Chapter 10 - The Last SunsetThe sun began to dip below the horizon on a crisp autumn evening, painting the Dallas sky in breathtaking shades of bruised purple, brilliant amber, and deep rose.
The community center was quiet now. The apprentices had gone home, the children had returned to their families, and the sprawling lawns of the Highland Park estate had settled into a serene, evening stillness.
I sat on the wide stone steps of the front porch, resting my forearms on my knees, watching the wind rustle through the autumn leaves of the great oak trees.
Footsteps sounded softly behind me.
June stepped out onto the porch, wearing a cozy oversized sweater, holding two mugs of hot cocoa topped with marshmallows. She walked over, handed me one of the mugs, and sat down on the step right beside me, resting her shoulder against my arm.
We sat in comfortable silence for a long time, sipping the warm chocolate, letting the cool evening air brush against our faces.
“Dad?” June broke the quiet, her voice thoughtful.
“Yeah, bug?”
“Do you ever think about the old apartment? The one with the rattling heater and the kitchen where we baked the first castle cake?”
I turned my head, looking down at her. In the soft amber glow of the porch light, I saw so much of Rebecca in the curve of her smile and the steady, intelligent depth of her eyes.
“I think about it all the time,” I admitted softly. “That place taught me how to fix things when they were broken.”
June smiled, leaning her head against my shoulder. “I'm glad we lived there. If we hadn't lived there, we wouldn't have known how to build all of this.”
“That’s the secret, bug,” I said, pressing a kiss to the top of her dark hair. “You can’t appreciate the castle until you’ve survived the storm.”
Out in the distance, beyond the newly planted brick pillars and the welcoming gates, the city lights of Dallas began to flicker on one by one, stretching out toward the horizon like a sea of distant stars.
May you like
We had lost a family name, an inheritance, and an empire built on sand. But in exchange, we had found something infinitely more valuable: each other, an unshakeable foundation, and a home where the windows would always shine.
The castle was standing tall. And the storm could never touch us again.
