Chapter 32 - The Final Ledger
I stood up, walking across the hardwood floor to the front entryway, pulling open the heavy wooden door.
The mail carrier—a local man named Arthur who had delivered letters to the eastern shore for thirty years—waved cheerfully from the stone porch, holding a single manila envelope before climbing back into his postal jeep and heading back down the drive.
I picked up the envelope, turned back inside, and closed the door against the morning mist.
Returning to the study, I tossed the envelope onto the mahogany desk. It wasn't a threat, an audit, or a federal summons. It was simply a quarterly tax assessment from the local county township—mundane, entirely legitimate, and utterly boring.
I picked it up, dropped it into the recycling bin without a second glance, and walked back to where Fay stood by the window, watching the fog slowly begin to burn away under the rising sun.
“What was it?” she asked.
“County taxes,” I replied, stepping up behind her and wrapping my arms around her waist.
Fay smiled, leaning back against my chest as the first bright rays of sunlight broke through the mist, illuminating the sparkling waters of the cove in a blinding flash of gold.
“Boring,” she whispered happily.
May you like
“Extremely,” I agreed.
The past was a closed ledger, locked away in the vault of history. The present was a sanctuary of absolute peace, warmth, and unyielding love. And the future stretched out before us like an open, uncharted ocean waiting to be explored, untethered by shadows, untouched by fear, and bound only by the infinite horizon of the sea.
