“Exactly like that,” I replied.
Years passed.
Sophie grew taller than Catherine. She cut her hair short one summer just because she wanted to. She got her driver’s permit and asked me to sit in the passenger seat for her first practice. My hands were sweaty, but I let her drive anyway, because control and love are not the same, and I refused to become a different kind of cage.
On the day Sophie graduated high school, she wore a cap that kept slipping back and a grin that looked like sunlight. Catherine cried. I stood behind them in the crowd and thought about the morning at the airport, Sophie’s whisper, the way my life had almost ended.
After the ceremony, Sophie hugged me and said, “You’re still here.”
I hugged her back hard. “Because of you,” I whispered.
That night, after the celebrations, I sat alone in my kitchen with a cup of tea. The house was quiet, but it didn’t scare me anymore. Quiet can be peace when it isn’t hiding danger.
My phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number.
I stared at it for a moment before opening.
It was a letter forwarded from the prison system—Margaret’s request to contact me.