Thirteen Months Later

I park my car in the driveway, a small smile on my face. I climb out and grab my bag from the passenger seat as I walk up toward my front door. My heels make a familiar clacking noise, and I can’t wait to go inside.

I push open the front door. I can hear the sounds of something coming from the kitchen, and something smells good. As I get closer, I realize that it’s Samuel, and he’s singing a song softly to little Stacey.

I come around the corner and lean up against the doorframe, watching them. Samuel’s a huge man, carrying this little six-month-old baby, and singing to her softly. She giggles as he stirs whatever he’s cooking, and it smells so freaking good.

He looks up suddenly, realizing I’m there. A smile breaks across his face.

“You’re home,” he says. “Look, mommy’s home.”

“Come here,” I say, holding my arms out. Samuel gives me Stacey and kisses me, lingering slightly. I hug Stacey against me, grinning like an idiot.

I didn’t think I’d go back to work, but Samuel encouraged me. He stays home and takes care of the baby while I’m at work, and I know it’s not his ideal situation, but he’s been such a good father. He focuses mainly on administrative stuff now for the union, and rarely takes a shift down in the mine. I make sure he’s still taken care of, although he doesn’t really need to be, since we still have my money to rely on. I still don’t have much of a salary, but that’s no issue.

“How was work today?” he asks me.

“Oh, you know, another bloodbath.”

He laughs. “You love it.”

“I really do.” I swoop Stacey up into the air and she giggles. “We lost two today.”

He grins at me. “Soon you’ll be the only one left.”

“The board’s in the process of hiring more people, but I think we’ll be a skeleton crew when this is all said and done.”

“Good. Works better that way. The guys all say they’ve been happier than ever since… you know.”

“Productivity is up. I don’t think we’ve been this profitable in years.”

“All thanks to you.”

I laugh and shrug. “I’ll take credit, I guess.”

For the past few months, ever since the new contract went into effect, the upper level managers have slowly quit. They took big pay cuts, and sure enough, they weren’t happy about it. The board and I saw this coming, and we’ve been shuffling things around, paying the people that decide to stay more once some money is freed up as others quit, but mostly we’re just scrambling to make it all work.

And that’s fine by me. I love the challenge. I have a better relationship with the board, and I’m really growing into my position. And the best part of it all is, Ingram is long, long gone.

After that day he kidnapped me, we drove him to the county seat and had him arrested. He’s rotting in jail now, with a bunch of cellphone videos entered as evidence of what he did. Most of the cops that were there that day haven’t been prosecuted, which is fine by me. I don’t care about any of them.

I just want Ingram to rot.

As for Roy, well, we don’t talk about him. As far as I know, he skipped town and never looked back. That’s a sore spot for Samuel, so I don’t push him too much.

I give Stacey back to Samuel, kiss him again, and head upstairs. I get changed into more comfortable clothes, and by the time I’m finished, Samuel has dinner on the table.

“What a great house husband,” I say.

He grins and shrugs. “When I take a job, I do it right.”

“I can’t complain,” I say, kissing him and sitting down. “I think I have the best life in the whole world.”

He laughs and we start eating, with Stacey in my lap.

The early days of having a baby were hard, but Samuel was there the whole time. We got married right after she was born, and we’ve been living in my big house, although we’re talking about finding a new place. There are too many memories in here, and we both want to start over fresh and clean.

Mostly though, every day’s a little better than the day before. Stacey’s growing so fast, and Samuel’s such a good, supportive husband and father. He cooks, he cleans, he does everything around the house. He takes care of me and lets me go to work.

One day, I’ll return the favor. I’ll make it up to him when I can. I don’t know how, but I will. I try to make it up to him every night in bed, and he seems to be pretty happy with that.

We’re already talking about having another baby. I suspect we’ll have a big family, and that’s okay with me. I love having a big family. The miners already feel like our extended family, and that’s perfect.

I’m in their world now, and I think they all mostly accept that I’m on their side. Sure, I’m corporate, but I’m one of the good guys. I gave up all my money for them, after all.

I feel like I’m walking around with a smile on my face at all times. I can’t help it really. Things are too good, too happy, and they’re going to continue like this as far as I can tell. I don’t want anything to change, wouldn’t ask for anything more. Samuel smiles at me from the other end of the table.

“What?” he asks.

I smile at him. I was looking at his handsome face, his deep, intense eyes, everything about him.

“Nothing,” I say. “Just happy.”

“Yeah.” he says, a soft smile. “Me too.”

We go back to eating, and I feel such a wave of contentment wash over me that it’s impossible to describe. I hold my daughter tighter and smile, just letting that smile define me.