Lorena cooperated fully with the prosecutors. Bianca wrote Sofia a long letter of apology. Sofia hasn’t answered it yet. I’ve told her she doesn’t have to until she’s ready, and maybe not ever.
Healing was the slow part.
For the first few months, Sofia still woke at five in the morning out of habit, panicking about chores that didn’t exist anymore. She asked permission to open the refrigerator. When I raised my voice at a football match on TV, she flinched from across the room, and I had to sit down and explain that I wasn’t angry at her, that I would never be angry at her that way.
We found her a therapist, a gentle woman named Dra. Salinas, who told me something I carry with me every day.
“She doesn’t need you to rescue her again,” she said. “She needs to see, over and over, that telling you the truth makes things better instead of worse.”
