On New Year’s Day, Carol came to my house carrying a pie she claimed to have baked herself, though the crust looked suspiciously professional. We sat at my kitchen table beneath a framed photograph of Helen laughing on the beach in her straw hat, one arm around Carol.

I had set our wedding photograph beside it. For a long time I’d believed those two pictures could not exist in the same room — one the wife I had known, the other the woman who’d lived an entire life beyond my view.

Eventually I understood they were both Helen. Not innocent. Not a villain. Human.

Carol noticed me studying the photographs. “Do you forgive her?” she asked.

I breathed deeply. Outside, palm leaves shifted in the January wind; down the street, someone was taking down holiday lights. My new home smelled of coffee, pie, and the faint cedar oil I’d rubbed into Helen’s wooden box that morning.

“I don’t know yet,” I said honestly. “But I understand her more than I did.”