Chapter 17
Victoria was released after serving six years.
Good behavior.
Bad phrase.
She had behaved well because prison rewarded discipline, not remorse.
Sabrina was twenty-eight then.
Stronger.
Quieter.
Working full time at the shop and coordinating family programs at the Pavilion.
She had paid back every dollar ordered.
Then kept paying into a fund for children abandoned by parents.
Victoria called her first.
Sabrina came to me with the phone in her hand.
“She wants to see me.”
“What do you want?”
She laughed shakily.
“I wanted you to tell me.”
“I know.”
She sat down.
“That’s why I’m asking myself.”
I waited.
“No,” she said finally. “Not yet.”
“Then say that.”
She did.
Victoria screamed so loudly I heard it across the room.
Sabrina ended the call.
Her hands shook.
But she smiled.
“I didn’t apologize.”
“I noticed.”
Raymond died in prison that winter after a heart attack.
Sabrina cried.
Grief is not logical.
I sat beside her while she mourned the father she wanted, not the man he had been.
“Is that stupid?” she asked.
“No.”
“He hurt us.”
“Yes.”
“I still wanted him to love me.”
“I know.”
She leaned against my shoulder.
For the first time in years, she whispered, “Dad.”
I closed my eyes.
May you like
The word did not fix the past.
But it opened a window.
