Chapter 10 - A Table Built for Two (And Beyond)
Six months later, the early June sunshine was spilling over the Blue Ridge Mountains, turning the French Broad River into a ribbon of molten gold.
The Grove Park house had sold in late April for seven hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars.
The closing had taken place at Marcus Vance’s downtown office. I didn't even have to look at my parents or Ainsley; Marcus had arranged for separate execution rooms.
When the escrow funds cleared, the bank mortgage was paid in full. Mara’s initial seventy-six thousand dollars was restored to the penny, deposited directly into an irrevocable trust for Luna. My equity share and carrying-cost reimbursements brought the total wire transfer into my account to **$284,112.50**.
My parents had walked away with less than forty thousand dollars after paying off their accumulated credit card liens and Dad's overdue tax penalties. They had moved into a modest two-bedroom rental duplex in Hendersonville, twenty miles south, where Dad had taken an entry-level job at an independent auto parts dealership, and Mom had started working part-time at a church daycare.
Ainsley had moved to Raleigh to live on a friend’s couch, working as a junior retail associate at a high-end department store. Brooks Pemberton had married a woman from a prominent Charlotte banking family four weeks ago; his father had made sure Ainsley’s name was quietly blacklisted from every country club and charity board in the Piedmont region.
I hadn't received a text, a phone call, or a voicemail from any of them since January.
And my life had never been so full of light.
With our proceeds, I had purchased a small, sun-drenched stone cottage on three acres of land in Black Mountain, just east of Asheville. The property backed directly onto the Pisgah National Forest, surrounded by ancient hemlocks, mountain laurels, and a babbling, clear-water creek that ran across the back of the lot.
In the back of the cottage, we had built Luna’s dream: a temperature-controlled, glass-walled sunroom dedicated entirely to her botanical and entomological studies.
"Daddy!"
Luna’s voice, clear, joyous, and bright, echoed down the stone pathway that led from the creek bed.
I stepped out onto the back deck, holding a pitcher of fresh lemonade.
Luna came running up the lawn. She was wearing denim overalls, yellow rain boots, and her silver Luna moth pendant gleamed against her throat. Her hair was tied back in two braids, and her hands were moving with that familiar, beautiful, fluttering rhythm—not out of anxiety, but out of pure, unbridled excitement.
Beside her walked Clara, carrying a mesh insect habitat, and Marcus, wearing jeans and an old flannel shirt, carrying a box of charcoal for the grill.
"Daddy! Look!" Luna yelled, bounding up the deck stairs and stopping precisely two inches from my belt buckle to apply her deep-pressure forehead press.
I set the lemonade on the cedar picnic table, knelt down, and squeezed her tightly. "Ten out of ten pressure?"
"Ten out of ten," she whispered happily. "Look at the habitat! Marcus helped me find it on the underside of a wild cherry leaf!"
I looked into the mesh cage Clara was holding.
Resting on a twig was a massive, velvet-winged creature. Its wings were lime green, trailing into long, elegant swallowtail streamers, edged with delicate bands of maroon and gold.
An *Actias luna*. A living, breathing Luna moth.
"She emerged from her cocoon this morning," Luna explained, her eyes wide with reverence, speaking with the clinical precision of a tenured professor. "Her wings are completely dry. She’s resting because she only flies at night. Transverse orientation, Dad. She’s waiting for the moon."
"She’s magnificent, bug," I said, feeling a warmth in my chest so vast and deep it made my eyes sting with sweet, uncomplicated tears. "Just like the girl she’s named after."
"Can we let her go tonight?" Luna asked.
"Whenever she’s ready," I promised.
Marcus set the charcoal down by the stone smoker with a satisfied grunt. "The butcher in town gave me four prime bone-in ribeyes, Wes. Said they were cut this morning. And Clara brought three homemade cherry pies from the orchard down the road."
"I made the crust with real lard, Wesley," Clara announced proudly, setting the mesh cage gently on the shaded bench. "Don't you dare ask about the caloric content."
"No parameters today," I laughed.
We spent the afternoon setting the massive cedar table I had built with my own hands on the deck. It wasn't formal. There was no damask linen, no silver polish, no Royal Albert porcelain, and no tension choking the air like smog. There were just thick ceramic plates, mason jars filled with fresh lemonade, wildflowers Luna had picked by the creek, and the laughter of people who loved my daughter for exactly who she was.
When the sun finally dipped behind the Blue Ridge peaks, painting the sky in deep strokes of violet, amber, and indigo, we lit the lanterns on the deck posts.
We sat down together.
Luna sat directly to my right, her chair pressed against mine. She was humming softly, her fingers gently tapping the edge of her plate in a steady, peaceful rhythm as Marcus carved the steaks and Clara poured the cider.
"Daddy?" Luna whispered, looking up at me through her clean, smudgeless glasses.
"Yes, sweetheart?"
She looked around the table—at Clara laughing at one of Marcus’s courtroom stories, at the food piled high on the wooden platters, at the quiet woods glowing beneath the first stars of the evening.
"There’s enough room for everyone," she said.
I reached out, took her small hand in mine, and squeezed it gently.
May you like
"There’s always room at this table, Luna," I said, my voice thick with a father’s absolute peace. "Always."
Out in the quiet forest, as the full moon rose above the pines, a pair of pale green wings fluttered against the mesh of the open habitat, caught the cool mountain breeze, and lifted into the dark, guided by a light that was true, permanent, and free.