Chapter 23 - SOFIA’S GRAVE
I said yes.
Not because Daniel deserved it.
Because I did not want to spend energy guarding a cemetery.
Conditions:
No overlap with my visits.
No photographs.
No media.
No family performance.
He agreed.
His parole board heard the case.
Prosecutors opposed early release based on seriousness.
Daniel presented:
Completed programs.
No disciplinary record.
Restitution plan.
Employment offer unrelated to property management.
Admission of conduct.
Margaret spoke only as mother:
“I love my son. I also believe what he did killed my granddaughter.”
No contradiction.
I did not attend.
Release was denied at first review.
Another period required.
Daniel accepted without public complaint.
Years earlier he would have called it unfair.
Change perhaps.
Or strategy.
Impossible to know fully.
I stopped needing certainty about his soul.
Aaron and I married in a courthouse ceremony.
Twelve people.
Margaret.
Naomi.
A few friends.
No Carter Grove.
No big flowers.
No Sofia portrait on an empty chair.
People suggested that.
I refused.
“My daughter does not need to be staged as absence at every happy event.”
I wore her pearl bracelet privately.
Enough.
Aaron never called himself Sofia’s father.
Never would.
He became my husband.
Different role.
At thirty-four, I became pregnant.
Unexpected.
Wanted once it was real.
Terror arrived immediately.
Not joy first.
Terror.
If I had another child, could I keep them alive?
Maya:
“No parent can guarantee that.”
Terrible comfort.
True.
My son, Ethan? Avoid repetitive names. Call him Luke.
Luke Wells was born healthy.
I cried when the hospital handed him to me.
Not because boy.
Because baby.
Margaret asked before holding him.
Everything in our family had become asking.
Good.
At six months, Luke started crawling.
At ten months, walking.
At two, obsessed with water.
Of course.
First time he ran toward a fountain, I screamed so loudly strangers stared.
Aaron scooped him up.
I shook.
We enrolled Luke in swim lessons.
Installed proper barriers.
Tested alarms.
Then I had to stop testing them five times a day.
Safety can become control too.
Maya said:
“Redundancy is appropriate. Compulsion is suffering.”
I hated how precise she was.
Luke grew without knowing Sofia only as tragedy.
Her photograph sat in our home.
At four:
“Who girl?”
“My daughter. Your sister.”
“Where?”
“She died before you were born.”
“Why?”
“We’ll tell you more when you’re older.”
No secret.
Paced truth.
Sofia remained part of family without becoming a ghost assigned to supervise her brother.
Daniel’s second parole review approached.
This time, institutional recommendation supported supervised release.
I felt nothing clear.
Then Margaret said:
“I’m afraid you’ll think I’m betraying Sofia if I’m happy he comes home.”
I looked at her.
“Mom.”
“Yes?”
“You’re allowed to love your living son.”
May you like
She cried.
That sentence took us six years to reach.
