Chapter
The first few months after the trial were strange.
People recognized me on the street. They’d come up to me and say thank you. They’d tell me their own stories.
I became something of a local celebrity. But not the kind that gets invited to parties. The kind that gets asked to speak at events. To share my story. To help other people who were going through what I’d gone through.
I started volunteering at a local domestic violence shelter. I talked to women and children who were living in fear. I told them my story. I told them they weren’t alone. I told them there was a way out.
It was hard work. Emotional work. But it was good work.
My mother and I continued to build our relationship. We had dinner together every Sunday. We went to movies. We went shopping. We learned how to be mother and daughter without the shadow of my father hanging over us.
She was different now. Happier. Lighter. She laughed more. She started painting, something she’d given up when she married my father.
She told me once, “I feel like I’m waking up from a thirty-year nap.”
I knew what she meant.
David and I moved in together. We found a small house with a big backyard. We got a dog. A golden retriever puppy we named Hope.
It was the kind of normal, happy life I’d always dreamed of but never thought I’d have.
Some days, I’d wake up and look at David sleeping next to me. I’d listen to Hope barking in the backyard. I’d smell coffee brewing. And I’d have to pinch myself.
Was this real? Was this my life?
It was.
I went back to school. I got my degree in social work. I wanted to help people professionally. To turn my pain into something good.
Ethan wrote me a letter from prison six months after he was sentenced.
I almost didn’t open it. But I did.
Natalie,
I don’t expect you to forgive me. I don’t even expect you to write back. But I needed to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything I did to you. For everything I watched Dad do and didn’t stop. I was weak. I was scared of him. I wanted his approval so badly that I became just like him. I hate myself for it. I’m getting help here. Therapy. I’m trying to become a better person. I hope one day you can find it in your heart to forgive me. But if you can’t, I understand. I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry.
Ethan
I read it twice.
I didn’t write back. Not yet.
Forgiveness was a long way off. Maybe it would never come. But his apology meant something. It meant that somewhere in there, he knew what he’d done was wrong.
My father never wrote. Never apologized. According to my mother, he still blamed everyone but himself. He said he’d been set up. That the trial was a sham. That I’d destroyed the family out of jealousy.
I didn’t care what he thought anymore.
He was in prison. He couldn’t hurt anyone.
That was enough.
One year to the day after the party, I stood in the backyard of the house I shared with David.
Hope was running around, chasing a ball.
David came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist.
“Penny for your thoughts?” he said.
“I was just thinking about that night,” I said. “The party. Everything that happened. Everything that came after.”
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I turned in his arms and looked at him.
“I’m more than okay,” I said. “I’m happy. I’m safe. I’m loved.”
He kissed me.
And in that moment, I knew that everything I’d been through had led me here. To this house. To this man. To this life.
It had been worth it.
May you like
All the pain. All the fear. All the years of silence.
It had been worth it to be here, now, finally free.
