Eventually she sent Gwen a short text: “I’m sorry I called you a burden when I was the one living off Gavin’s work.”

Gwen chose not to reply. Forgiveness doesn’t require reopening a door to the people who took away your sense of safety. Sometimes healing starts by building a boundary that never gets crossed again.

A full year after I came home, Gwen finished her last round of treatment. The oncologist confirmed there was no evidence of disease left in her body.

One bright morning, standing at the bedroom mirror, she pulled off her scarf. A soft layer of dark, healthy hair was coming in across her scalp.

She ran her fingers through it and smiled, her dimples showing. “Look, Gavin,” she said. “It’s finally growing back.”

That afternoon, while I was clearing out the leather folder I’d carried into that living room a year before, she stopped me.