He lowered his eyes.
She continued.
“I used to be ashamed of the scars on my body.”
“I covered them.”
“I screamed when anyone came near them.”
“Not because they hurt.”
“Because they remembered.”
Sophie wiped tears from her face.
Margaret touched her back gently.
“I thought if someone saw them, they would see how weak I had been.”
She shook her head.
“I was wrong.”
“These scars do not tell the story of what he did.”
“They tell the story of what he failed to destroy.”
Claire began crying.
Margaret looked at her daughter.
“My daughter was stolen from me.”
“For forty years, I believed I might die without knowing what happened to her.”
“But someone listened.”
Margaret turned toward Sophie.
“One person listened without calling me difficult.”
“One person believed fear might have a reason.”
Sophie shook her head, embarrassed.
Margaret smiled.
“She gave me something I had not had in decades.”
