Chapter 23 - The Education of Clara Vance
I didn't burn the trust papers. Instead, I handed them to Sarah Jenkins.
"It's ironclad," Sarah said a few days later, reviewing the documents over a video call. "The funds are legally designated for Clara’s college tuition and cannot be touched by Damon, his family, or even you, except for direct educational expenses. It’s a clean trust, Nora. No strings attached."
"Then keep it in the vault," I said. "We won't tell Clara about it until she’s eighteen. She can decide then if she wants to use her biological father's money to fund her dreams."
"That's a wise decision," Sarah agreed. "How are the wedding plans coming along?"
"Quietly," I smiled. "Exactly how we want them."
That evening, I sat with Clara at the dining table, helping her with her second-grade reading homework. She was incredibly bright, her eyes scanning the pages with a focus that reminded me so much of myself at her age.
"Mommy?" she asked, looking up from her book.
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"Is Owen going to be my real daddy after the wedding?"
My heart paused for a beat. We had never hidden the truth from her—she knew that Owen wasn't her biological father, though she had no memory of Damon. To her, Owen was the man who kissed her forehead, read her bedtime stories, and chased away the monsters under her bed.
"Owen is already your real daddy, Clara," I said softly, tucking a blonde curl behind her ear. "The wedding just means we’re making it official for everyone else. But in our hearts, we’ve always been a family."
She smiled, a wide, toothy grin that warmed me to my core. "Good. Because I like his pancakes better than yours."
I laughed, pulling her into a hug. "Hey! My pancakes are classic!"
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"They're flat, Mommy," she giggled.
As I held her, I looked out the window at the garden. The trust fund, the prison sentence, the mother-in-law who had tried to plead for her son—none of it mattered. The only thing that was real was this room, this child, and the love we had cultivated in the ruins.
