She took her mother’s hand.
“You gave me a home. You listened to me. You let me ask questions, even when the answers were difficult. And now that I’m eighteen, I want you to remember something.”
Emma squeezed her hand.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“You’re allowed to have a life, too. You don’t have to spend the rest of your life paying for what happened when you were thirteen.”
The room fell silent.
Marta wiped her eyes.
Emma looked toward the shelf where she kept a photograph of her father.
For years, she had believed that being strong meant carrying everything quietly. She had thought that moving forward required leaving every painful question unanswered.
Now she understood something different.
She could love her father and still recognize that his silence had cost her something.
She could acknowledge Helena’s regret without pretending that regret erased responsibility.
And she could love Sophie without allowing the past to dictate the rest of their lives.
