There are places that disappear.
Not like an illusion or a magic trick. They simply fade into the background. They leave your memory and sometimes the only way you remember they ever even existed is by the evidence that they are no longer there. Like a missing piece in a photograph or a puzzle with a gap. You know something is missing but you cannot quite fill in the gap.
We closed up the house and sold it. It went to a nice family that wanted to start a new life. A life they can have since John saved the town.
His company grew, just like he wanted it to, and Downton revitalized. Instead of everyone wanting to move out people were moving in. Now they had somewhere to go and a place to dream.
The buildings do not rot anymore. The children play in playgrounds or read at new libraries. Teenagers made nuisances of themselves at the skate parks or the rec centers but at least they were there instead of smoking in condemned houses or buildings. The adults built businesses and homes and families in the comfort of a bustling town full of life and opportunity.
There is no reason to move now. The ghostly apparitions of former life fell to the background as new life breathed in the streets. Old factories, once falling to the tread of time, now steamed with new life. Houses filled with noise and life and the schools spat out students looking for new life, problems to solve, and ways to make their community better.
The lights no longer fade from dreamer's eyes. They only burn brighter now. They burn stronger now.
No one needed to move anymore.
They have places to go now. They have dreams to fulfill now. And they have a community to build now.
This is the town where I grew up. The town where my father fell in love with my mother. Where I returned to care for my mother. Where I fell in love with the man who makes me happy. Where I found the strength to move on and find a new dream.
It sucked me back, like a black hole, but I escaped it. I left the dark memories behind. I found new life by leaving my town behind.
He came and found me. I cannot say he saved me. I can say that we saved each other. We found new life together there before finding a new life somewhere else. Everything changed when he came and I could not be more grateful for it.
I sit here, on the little porch we have, and rock our child. The child we worked so hard to have. The child we wanted more than life itself. The child we call our little miracle every single day.
He has his brothers and sisters, the others who call our house home, but he is ours. They are ours too but in a different way. They do not look like us and some of them do not even sound like us but they are all ours. They share our home, if not our blood, and they call us family.
I can only say now that I am who I was always meant to be. This is who I am meant to be.