all of it.
Elena touched the silver bracelet at her wrist.
Alexander looked at the table, at the children, at the ordinary warmth of the room, and understood that some debts are never paid back in full.
They are carried forward.
Whether Richard deserved more mercy than he got depended on who was answering.
But no one who had seen Lucy on that supermarket floor could honestly say the harshest thing that happened that year was his sentence.
The harshest thing had happened long before, when a room full of adults looked at a starving child and decided not to become human until money told them to.
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