“I lost five years,” I continued. “But I found my spine.”
He smiled then, sadly and proudly.
“Your mother would have liked that answer.”
We stood there under the pine branches, two people who had both been lonely in the same family for too long.
Then my father placed his hand on my shoulder.
“The past is closed now,” he said. “Walk forward with your head high.”
The wind moved through the trees.
For a moment, it sounded almost like a blessing.
Not because everything had been fixed.
Not because the damage had vanished.
But because the door behind me had finally closed.
For the first time in years, I was not standing in front of it begging someone to come back.
I was walking away.
And this time, the company, my father, my mother’s memory, and my own name were coming with me.
