Chapter 19 - TWENTY CANDLES
Claire turned twenty-six in the spring.
She had never celebrated a birthday outside confinement.
Daniel wanted a large party.
Elizabeth wanted family photographs.
Claire wanted neither.
She chose the old Bennett freight yard.
Ethan had transferred the original property back into a restored Bennett trust.
Parts of it would remain industrial.
The oldest warehouse would become something new.
The Claire Bennett Center for Missing and Exploited Persons.
Claire disliked the name.
Everyone else insisted.
At sunset, a small group gathered inside the unfinished building.
Her parents.
Mrs. Harrow.
Ortiz.
Marcus.
Ethan.
No reporters.
No politicians.
No cameras.
There was one cake.
Twenty-six candles.
Claire stared at them.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to wish for.”
Daniel smiled sadly.
“You don’t have to wish.”
Elizabeth stood beside him.
“You can decide.”
Their relationship remained difficult.
Claire did not call them Mom and Dad every day.
Some days she did.
Some days she could not.
They learned not to demand it.
Healing was not a reunion scene.
It was breakfast.
Awkward conversations.
Anger.
Therapy.
Silence that no longer meant imprisonment.
Claire blew out the candles.
Later, she walked outside.
Ethan followed.
The rail yard stretched beneath the stars.
Freight trains moved in the distance.
“My father really did teach me to count stars here.”
Ethan looked upward.
“How many?”
“I used to stop at fifty.”
“Why?”
“I thought fifty was infinity.”
He smiled.
“Reasonable at five.”
Claire looked at him.
“What happens to us?”
The question surprised him.
“What do you want to happen?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s allowed.”
“I spent my whole life knowing exactly what tomorrow looked like.”
He understood.
The same room.
The same boards.
The same door.
Freedom was frightening because it contained choice.
Claire looked toward the railway tracks.
“I want to travel.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
“That narrows it down.”
“I want to see the ocean.”
“Good.”
“The desert.”
“Also good.”
“A grocery store at two in the morning.”
Ethan laughed.
“That one is achievable.”
“I want to ride a subway.”
“You may reconsider.”
“I want terrible coffee.”
“New York can help.”
She smiled.
Then became serious.
“And I want to learn who I am when nobody is deciding for me.”
Ethan nodded.
“That might take a while.”
“Will you still answer if I knock?”
He looked at her.
“Always.”
Claire reached for his hand.
May you like
Not because she needed rescuing.
Because she chose to.
