“Don’t mistake that for forgiveness.” And I turned and walked away, and this time no one had staged a room to watch me do it.

I just walked, on my own, out into the afternoon.

Chapter 16 — My Voice

The years after are the part nobody tells you about.

Everyone remembers the scene at the party — the whole extended family still tells it, I hear, in lowered voices.

Almost no one remembers that afterward, you have to actually build a life.

So I built one.

Tommy grew — grew tall, in fact, his lungs slowly strengthening year over year until the boy who couldn’t run became a boy who could, and then a young man who took up the piano and filled our house with sound.