Chapter 6
The civil trial was three months later.
It was barely a trial at all.
With the criminal conviction already on the record, Margaret and Tyler had no defense left.
The jury was out less than an hour.
Judgment for the plaintiff.
Full amount.
$1.2 million dollars.
We’d never collect most of it.
They had nothing.
No assets.
No jobs.
No money.
Tyler was sentenced to three years probation and a thousand hours of community service in exchange for his testimony.
He moved to Alaska.
Got a job on a fishing boat.
I never heard from him again.
Good riddance.
But the judgment was there.
If either of them ever inherited anything.
Ever won the lottery.
Ever earned a dollar over poverty level — every cent would come to us.
For the rest of their natural lives.
It was symbolic more than anything.
But it felt good.
Final.
We used the money from the sale of the Magnolia house and what little we did recover to start a foundation.
The Henry Brooks Foundation.
Its mission: to help women and children trapped in abusive households.
To pay for safe houses.
For lawyers.
For therapy.
For new apartments.
For job training.
For everything a woman needs to leave and never go back.
Emma ran it.
She was incredible.
She talked to the women.
Held their hands.
Helped them fill out paperwork.
Told them her own story.
Told them they were not crazy.
Not weak.
Not alone.
That they deserved better.
And they believed her.
Because she’d lived it.
Because she’d survived the unthinkable and come out the other side stronger.
Within two years, we had three safe houses across middle Tennessee.
A staff of twelve.
A board of directors.
We’d helped over two hundred women and their children start new lives.
Every year on Henry’s birthday, we held a big fundraiser at the lake house.
Silent auction.
Dinner.
Dancing.
All proceeds to the foundation.
People came from all over the state.
Politicians.
Celebrities.
Other survivors.
It became the biggest event of the year in Franklin.
Henry grew.
Fast.
He was walking at ten months.
Running at eleven.
Talking in full sentences before he was two.
He had Emma’s eyes.
Her kindness.
Her artist’s heart.
And my stubbornness.
And my love for the outdoors.
He spent every free minute outside.
Chasing frogs.
Climbing trees.
Throwing rocks in the lake.
He never met his grandmother.
Never would.
We never told him about her.
Not when he was little.
We decided when he was old enough to understand, we’d tell him the truth.
About good and evil.
About how even people who are supposed to love you can hurt you.
About how important it is to listen.
To see.
To never be willfully blind the way I had been.
But for now?
He got to be a kid.
Pure.
Happy.
May you like
Loved beyond measure.
Exactly as it should be.
