I found the sentence that had punished me for almost two decades.
I am sorry you died waiting for me.
I drew one line through it.
Not enough to erase the words.
Enough to show they were no longer true.
Beneath them, I wrote:
You were not waiting to be saved.
You were the one who went back.
For twenty years, I had remembered Teresa only through the terror of what happened to her.
A child lost in dark water.
A daughter I had failed to protect.
But Teresa’s final act had not been helplessness.
It had been choice.
She had reached safety.
Heard her friend crying.
Turned back.
That truth did not make her death less painful.
