But Cormac was right.

Falling apart is when the pieces scatter and are lost.

This was the opposite.

This was every piece that had been jammed into the wrong place for six years finally coming loose, so it could be set where it actually belonged.

The grief was real.

But underneath the grief, so quiet I almost missed it, was something I hadn’t felt in years: the specific relief of a person who has just been handed back the truth about herself, and finds that it is survivable, and that it is hers.