I folded the letter and placed it in a drawer.
Then I went outside to find Lina.
She was in the garden, trying to teach a small butterfly to land on her finger.
“Mama!” she called. “Look! It’s not scared of me.”
I sat beside her.
“Maybe it just knows you won’t hurt it,” I said.
She smiled and returned to her game.
I watched her for a long time.
I could not change the years she had spent listening for footsteps. I could not erase the moments when I had been too frightened to speak. I could not make every relative understand why I had left, and I could not guarantee that the future would be simple.
But I could give her something different.
A home where anger did not have the final word.
A home where an apology was not a demand for forgiveness.
A home where respect was not measured by how quietly a woman endured pain.
