I said it low, but the garden had gone so silent that it carried.

“Let me tell you about your reputation, Steven.

For six years, you let this woman treat me like an unwanted servant in the house I bought to save your life.

You let her seat me below the cousins.

You let her keep my face out of every photograph on these walls.

You let her erase me, one small cruelty at a time, and every single time I looked to you, my son, you looked away, because making waves was harder than letting your mother drown quietly.”

He was crying now, openly, but I was not finished, and I did not stop.