Forgiveness, when it is real, is a gift, and a gift cannot be demanded, or owed, or extracted; the moment it is required, it stops being forgiveness and becomes just one more thing being taken from a child who has already had too much taken.

Hannah did not owe Veronica her forgiveness.

She never has, and she never will.

What she owed — what any of us owes, after a wound like that — was only the work of her own healing, which is a completely separate thing, and which she could do whether or not she ever forgave anyone at all.

And so I made her exactly one promise about her aunt, and I have kept it: that the decision was entirely hers.

If Hannah wanted to forgive Veronica someday, I would support it.