I stood beside her in the warm dark.

“Some people do change,” I said. “But somebody being sorry doesn’t mean they get to come back into your life. Forgiveness is something you give yourself so you’re not carrying the anger around.

Boundaries are what keep you safe. They’re two different things.”

She adjusted the lens one more time and stepped back to look.

“That makes sense,” she said.

We stood there a while without talking. The neighborhood was quiet. The driveway had been scrubbed clean months ago. The porch light threw a warm circle across the front step, and the small green indicator on the security sensor blinked steadily up near the roofline.