Emma in neat handwriting I recognized instantly.
I put it in my desk and left it there unopened for three days.
Some people told me a mother deserves the chance to apologize to her child.
Others said a child deserves protection from the kind of apology that only shifts pain onto smaller shoulders.
I still haven’t decided which of them is right.
I only know this: a seven-year-old should never have to become the bravest person in the house.
And when I think about forgiveness, that is the moment I return to every time—Emma in the doorway, trembling, pointing upstairs, carrying the truth while the adults around her were busy trying to bury it.
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