Victoria never confessed again after that night on the stairs; she went silent and stayed silent, wrapped herself in the composure she’d worn her whole life.

But she did not have to confess.

The diary was in her hand for thirty years.

The safe was behind the photographs of her son.

And the two of us, who had walked out of that house with nothing but a bag and the truth, had put it all where the law could finally reach it.

Chapter 16 — The Home We Built