Chapter 6 - A New Chapter at the Coast
The summer sun beat down warmly on the wooden deck of the Cape house, turning the Atlantic Ocean into a sheet of hammered copper. It was July, exactly one year since the wedding that had blown our old lives to pieces, and the house was finally filled with the kind of laughter it had been built for.
Marcus was standing by the stainless-steel grill on the patio, flipping burgers with the concentration of a master chef, while Lily danced around him with a sparkler unlit in her hand.
"If you burn these, Uncle Marcus, I'm telling Attorney Thomas you're a terrible cook," Lily teased, her pigtails bouncing as she hopped from one foot to the other.
"Hey, these are gourmet Angus patties, kiddo," Marcus laughed, adjusting his sunglasses. "Respect the grill."
I sat at the wooden picnic table nearby, sipping iced tea and watching them. Who would have thought that a disastrous wedding in Newport would lead to this? Marcus and I had grown close over the past year through endless depositions, court dates, and weekend DIY remodeling projects on the house. What started as an alliance of convenience had quietly, organically blossomed into something steady and warm—a partnership built on mutual respect and shared survival.
Aunt Margaret walked out onto the deck carrying a bowl of potato salad, eyeing Marcus’s grilling technique with characteristic skepticism.
"Don't char them like you did last weekend, young man," she warned. "Some of us have sensitive palates."
"I take full personal responsibility for the culinary success of this afternoon, Margaret," Marcus replied smoothly, earning a dry chuckle from the older woman.
My phone buzzed on the table. I picked it up, expecting an email from the school district about the upcoming fall semester schedule. Instead, it was an alert from local news archives—a brief blurb about civil court proceedings in Providence. Vanessa Whitmore’s name caught my eye. Her boutique partnership had dissolved completely, and she had reportedly taken a job as a junior receptionist at a mid-tier accounting firm downtown—her first real, honest-to-goodness job in her entire life.
I stared at the screen for a moment, feeling a strange mixture of pity and closure. Karma wasn't a mystical force; it was simply the inevitable weight of truth catching up to people who spent their lives running from it.
I locked the screen, placed the phone face down on the wood, and let the notification drift out of my mind entirely. It didn't belong in our world anymore.
"Claire?"
I looked up to see Marcus standing over the table, holding a plate with a perfectly grilled burger and a side of fresh corn on the cob. He set it down gently in front of me, his hazel eyes warm and steady.
"Penny for your thoughts," he said softly, pulling out the bench opposite me and sitting down.
"Just thinking about how fast a year goes by," I replied, taking a bite of the burger. "And how strange it is that the worst day of my life turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to us."
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Marcus reached across the table, his warm fingers wrapping around my hand. "You didn't survive it because of luck, Claire. You survived it because you protected what mattered."
From the lawn, Lily shouted for us to come watch her do a cartwheel on the grass. We both laughed, standing up side by side to watch her clumsy, joyful tumble in the afternoon sun.
