Part 19

Years passed quietly.

Emma grew taller. The workshop filled with her projects—birdhouses, jewelry boxes, a small bookshelf she built at ten. Each imperfect, each entirely hers.

Olivia kept improving. She earned a certificate. Got a better job. Maintained the restraining order. She never tried to slip back into the role she’d lost.

Marisol stayed in my life—not a dramatic new romance, but steady companionship. She came to Emma’s plays, brought soup when I caught the flu, sat in the garden while the roses bloomed, letting silence be silence.

In my seventies, I stopped thinking of the house as a fortress.

It was just a home.

The cameras came down one by one—not because the world became safe, but because I refused to let fear shape the rest of my years.