“You did not do anything wrong. Some people want love to feel like a prize, so they can decide who wins and who loses. That is not your fault. It was never your fault.”
Emma clutched the locket. “Is Grandma going to say sorry?”
I thought of my mother’s face the night before. The thin smile. The way she watched Tyler laugh.
“I don’t know.”
“Would we have to forgive her?”
“No,” I said. “Not unless you want to. And not before you are ready.”
Evelyn looked down, blinking fast.
Noah wrapped his compass in the tissue paper and held it against his chest.
“Can we keep them?”
“They are yours,” I said. “They were always yours.”
Those words landed hard in the kitchen.
They were always yours.
The gifts.
The love.
The place in the family.
The dignity.
All the things my mother had treated as if they belonged to her to distribute or withhold.
