Across the table, Noah set down his blue backpack and climbed into the chair beside me.
For years, Daniel’s lie had defined who I was: criminal, thief, mother who abandoned her children.
The truth did not erase those years.
It did not return the missed birthdays or undo the nights my children believed I had chosen money over them.
But the truth gave us something the lie had tried to make impossible.
A place to begin again.
