Bella’s too.
The legal fight over Sarah’s stolen inheritance was moving through the courts.
My bookkeeping job had become full-time.
The house I’d once been terrified to leave was no longer something I missed.
Some evenings, Sarah and I still struggled.
A year of separation doesn’t disappear simply because the truth comes out.
She was angry that I hadn’t protected her sooner.
She had every right to be.
And I had to learn that apologizing wasn’t enough.
Trust had to be rebuilt through actions.
Slowly, we started finding each other again.
One evening, while I rocked Pauline beside the window, Sarah sat across from me.
“You know what I hated most?” she asked.
“What?”
“I kept thinking you’d choose him.”
The words hurt.
Because once, I probably would have.
Not because I loved him more.
Because he’d spent years convincing me I couldn’t survive without him.
I reached across the space between us and took my daughter’s hand.
“I should’ve chosen you sooner.”
Sarah squeezed my fingers.
“You chose me eventually.”
I looked down at Pauline sleeping peacefully against my chest.
For years, I believed keeping quiet was how I kept my family together.
I had been wrong.
My silence hadn’t been glue.
It had been a leash.
And the moment I finally stopped calling control love, I understood something Kevin had worked very hard to make me forget.
I wasn’t helpless.
I wasn’t trapped.
And I wasn’t nowhere without him.
I chose my daughter.
And somewhere inside that choice, after years of disappearing inside my own marriage, I finally chose myself too.
