FORGIVENESS

Some questions survive the answers.

She wrote best at dawn.
The house was quiet then.

Her husband slept.
The dog slept.
The world, briefly, forgot about her.

She sat at the kitchen table,
coffee cooling beside the keyboard.

Most mornings she wrote with ease.
This morning she opened a blank page.

The detective had retired.
The case file sat in a box somewhere.
Only the scars remained faithful.

She typed a sentence.
Deleted it.
Typed another.
Deleted that too.

People wanted endings.
Arrests.
Trials.
Confessions.

She wanted something smaller.
A name.
A reason.
A face she could place beside the pain.

After a long while she wrote:
If you are still alive,
I'd like to understand.

The article ran on a Tuesday.
By that afternoon there were emails.
Most from strangers.
Some kind.
Some angry.

One simply read:
remember.

She stared at the message.
Read it again.
Then a third time.

The message remained unanswered.

Sometimes she imagined he had written it.
Sometimes she imagined he hadn't.
Sometimes she imagined he was already dead.

At dawn,
when the house was quiet,
she would open the email.
Read the two words.

And wonder
which answer frightened her more.