We sat on a low stone wall while people passed with coffees, briefcases, children. Somewhere nearby, someone was laughing.
I had imagined relief would arrive like a door thrown open.
Instead, my hands would not stop trembling.
Lydia held my cup while I drank.
“I keep thinking I should feel happy,” I said.
“You don’t have to do anything today.”
It was such a small permission.
I leaned against her shoulder.
By then I had bought a modest brick house near the river. I chose it for the kitchen window and the bedroom on the ground floor. The first evening, I moved a chair three times until I found the spot where the sunset warmed my knees.
Nobody complained about the scraping.
That nearly undid me.
I found a counselor who did not rush to tell me I was strong. Some weeks we spoke about William. Some weeks I sat with a tissue twisted around my finger while trying to explain why choosing a dinner plate had become difficult.
I learned to stop apologizing before asking for things.
Lydia came on Thursdays. Once, over tea, she admitted she had resigned from the charity committee she had shared with Khloe.
“I kept remembering how quickly I believed her.”
“You stayed when it became uncomfortable.”
“I should have done more.”
“You did more afterward.”
She wiped a spill from the table with her thumb.
Our friendship grew slowly, without either of us needing to call it forgiveness.
Mercer closed the last dispute over the house that autumn. He put the final accounting on my kitchen table and waited while I read it.
“Nothing left?” I asked.
“Nothing connected to this that requires your attention.”
I checked the final page twice.
Then I put it in a drawer and asked whether he took sugar.
Ethan wrote from custody. His first letter contained so many apologies that I could barely find him inside it.
I answered with three sentences.
I am safe. I am getting help. I need time.
His next letter told me about washing dishes in the kitchen and a book he had borrowed. He did not ask me to visit.
I kept it.
