“I still do.”
I held her close.
“So do I.”
That night, after everyone went to bed, I stood beside the living-room window.
For five years, I had stared into the darkness and imagined four familiar figures returning home.
I no longer expected the impossible.
But I had something I never thought I’d have again.
Answers.
Justice.
And my youngest son, alive beneath the same roof.
I turned off the living-room light.
Upstairs, I heard Benjamin laughing at something Sophie had said.
I smiled through my tears.
The man I had trusted to protect us had helped destroy my family.
The man I had buried had left behind the evidence that finally brought one of our children home.
And the little girl everyone thought was too young to understand had been the one brave enough to ask the question nobody else wanted to hear.
The truth had been hidden for five years.
