Chapter 27 - Learning to Sleep
Healing did not arrive with the verdicts.
I still woke when doors slammed.
Courtroom wood paneling made my chest tighten.
Metal clicks made my wrists ache where the cuffs once rested.
I began therapy with a specialist in wrongful incarceration.
She asked what I feared most.
“Being believed too late.”
We worked on the difference between danger and memory.
Marisol became my closest friend.
She completed parole, regained her bookkeeping certification, and joined the foundation’s audit team.
“No family discounts,” she announced at her first meeting.
We laughed.
Lena remained general counsel.
Emma visited sometimes with Nora.
She grew taller.
She stopped apologizing for sending the key.
“You saved me,” I told her.
She shook her head.
“I mailed something.”
“You told the truth when adults made that dangerous.”
She considered that.
“Then maybe I was brave.”
“Yes.”
Eventually, I moved into a small house with large windows.
No security cameras inside.
No locked interior doors.
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The first night, I slept six uninterrupted hours.
It felt like freedom arriving late.
