Chapter 15
Althea asked to apologize to Sabella after one year.
Sabella said no.
Six months later?
Still no.
Two years later?
Yes.
Public garden café.
Elowen did not attend.
I did not attend.
Sabella told me afterward because we had become friends in the strange way people sometimes do after surviving the same lie from different positions.
Althea began:
“I’m sorry I mocked your mother.”
Sabella stopped her.
“Which time?”
Good.
Althea started again.
She apologized for the photograph.
The cake.
Calling Sabella imaginative.
Using her employment to frighten Elowen.
Pretending not to know her from childhood.
Then she said:
“I was ashamed.”
Sabella asked:
“Of me?”
Althea thought.
“No.”
“Of who I was around you.”
Better.
Sabella reminded her:
“You were twelve when I was little.”
“Yes.”
“You used to braid my hair.”
Althea cried.
Apparently she remembered.
That was worse.
“Why act like I was nobody?”
“Because if I knew you, then I knew your mother.”
“And if you knew her?”
“I knew Calder.”
There.
One truth connected to another.
Erasing Sabella helped erase Elowen.
Erasing Elowen helped erase Calder.
A whole chain built backward.
Sabella did not forgive her.
She simply said:
“I hope you stop needing people to disappear.”
Then left.
That sentence eventually reached me.
I thought it was the best description of change available.
Not become good.
May you like
Not deserve another chance.
Just stop requiring absence to feel safe.
