Lily nodded.
“She asked me if I could.”
I sat beside her.
For a while, we listened to the soft rhythm of the sewing machine.
Then Lily stopped.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Do you ever wish Dad had told you everything sooner?”
I thought about it.
“Yes.”
She looked down.
“But I also think,” I said, “that if he had told us the truth years ago, we might have spent our lives asking why he did what he did.”
Lily looked at me.
“And now?”
“Now we get to decide what we do with the truth.”
She smiled.
Then she returned to her sewing.
Outside, rain tapped gently against the window.
Inside, the needle moved through the blue fabric.
One stitch.
Then another.
And I realized that perhaps that was what healing really looked like.
Not forgetting.
Not pretending.
Just taking the torn pieces we were given…
and patiently sewing them into something beautiful.
