spend evenings planning revenge.
Didn’t want him tortured.
Didn’t need to watch him suffer.
But I also didn’t have to call his behavior forgivable merely to prove I’d recovered.
Peace wasn’t reconciliation.
Nor was it absolution.
I could release my anger without welcoming David back.
On what would’ve been Lily’s ninth birthday, Rebecca brought chocolate cake.
I’d once feared birthdays would become nothing but reminders of her absence.
Instead, we invited my mother, Elaine, Richard, and three of Lily’s closest school friends with their parents.
We shared memories.
Her friend Sophie recalled Lily hiding peas in a napkin during lunch.
Her teacher remembered Lily correcting a spelling mistake on a classroom poster, then apologizing to the poster.
Richard described teaching her to fish and pretending not to notice when she secretly returned every worm to the garden because she felt sorry for them.
We laughed until we cried.
Then cried
