Somebody put their hands around my niece’s chest in September of 2022 and squeezed hard enough to break three ribs against her own spine, and that person has never been named by anybody, and there is a version of this where it was not Curtis Bellew, and I do not think about that version very often and when I do I have to go outside.

Part Twenty-Three: Two Letters

Two letters arrived at two different houses in the April of 2023 and they are the reason I tell people about the State Central Register whenever anybody gives me an opening.

Mine said unfounded.

It is one page.

It says that the investigation concerning Alma Restrepo has been completed and that the allegation was determined to be unfounded and that the report will be expunged in accordance with the relevant section, and there is a case number and a signature block.

It took six months.