So did the neighbor whose camera had captured the sounds from the hallway and the emergency-room nurse who had quietly written a domestic-violence number on my discharge papers.
No one sat at the head.
No one needed permission to speak.
When Claire raised her glass, she did not toast revenge or victory.
“To being believed,” she said.
I looked around the room that had once gone silent for the wrong reasons.
Then I raised my glass with the arm Ethan had tried to use as proof of his power.
The house was still mine.
More importantly, so was my life.
