Nora dried her hands and crouched beside her.
“It is happy.”
Lily studied the picture.
“Because we got away?”
Nora pulled her close.
“Because you told the truth,” she said.
“And because I listened.”
The blue folder remained in a locked drawer, along with copies of the evidence and the court’s final order.
Nora no longer kept it near the door.
She did not need to touch it to remember what happened.
Her proof was in the life they had built after the fire that never started: a quiet kitchen, an unlocked window, and a daughter who had learned that fear could be spoken aloud and believed.
