How do you feel about all this, Sarah asked me once over coffee. I don’t know, I admitted. I thought I’d feel satisfied, like consequences had finally landed where they belonged. But I just feel empty instead. That’s normal, she said. You can be right and still be sad about it.
I started seeing a therapist around then, Dr. Patel, whose office sat in Green Hills. During our third session she asked the question I’d been avoiding. Do you regret what you did, she asked. No, I said. Are you happy about the outcome, she asked. No, I said again. Can both be true, she asked. I thought about it for a long moment. Yeah, I said. Both can be true. Did you destroy their lives, or did they, she asked. They did, I said. I just held up a mirror. Exactly, she said. You set a boundary. They chose how to respond to it. Their own enabling pattern did the actual damage, not you. Then she paused. You are not mourning the family you had, she said. You are mourning the family you wished you’d had.
That landed somewhere deep.
I bought a child size acoustic guitar for two hundred eighty dollars and shipped it to Tyler anonymously, with a small note card that read only, music heals, keep playing, someone who cares. No signature. The no contact order was still technically active, but I hoped music might help him the way it had once helped me.
