At the airport the next morning, I hugged my children and grandchildren. Chloe texted me to wish me a good trip. Robert took my hand when boarding was called. As the plane rose and the city grew small beneath the clouds, I thought of the woman who had entered that office building a year earlier with a box of chocolates and walked out as ash. I wanted to reach back through time and tell her she would survive. That pain would not kill her. That laughter still waited. And travel. And art. And a steady love. And a different kind of family. And a self she had not met yet.
I pressed my forehead to the window. Robert squeezed my hand. And I smiled.
Because for the first time in more than forty years, I was not on my way to someone else’s life.
I was on my way to my own.
