cnu-At my fortieth birthday party, my sister swung a baseball bat into…

“It showed what was already gone.”

That sentence stayed with me.

The next morning, I found Emma at the kitchen table with her therapy journal open. She looked shy when I came in.

“I wrote something,” she said. “Can I read it?”

I sat across from her.

“Always.”

She cleared her throat.

“I used to think family meant forgiving everything. I thought blood meant continue reading …