Some days, after a meeting or a difficult conversation, I needed to go home and rest.

I used to mistake that for weakness.

Now I understood that living through something terrible did not obligate me to hurry through healing.

PART 22

One afternoon in early spring, I drove back to the house where Leticia and I had lived.

Rachel had arranged for my belongings to be inventoried, and I went with Connie to collect a few things that still mattered.

The house looked exactly as I remembered: tan walls, a narrow front porch, a bougainvillea that always needed trimming.