Memory is a strange thing. People think it returns like a film reel, smooth and complete. It doesn’t. It comes back like shards of glass rising from dark water, sharp piece by sharp piece.

I remembered the fundraiser in Charleston. I was twenty-three. My parents had insisted I attend because appearances mattered and donors liked “family values.” I remembered too much champagne I hadn’t wanted, a private hallway near the coat room, a man my father had known for years, Douglas Wren, touching my elbow and telling me I looked upset. I remembered saying I wanted to go home. I remembered the scent of his cologne, the locked office door, the crushing disbelief afterward. Most of all, I remembered trying to tell my mother the next morning and hearing her say, with terrifying precision, “You are confused, emotional, and not about to destroy this family with a story no one will believe.”

I had spent years forcing that memory into a locked room in my mind because surviving was easier than remembering clearly.

Now the door was gone.