Chapter 14 - The House That Nearly Killed Him
Raymond refused to sell the mansion.
Everyone expected him to.
Instead, he returned.
The first night was difficult.
He stood outside his old bedroom for almost a minute.
“You don't have to go inside.”
“Yes, I do.”
He entered.
The medical equipment was gone.
So was the hospital bed.
The windows were open.
Fresh air moved through the curtains.
Raymond stood where he had once been trapped.
Then Theodore waddled past him carrying a stuffed bear.
Raymond laughed.
The sound changed the room.
Over the following months, the mansion transformed.
Raymond converted part of the property into temporary housing for single parents facing homelessness.
He created a fund for caregivers who couldn't afford childcare.
“Why?” reporters asked.
Raymond answered simply.
“Because the person who saved me almost didn't have a place to sleep.”
I hated when he said things like that in public.
Mostly because they made me cry.
Claire became involved in the foundation.
She and Raymond slowly built the relationship both had lost twenty-seven years of.
And I enrolled in nursing school.
Raymond offered to pay.
I refused.
He argued.
I refused louder.
Eventually, we compromised.
The foundation gave me the same scholarship available to every other applicant.
One evening, I found Raymond sitting beside the lake.
“You're stubborn,” he said.
“So are you.”
“That’s why we're alive.”
Theodore was asleep against his shoulder.
The image stopped me.
It looked almost exactly like that first night.
Except Raymond was awake.
Healthy.
Smiling.
He looked at me.
“Nora.”
Something in his voice changed.
May you like
I knew what was coming.
And suddenly I was more frightened than I had been facing Christopher.
