Chapter 3 - The Sanctuary in the Woods
By noon that afternoon, I had secured a temporary home.
I didn't rent a high-priced apartment in the city, nor did I hide in a hotel. Using my graphic design background, I reached out to a former client—an elderly woman named Eleanor who owned a sprawling apple orchard and a vacant three-bedroom caretaker’s cottage in the hills outside Mount Vernon, Ohio.
Eleanor had lost her husband five years prior and had been looking for someone trustworthy to live on the property, manage her online marketing for the orchard, and keep the grounds maintained.
When we pulled up the long gravel driveway, surrounded by rows of mature apple trees and rolling hills, the cottage looked like something out of a storybook. It was weathered, with white wooden siding, a wrap-around porch, and stone chimneys, but it was sturdy, clean, and warm.
“It’s small,” Eleanor said, leading us inside where a wood-burning stove crackled in the living room. “But it’s safe. The rent is six hundred a month, plus helping me with the harvest store on weekends.”
Grace immediately ran to the low window seat in the kitchen, peering out at the trees. “Mom! Look! There’s a squirrel!”
Ethan dropped his dinosaur blanket onto the sofa and looked up at me, the tension in his small shoulders finally releasing. “Can I have a bed near the window?”
“You can have whichever bed you choose, sweetie,” I said, kneeling down to hug him tightly.
Over the next four days, while Grant sent frantic text messages through my attorney and my sister Claire left furious voicemails demanding I stop "playing the martyr," I turned that cottage into a fortress.
I enrolled Lily, Ethan, and Grace in the local school district. I set up my high-powered computer station in the sunroom, establishing Parker Creative Solutions—my official, registered independent digital design consultancy.
On Thursday afternoon—exactly one week after I had left my home—my phone rang from an unknown number.
I picked it up. “Rebecca Parker.”
“Becca?”
It was my brother, Daniel. His voice sounded strained, filled with awkward, forced warmth.
“What do you want, Daniel?” I asked coldly, leaning back in my office chair.
“Look... Becca, I’m calling to check on you and the kids,” Daniel said, clearing his throat nervously. “Mom’s been crying for three days. Dad... well, Dad is stressed out. Grant has been calling the house five times a day demanding to know where you are. He’s threatening to cut Dad off from his annual business referral fee if we don't help him find you.”
I froze, a bitter, cold understanding washing over me.
Grant’s business referral fee.
My father owned a small insurance brokerage. For seven years, Grant had routed all of his corporate property and casualty policies through my father’s firm, providing my father with over thirty thousand dollars a year in passive commission income.
That was why my father had looked at my wet, terrified children and closed the door.
He wasn't calculating space. He wasn't calculating stress. He was calculating his commission check. He knew that if he took me in, Grant would sever the business arrangement. My own father had traded his daughter and three grandchildren for thirty thousand dollars a year.
A quiet, terrifying smile touched my lips.
“Becca? Are you there?” Daniel asked.
“I’m here, Daniel,” I said softly.
“Look, Dad wants you to bring the kids over this weekend,” Daniel continued, oblivious to the storm brewing on my end. “We can sit down with Grant. He’s really sorry, Becca. He said he’ll break it off with Vanessa completely. You two need to work this out. A divorce will ruin everyone’s finances.”
“Everyone’s finances?” I asked sweetly. “You mean Dad’s commission check?”
Daniel went dead silent on the other end of the line.
“Did you really think I wouldn't figure it out, Daniel?” I said, my voice dropping into an icy whisper. “You sat in your three-bedroom townhouse and let my children sleep in a diner booth because you didn't want Dad to lose his commission.”
“Becca, that’s not fair—”
“Listen to me very carefully, Daniel,” I cut him off sharply. “Tell Dad that his commission check is already gone. I informed Grant’s lead investor yesterday about his personal conduct, and the firm is undergoing an immediate corporate audit. Grant won't have a business left to route insurance through by next month.”
“What?!” Daniel gasped in genuine horror. “Becca, you’re destroying the family!”
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“No, Daniel,” I said softly, staring out at the golden sunlight filtering through the apple orchard. “I am building my own. Tell Dad I hope his thirty thousand dollars was worth losing his daughter and grandchildren forever.”
I hung up the phone and blocked his number permanently.
