On the day the center opened, Nora handed me a framed copy of the transcript from the first recording.
“You kept your head when most people would have broken,” she said.
I looked across the room as sunlight stretched over my father’s floorboards.
“I did break,” I replied. “I just refused to stay broken.”
That evening, after everyone had gone, I sat alone on the porch.
The wind moved gently through the trees.
For years, silence had reminded me of everything I had lost.
But that night, it felt different.
It did not feel lonely.
It did not feel empty.
It felt like justice.
