She had learned, in the hardest possible school, that you do not always get to choose what happens to you.

But you very often get to choose what it comes to mean, and who gets to say so, and whether the story ends in the dark where it began or in the light where you decide to carry it.

Alba.

Dawn.

The hour she reclaimed from the man who had stolen it, and gave back to the whole house as a blessing.

Chapter 25 — The Open Door

On the first morning that the Alba infirmary opened, Amparo asked that its door be propped fully open, and that it be left that way.