Chapter 2
The kitchen closed at eight o'clock,
and the last of the volunteers locked the back door.
I sat alone at the corner table,
with a single lamp burning overhead.
The envelope sat on the wood between my hands,
mocking me with its plain white face.
I opened it slowly,
half expecting the paper to cut me.
The handwriting was sharp,
and it slanted aggressively to the right.
There was no greeting,
and there was no apology.
It started with a demand,
because Rebecca only knew how to take.
She wrote that she was appealing her sentence,
and she needed my help.
She said I owed it to Thomas,
because he was her blood,
and I was just the woman he married.
A bitter laugh escaped my throat,
echoing off the stainless steel appliances.
She still thought blood was a weapon,
and she still thought guilt was a currency I accepted.
I read the words again,
tracing the ink with my eyes.
She claimed the prison was cruel,
and she said she was suffering.
She wanted me to write a letter to the parole board,
stating that I had forgiven her,
and stating that she was no longer a threat.
I folded the letter neatly,
and I placed it back in the envelope.
Forgiveness is a beautiful concept,
but it is not a get-out-of-jail-free card.
I had forgiven her in my own way,
by choosing to live a life that did not center around her destruction.
But forgiving a snake does not mean you invite it back into your house,
and it certainly does not mean you open its cage.
I stood up,
and I walked to the small office in the back.
I dropped the letter into the shredder,
and I listened to the satisfying sound of the blades turning her demands into confetti.
The machine whirred loudly,
and then it stopped.
It was over,
just like that.
I did not tell Andrew about the letter,
because he was finally beginning to heal.
He was smiling more often,
and he had even started playing the guitar again.
I refused to let her voice enter his head,
not when he had spent so many months scraping her lies out of his mind.
The next morning,
I woke up early,
and I walked to the kitchen before the sun was up.
The city was quiet,
and the streets were covered in a fresh layer of frost.
I unlocked the front door,
and I turned on the lights.
The warmth of the room rushed over me,
and I felt a deep sense of peace.
This space was mine,
and it was untouchable.
We started preparing breakfast,
cracking eggs into massive bowls,
and frying bacon on the flat top grill.
The smell drifted out into the street,
drawing in the morning crowd.
There were tired mothers,
and there were elderly men who had outlived their pensions.
We served them all,
without asking questions,
and without demanding proof of their pain.
May you like
It was the exact opposite of what Rebecca had done to me,
and that was my greatest victory.
