probation, and community service. He sold the townhouse. He sold the watch too.
Last month, he brought Nolan to a star party at the Knoxville Observatory. They looked at Saturn
