Not only because of me.

Because of Gabriel.

Because of Gemma’s own strength.

Because of a whole quiet architecture of love that had been protecting her all along, in ways I had been too blind and too young to see.

The wall had held.

My sister was alive.

And the people who had tried to knock it down were, at that very moment, riding an elevator down and out of our lives.

Three weeks later, my parents formally resigned as trustees of Gemma’s trust; our family attorney had made it quietly clear that the contract they had authored would never survive the light of a courtroom, and they knew it.