Rebecca had sat in a rental car across from the cemetery while I buried our mother.
She had watched me stand beside Lucy.
She had watched relatives hug me.
Then she had driven away.
I couldn’t speak to her for six weeks after learning that.
Understanding Rebecca’s fear was possible.
Understanding the abusive relationship was possible.
Understanding why a terrified twenty-four-year-old might seize an accidental chance to vanish was possible.
Even understanding the shame that accumulated afterward was possible.
But understanding wasn’t forgiveness.
Dr. Patel eventually gave me language for something I’d been struggling to articulate.
Rebecca’s original disappearance had been survival.
Her continued silence became a choice.
Those truths could coexist.
So could love and rage.
Rebecca never moved back to Virginia.
I never asked her to.
That surprised her.
Maybe some part of her expected reunion to mean surrendering the life she’d built.
