For years I’d treated receiving help like admitting defeat.

She’d spent years reminding me that teamwork wasn’t a failure of independence.

Outside, rain began to fall.

I stood beneath the awning for a moment and realized I was no longer thinking about a courtroom victory.

I was thinking about fixing Walter’s porch.

And perhaps about the people who still needed a roof.

PART 10

Paige Holloway wasn’t my sister; she was my cousin, daughter of Walter’s younger brother.